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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
care of souls and the work of evangelism—soul winning—are
closely interrelated. The spiritual adviser must ensure that the
means of Grace are to be found in the Church and must see that
nothing hinders the individual from making effective use of
them. The pedagogic trait is very marked. Spiritual exercises
and mental discipline are considered of importance.
These four distinct points of view about the purpose and
methods of soul care carry with them different attitudes
towards psychology as an aid to the care of souls. Willingness to
learn the methods of psychology and make use of its therapeutic
techniques seems to be greater in the Roman Catholic Church
than among the evangelical denominations. This may well be
because of the insistence of the reformed Churches upon the
freedom of the human person and the consequent reluctance to
accept any teaching that might confer upon the spiritual
adviser a cloak of authority.
Wherever an active interest in the teachings and methods of
therapeutic psychology has developed within the reformed
Churches, progress has been made towards the formulation of a
methodology; and already the outlines of a special methodology
for the care of souls, employing psychological techniques and
incorporating the relevant medical knowledge, can be described.
Christian Palmer,! in Evangelical Pedagogics, suggests that
there was from the first in Christianity a disposition to raise
religious education to a special art, from which in due course
a science might arise. This was inevitable, he thinks, because
Christianity does not merely contain an element of teaching:
it appears in the world as the source of the divine pedagogic
activity. This truth has relevance to the methodological aspect
of the care of souls. One can discern the beginnings of a
Christian methodology for the care of souls even in the Early Church.
During later periods of the Church’s history the methodological
point of view was thrust into the background. It now seems to
be of vital importance for the Christian Church to rediscover
or restate a methodology for the care of souls to meet the needs
of modern men and women, help them to deal with their
situation in the social revolution that is going on, and reaffirm
the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel by enabling them to
grasp in a new way the height and depth of Christian love.
1 Evangelisk Pädagogik, Stockholm, 1856.
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