i.The purpose of pastoral ministry

This may seem a particularly pointless question. After all is not the purpose of pastoral ministry as the care of people both obvious and inherently worthwhile? But questions arise on a least two fronts. What is the motivation for pastoral ministry? And is there any sense that care offered by chaplains is inherently different from that offered by others?

To the degree that the motivation for pastoral care offered by chaplains has theological grounds it is and remains distinct. We care because we have been first, and already, loved and accepted by God. We care because in the other we recognise a person of inalienable, intrinsic value: a person who bears the image and likeness of God. We care because we wish to enter into a participative echo of the love that in Christ goes in search of the other to the uttermost, even, as Holy Saturday mysticism reminds us, into the realm of the dead. More could be said, but this will suffice.

It is this distinguishing motivation which shapes, or should shape, the degree to which we can allow our pastoral activities to be co-opted to the interest of the university. In other words there is a need to be alert for the potential ideological capture of our good intentions.

Pastoral care, one might argue, finds its essentially orientation in the intrinsic flourishing of life in conformity with the description of Jesus’ purpose found in John’s Gospel: “I came that you may have life, and have it in abundance” (Jn 10:10). But what happens when our pastoral support is enlisted toward other ends: to persuade students that they should remain at our institution; to help staff ‘fit in’ with new roles or organisational structures or else to assist them to ‘leave with dignity’? Are we not then in danger of becoming  a new form of ‘opiate for the people’ (Karl Marx) seeking to reconcile persons with structures that may in the end be to their disadvantage? There will be times, therefore, when serving the interests of the person who seeks our support may mean working against what will be perceived as in the general interest of the institution that pays our wages. We may need to suggest that a student would be better off studying elsewhere, or of recommending that a staff member should not leave without a fight. Chaplaincy should be characterised and distinguished by a willingness to inhabit this uncomfortable space.

Leaving aside now the question of whose interest we serve, the practice of pastoral care also requires the inhabiting of other perennial tensions. One of these separates us from so-called ‘person-centred counselling’, the tension between a ‘directive’ versus a ‘non-directive’ approach. Back in the 1970s, partly in response to what he saw as the psychological capture of pastoral care in the Episcopalian Church of the United States, R A Lambourne wrote an important paper entitled: ‘Counselling for Narcissus or counselling for Christ’. Essentially he argued that forms of counselling which constituted a purely reflective sounding-board colluded with the client’s uncritical fantasy of the self. Over against this, within Christian pastoral care, he defended the necessary legitimacy of challenge and judgement as essential to the practice of love. In other words, simply trying to help someone to become the person they wish to be may not be in their ultimate best interests. The one offering pastoral care thus needs to move from reflector, for some of the time at least, into conversation partner. More deeply this is because Christian pastoral care aims at enabling people to grow, “into the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). We do not come with a completely blank canvas concerning what constitutes fully realised humanity; though neither do we come with a pre-defined template to impose on others. Rather we seek to encourage a robust exploration of what the fulfilment of a person’s humanity may entail, while being prepared to simply sit and be with that someone in times when she or he has no idea what this might mean. As Sharon Kugler (2013) movingly writes: “My presence in the room at that moment is about creating a space where it feels safe for someone to fall.” (p.13)

Thankfully, if the pastoral care we offer is aimed at supporting the fulfilment of a person’s vocation as human before God – whether this theological dimension is made explicit or remains implicit – then our work also escapes the trap of simply being concerned with times of difficulty and sadness. Being available to share in someone’s joy and celebration, and by doing so affirm the significance of this, can be just as vital.