Should clinical pastoral education and professional chaplaincy become more scientific? It's a matter of salt.
I address the relationship of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and professional chaplaincy to science by looking at the past in order to find meaning for the present. Specially, I explore the stories of Elwood Worcester, Anton Boisen and the beginnings of CPE. I conclude that these and other founding fathers believed that they were called to continue Christ's healing ministry and turned to science as means to do so although their relationship to science was often strained. Three issues emerge from the past that offer meaning for the present: the significance of a spiritual calling to do healing, the significance of science's "salt effect" as the means that makes a healing ministry possible, and the significance of faith as the identity around which a relationship with science is developed.
Baroody
Joe
J
Baroody Pastoral Counseling Center, 252 South Dargan Street, Florence, SC 29506, USA. Blakelybaroody@aol.com
D002604:Chaplaincy Service, Hospital; D002835:Christianity; D002977:Clergy; D029221:Faith Healing; D006801:Humans; D010327:Pastoral Care / Q000193:education*; D012070:Religion and Science; D029181:Spirituality; D014481:United States