Pastoral Theology & Care

This hybrid course is an introduction to the practice and theology of spiritual and pastoral care using spiritual, theological, psychological, and ethical perspectives. You will learn and practice competencies in socially just, interreligious,  and  research literate spiritual care. The course’s competency-based pedagogy will help you identify and spiritually integrate your own experiences of stress while learning and practicing the ways that spiritual care is different from mental health care.

We'll review the course structure and expectations in the Week 1 module. Course materials for each week will be organized in ten modules, which can be access through the Modules option on the left column Canvas menu.

You have 1 required textbook for this cours e: Doehring, C. (2015). The practice of pastoral care: A postmodern approach (Revised and Expanded E d.). Westminster John Knox. Not 2 005 edition.

Zoom Synchronous Gathering Days:

Wednesday, October 13, 1 - 5 pm; Thursday, Oct. 14, 8 a.m. - 10.30

The following content will help orient you to the course structure, process, and requirements for success:

Discussion posts and responses:

65% of grade Note: Each point is 1% of the final grade

W1 Discussion – 10 points

W2 Discussion – 10 points

W3 Discussion – 10 points

W4 Discussion – 10 points

W6 Discussion – 10 points

W9 Discussion – 10 points

W10 Discussion – 5 points

Grading Rubric for Weekly Forum Discussion Posts and Responses

Full Marks: 10/10 [One point will be taken off for each of the ten rubric points that are not met.]

1. Post is on time.
2. Well-written, in-depth reflections on each of the prompts.
3. References key concepts in each of the readings
4. Uses APA in-text references.
5. Commitment to spiritual self-care through exploring spiritual practices
6. Demonstrates awareness of the need for one's own process of spiritual integration
7. Demonstrates capacity for spiritual and social empathy and reflexivity.
8. Response on time
9. Response draws upon detailed references to peer’s forum post
10. Demonstrates spiritual empathy and respect.

 

Spiritual Care Conversation Assignments and Discussions:

35% of grade

W3 Spiritual Care Conversation Assignment: Find a partner -1 point for on time completion

W5 During Gathering Days you will record your first spiritual care conversation with your partner during our class time on Wednesday, October 13, from 1 to 5 pm MT

W6 Schedule your W7 spiritual care conversation

W7 Record two 15 to 20 minute spiritual care conversations with your learning partner. In one conversation, you will be the spiritual caregiver, and in the other conversation, you will be the spiritual care seeker – 9 points

W8 Spiritual Care Conversation Reflection Assignment: how you did/did not demonstrate course learning outcomes in this spiritual care conversation. Upload your spiritual caregiver video and your reflections to (1) the Week 8 Assignment and (2) to the Week 9 Spiritual Care Discussion Group Page – 25 points

PART 1: Transcription of what you said as a caregiver

Create a WORD document (use your last name to begin the file name) in which you:

Transcribe everything you said as the caregiver with brief summaries of what the care seeker said

PART 2: Reflections on your process of spiritual integration: Comment on whether/how you were able to use calming practices that helped you

1. pay attention to how you experience stress in your body and emotions associated with such stress (while you were preparing for and during your spiritual care conversations.
2. increase self-compassion
3. trust the process of spiritual care.

PART 3: Reflections on your role as spiritual care guide/listener

SPIRITUAL SELF-DIFFERENTIATION: After re-reading the description of spiritual self-differentiation in the Learning Goals, describe how well you were able to practice self-differentiation during the conversation by describing one particular moment in the conversation that was jarring, overwhelming, puzzling and made you want to disengage, fuse, fix, get more details, tell your story, etc.

SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL EMPATHY: After re-reading the description of spiritual and social empathy in the Learning Goals, draw upon a moment in the conversation to describe how well you were able to practice

• spiritual empathy by listening for and drawing upon particular details of the other’s experience.
• social empathy by listening for and imagining how aspects of their social advantages or disadvantages shaped their experience.

SPIRITUAL REFLEXIVITY: After re-reading the description of spiritual reflexivity in the Learning Goals, draw upon a moment to describe how spiritual care does/might further explore values and/or beliefs.

Upload your spiritual caregiver video and your reflections to (1) the Week 8 Assignment and (2) the Week 9 Spiritual Care Discussion Group Page (25 points)

Grading Rubric for Week 8: Major Course Assignment

Full Marks: 25/25 Points will be taken off for each of the six rubric points that are not met.

• Post is on time (3/3)
• Well-written, in-depth reflections on each of the prompts (5/5)
• References key concepts in our course readings (5/5)
• Uses APA in-text references (2/3)
• Commitment to spiritual self-care through exploring spiritual practices (5/5)
• Demonstrates awareness of the need for one's own process of spiritual integration (5/5)

 

Final Grade Scale (Note: at Iliff professors determine grading scales they will use to assign final course grades) A 100-97; A- 96-93; B+ 92-89; B 88-85; B- 84-81; C+ 81-77; C: 76-73; C- 72-69; D+ 68-65; D 64-61; D- 60-57; F 0-59

 

Week 1 Slides_ How the course works.pptx

Learning Covenant in Spiritual Care Courses

Confidentiality: Personal disclosures are not to be discussed outside of class without agreement and permission. Students can talk about their stress/emotional reactions with trusted others, as long as the focus is on them and not the content of what other students share. In case study assignments that are not fictional, students need to disguise the identity of care seekers. Students must be aware of and abide by the mandatory reporting laws of the state in which they provide professional caregiving. If they are designated spiritual caregivers within their religious tradition, they need to also be aware of what their religious organization requires. If students have reason to suspect or have first-hand knowledge of recent, current or ongoing child abuse or neglect perpetrated on a child currently under the age of 18 years, elder abuse, sexual and domestic violence, or threats of homicide or suicide in any of the pastoral situations they use for fulfilling the requirements of this course they need to seek immediate consultation with supervisors, denominational leaders, and the professor of this course so that proper reporting procedures can be ascertained. Current information on (1) "clergy as mandated reporters" and (2) links to state laws can be found at the Children's Bureau of the US Department of  Health and Human Services. Faculty will abide by the bounds of professional and Title IX reporting laws rather than absolute confidentiality. Under Iliff’s Mandatory Reporting Policy, all employees, with the exception of the Dean of the Chapel and Spiritual Formation,[i] are mandatory reporters. The primary purpose for sharing this information with the Title IX Coordinator is to ensure the impacted party receives information about rights and resources, and that Iliff is able to respond appropriately to such incidents.

Self-Differentiation: In preparing forum posts and responses, assignments, and spiritual care conversations, students are responsible for (1) tracking how they experience stress in their bodies and stress-related emotions, and (2) using practices that foster self-compassion and empathy, such that their emotional/stress reactions are resources for learning, not liabilities.

Levels of self-disclosure: The purpose of self-disclosure is to develop competencies in spiritual care, especially a commitment to one’s own process of spiritual integration that enhances self-differentiation and a capacity for empathy. The purpose of self-disclosure in this learning context is not for personal healing. In deciding how to use/disclose personal experiences in discussions and assignments, students need to track their levels of stress before they share in class discussions, and in assignments/forum postings, and to not disclose experiences that overwhelm their capacities for self-differentiation, spiritual integration, and critical thinking skills. Students need to use their support systems when they become overwhelmed and in making decisions about what kinds of personal experiences to share in weekly posts and journal/case study assignments.

Respect for differences: Students are responsible for using social and theological empathy to imaginatively step into and respect the worlds of those who are different from them in terms of beliefs, values, practices, and social location.

Group and team learning depend upon timely posts and assignments: Every effort must be made to post on time. If posts will be late, faculty, students must notify faculty, forum discussion groups, and/or learning partners. If assignments are consistently late and if late assignments jeopardize their learning partner’s deadlines, students may be required to withdraw from the course. Normally incompletes are not granted because all learning in the course is collaborative.

Availability of faculty: Faculty in spiritual care courses will normally respond within 24 hours to emails (cdoehring@iliff.edu). Messages sent within Canvas are sometimes hard to track amidst other Canvas notifications. Spiritual care faculty offer support but not spiritual care or counseling and are available to help students with referrals for spiritual care, spiritual direction, and counseling. 

Self-care: If this course makes you aware of sources of stress you'd like to work on with professional support, please see details about these professional services available for Iliff students: Self-Care through Iliff's Employee Assistance Program

Academic standards: All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statements on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook.  Students should demonstrate academic and professional communication skills that include coherent expression of ideas, use of good grammar, and appropriate citation of sources referenced in responses and assignments. In this course, we use APA format for citations and references.  Iliff's writing lab has a link to suggested sites for writing resources and style guides. Use this link to find the Purdue Online Writing Lab, and their guide to APA 7 formatting.  All course participants should use inclusive language and language that respects the diversity of sexuality, gender, and sexual orientation.

[i] College and university chaplains are included in the category of Confidential Resources, which usually includes those working in the Counseling Center, Health Center, and the University Chaplain. Faculty/staff members who happen to be similarly licensed in their field (e.g., who may be accredited as professional chaplains or licensed mental health professionals). are not exempt from reporting. Student chaplains are usually mandated reporters.

2021 Learning Areas and Goals for Spiritual Care Courses

Carrie Doehring cdoehring@iliff.edu

6-29-2021

Lifelong learning

Learning spiritual care is a lifelong integrative process that weaves together knowledge, attitudes, relational capacities, and interpersonal skills. Spiritual care courses at Iliff require students to learn and practice spiritual self-care and integration, and spiritual care conversations with learning partners. Experiential and integrative learning helps students develop learning goals for their spiritual care coursework and contextual learning in internships or clinical pastoral education. 

 

Learning socially just, interreligious, and research literate spiritual care[i]

Socially just spiritual care pays attention to interacting social advantages and disadvantages that contribute to unjust ideas and policies that produce and normalize inequities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or other aspects of someone’s social identity.[ii] Antiracist and “post/decolonial leadership frameworks “resist and dismantle the systems that have allowed for injustices and violences (racial and otherwise) to flourish for centuries”(Lizardy-Hajbi, 2020, p. 99).

Community faith leaders and chaplains bring knowledge, leadership and interpersonal capacities, and communication skills for dismantling the ways that religious and spiritual practices, values, and beliefs have caused harm, especially when they are used to justify inequities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or other aspects of someone’s  social identity.

Spiritual care needs to be both intercultural and interreligious in order to

• counteract colonialist ways religious beliefs and practices have been imposed on others and used to justify inequities
• share lament for and interrogate religiously-based violations and violence
• establish spiritually trustworthy relationships that respect the mystery and narrative truth of another’s spiritual and religious practices, values, and beliefs.

Community faith leaders and chaplains need to be research literate—able to find, understand, and use research on how aspects of religion and spirituality help and/or harm people (e.g., the toxicity of experiencing God and/or religious authorities as judging; the ways that chronic religious, spiritual and moral struggles intensify trauma and moral injury). Research literacy counteracts the ways that fears, especially from the Christian Right, generate conspiracy theories and paranoia justify an anti-science agenda and literal reading of selective scared texts that causes harm. For example, religiously-based denial of global warming perpetuate the destruction of creation through global warming denials (Alumkal, 2017). Religiously-based values and beliefs justifying personal ‘freedom’ to not wear masks or get covid vaccines endanger those who are vulnerable because of age and health-care status.

 

Learning Goal: Practicing a spiritually integrative learning process

Spiritual integration is a collaborative and relational process of using spiritual practices for coping with stress compassionately, finding purpose through overarching values, and exploring  beliefs and meanings about stress and suffering in ways that align personal/communal healing and justice with global and ecological justice. Life-giving spiritual practices help people (1) deepen awareness of their stress responses; (2) hold these stress responses with self-compassion; (3) experience the goodness of their relational webs that may include transcendent and immanent goodness (e.g., with creation, God, Buddha, Allah),and  (4) share lament and interrogate suffering and injustice. This process of spiritual integration is what helps community faith leaders and chaplains spiritually trust the process of lifelong learning in ways that ground them in what is life-giving within own religious and/or spiritual heritage, identity, and communities.

 

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual integration

Spiritual care courses at Iliff prepare students to become community faith leaders and chaplains engaged in an ongoing collaborative process of spiritual integration who

1. Experiment with a calming practice of slow, deep breathing, and intrinsically meaningful calming and settling practices
2. Identify when an aspect of their coursework triggers a stress response in them
3. Identify differences between their bodies’ stress response and the calming effects of their spiritual practices
4. Describe what self-compassion feels like during calming practices, for example, through the warmth of touch during slow, deep breathing
5. Use self-compassion to identify their stress-based emotions (e.g., anger, helplessness, fear, shame, guilt, disgust)
6. Use a calming practice while listening to/reading responses from others in order to experience the mystery of the other

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Experimenting with using breathing and or body-centered calming practices that help them become more aware of their physiological, emotional, and spiritual responses to stress
• Exploring ways to make their breath or body-centered practices connect them relationally with a sense of transcendence and increase a ‘felt’ sense of trust (e.g., in the goodness of their bodies and/or relational webs which may include a transcendent quality of connection with nature, humanity, and God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha or another divine being/transcend relationality).
• Deepening their awareness of the particular ways that stress is experienced in their bodies, how spiritual practices help them be self-compassionately aware of their body’s stress responses
• Using course forums to experience relationships of compassionate accountability for sharing and reflecting upon spiritual practices in this course and with trusted others in their relational webs (e.g., communities of faith; contextual learning opportunities for practicing spiritual care)
• Using in-the-moment spiritual practices in flexible ways during spiritual care and learning interactions to experience a felt sense of trust in the process of spiritual care.

Practicing spiritual self-differentiation

When community faith leaders and chaplains are attuned to how stress triggers bodily memories, they can use calming and settling spiritual practices to hold these memories in self-compassion. They may then be able to spiritually care for self by separating past memories from present circumstances in a process of spiritual self-differentiation. Self-differentiation helps community faith leaders and chaplains manage relational boundaries in the emotional intensity of intimate, family, work and learning community relationships.

Self-differentiation in intimate/high investment relationships is both an interpersonal process of managing relational boundaries and a psychological process of managing emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Those in professional helping relationships learn how to psychologically self-differentiate in order to maintain healthy boundaries. Chaplains and community faith leaders draw upon their knowledge of faith traditions in order to be spiritually self-differentiated. They are able to separate their beliefs and values about suffering from another’s beliefs and values in ways that respect the mystery of the other.

The added dimension of spiritual self-differentiation is what helps chaplains and community faith leaders develop intercultural and interreligious capacities for learning from jarring encounters with cultural and religious differences, “which may disrupt meaning systems and catalyze defenses or offer the opportunity for religious transformation” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 130).[iii][iv]  Learning how to practice intercultural spiritual care is a developmental process  of paying attention to jarring encounters that evoke responses to cultural differences (e.g., related to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation) across “a spectrum extending from ethnocentric mindsets, which involve less differentiated perspectives on cultural differences, to ethnorelativism, which demands higher levels of awareness and sensitivity (Bennett, 1993, 2004)” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 133).[v] Interreligious spiritual care is a specialized kind of intercultural competency that integrates:

• Knowledge of comparative approaches to religious studies that respect differences in religious/spiritual traditions/communities^[vi]
• Attitudes of cultural and spiritual humility toward cultural, religious, moral and spiritual differences, and the ineffable mystery of the other
• Interpersonal and leadership caoacities of spiritual differentiation, enabling community faith leaders and chaplains to differentiate their own religious, spiritual, and moral orientation[vii] from another’s.
• Skills in spiritual self-care for coping with the anxieties/losses of letting go of absolute meaning/value systems that avoid, polarize, or minimize religious and spiritual differences.

The term interreligious competence highlights this integration of graduate studies, especially comparative studies of religion, with formation and clinical training enhancing spiritual self-differentiation in communities of faith and religiously diverse contexts. The term interreligious is used here to describe practices, values, and beliefs within spiritual, religious, and moral orienting systems, which may include humanist, agnostic, or atheist orientations, as well as those who may or may not use the term spiritual in describing their traditions and communities (for example, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, or American Indian persons).

 

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual self-differentiation

Spiritual care courses at Iliff prepare students to become community faith leaders and chaplains who practice spiritual self-differentiation by

1. Developing a solid flexible spiritual self—sometimes called spiritual or pastoral authority—that truly respects religious differences by not enacting a hierarchical system of religious/spiritual traditions and practices, with some more superior or truthful than others. Students are able to use their agential power grounded in their specialized knowledge of and training in spiritual care, and in their organizational role.
2. Using calming spiritual practices that helps students recognize when stress makes them cope with jarring experiences of cultural and religious differences by wanting to fuse with/disengage from others in ways that minimize, polarize, or use inclusion as a way of ‘re-centering’ themselves in familiar or habitual orientations that blur differences.
3. Making grounded responses in a listening/following style of using receptive power that echoes the language used by the other to describe their suffering and sources of hope and comfort.
4. Venturing out of the ‘comfort zone’ of familiar spiritual practices, values, and beliefs, tolerating discomfort for the sake of spiritual growth.

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Experiencing confidence in or anxiety about their solid flexible spiritual self, especially in using agential power as spiritual rather than psychological care providers.
• Describing jarring moments in course conversations/discussions, when use of spiritual practices helps them be aware of embedded values and beliefs arising from stress that make them want to fuse with/disengage from the other.
• Making interreligiously respectful responses using receptive power of listening and following the other in forum discussion and spiritual care conversations
• Using challenging/uncomfortable moments to finetune learning goals specific to their own learning process

 

Practicing spiritual and social empathy

Spiritual and social empathy builds upon spiritual self-differentiation by using spiritual and social perspective-taking, which involves standing in the other’s shoes to the extent that one can, and imagining the world from the other’s spiritual perspective, especially the macro systems of intersecting social privileges or disadvantages within the other’s cultural and political contexts. Perspective-taking helps students differentiate spiritually and emotionally while considering differences in social advantages and disadvantages, especially racial differences. Blurring one’s own and another’s perspective will lower empathic attunement and could contribute to spiritual neglect, coercion, and microaggressions.

 

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual and social empathy

The following are examples of learning outcomes for how students integrate key concepts in spiritual and social empathy with an interpersonal capacity for ‘seeing the other’ and using communication styles and skills appropriately in particular learning and spiritual care interactions:

1. Using specialized knowledge from their theological and religious studies to consider the macro systems of intersecting social privileges or disadvantages within a care seeker’s current context
2. Using an overarching orientation of post/decolonialism^[viii] to name the ways that colonialism exercises power over all aspects of ecological, transnational, political, and economic life
3. Bringing post and decolonial orientations to understanding the impossibility of ‘doing no harm’ in a world organized by colonialism; bringing antiracist perspectives to understand that “there is no such thing as a non-racists or race-neutral policy [or idea]. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups“ (Kendo, 2020 p. 18). A
4. Sharing lament through spiritual practices; interrogating and protesting inequities.

 

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Using key concepts from across Iliff courses to articulate intersectional and postcolonial descriptions of how policies and ideas perpetuate inequities that entangle everyone in systemic injustice.
• Demonstrating social empathy for how these intersecting advantages and disadvantages shape their own and the other’s stress-based values and beliefs about suffering and hope.
• Describing practices of lament in their own process of spiritual integration, while listening for the ways lament could be part of spiritual care conversations.

Practicing Spiritual Self-Reflexivity

Spiritual reflexivity goes beyond theological reflection to understand how a chaplain’s/community faith leader’s and care seeker’s social, religious/spiritual identities interact in the process of exploring contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering cocreated within relationships of trust in spiritual care, learning circles, and communities of faith. Reflexivity begins with identifying how one’s stress-oriented and intentional beliefs and values are shaped by one’s own intersecting social privileges and disadvantages. The next step is to use spiritual and social empathy to imagine the other’s stress-generated values and beliefs and how these are shaped by their social location. Calming practices help one identify core contextual values and beliefs about particular experiences of suffering and hope. Spiritual reflexivity includes understanding possible interactions among (1) one’s beliefs and values about the care receiver’s experience, one’s role as their chaplain or community faith leader, and one’s social location, (2) the care receiver’s beliefs and values about their experience, roles, and social location. Students use agential and receptive power in fine-tuning their communication styles/skills in listening to and guiding a search for meanings.

 

Learning outcomes for practicing spiritual self-reflexivity

The following are examples of learning outcomes for how students integrate key concepts in spiritual self-reflexivity using communication styles and skills appropriately in particular learning and spiritual care interaction

1. Focus on key concepts from readings to understand develop contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering/hope intrinsically and contextually meaningful given interacting social locations
2. Focus on key concepts in readings to listen for how another’s social location and narratives might generate their stress-related embedded beliefs and values about particular kinds of suffering/hope
3. Describe the process of co-creating contextual meanings and values through the process of spiritual care conversations. enhance self-differentiation in specific spiritual care and learning interactions

 

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Using momentary spiritual practices to regulate emotions in order to draw upon key concepts from readings to develop contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering/hope in this week’s topic
• Using key concepts in readings to listen for how their group members’ social location and narratives might generate their stress-related embedded beliefs and values about particular kinds of suffering/hope
• In forum responses and assignments demonstrating the process of co-creating contextual meanings and values through the process of spiritual care conversations. enhance self-differentiation in specific spiritual care and learning interactions

 

Practicing research-literate spiritual care

Students in this course begin to develop research literacy by

• paying attention to when and how readings use research, in order to understand the relevance of research on when/how aspects of spirituality and religion help or harm others.
• using library databases to search for relevant research on suffering and religious, spiritual, and moral struggles arising from experiences of suffering
• citing research to support their approach to spiritual care in course discussions and practice.

References

Alumkal, A. (2017). Paranoid science: The Christian Right's war on reality. NYU Press.

Doehring, C., & Kestenbaum, A. (In press). Introduction to interpersonal competencies. In S. Rambo & W. Cadge (Eds.), Introduction to chaplaincy and spiritual care. University of North Carolina Press.

Doehring, C., & Kestenbaum, A. (In press). Practicing socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based spiritual care In S. Rambo & W. Cadge (Eds.), Introduction to chaplaincy and spiritual care. University of North Carolina Press.

Hammer, M. (2011). Additional cross-cultural validity testing of the intercultural development

inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35, 474-487.

Hammer, M. R., Bennett, M. J., & Wiseman, R. (2003). Measuring intercultural sensitivity:

The intercultural development inventory. International Journal of Intercultural

Relations, 27(4), 421-443.

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an anti-racist. One World.

Lizardy-Hajbi, K. (2020). Frameworks toward post/decolonial pastoral leaderships. Journal of Religious Leadership. 19(2), 98-128.

Morgan, J., & Sandage, S. J. (2016). A developmental model of interreligious competence. Archiv für Religionspsychologie / Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 38(2), 129-158. https://doi.org/10.1163/15736121-12341325

Pargament, K. (2007). Spiritually integrated psychotherapy: Understanding and addressing the sacred. Guilford Press.

Pargament, K., Desai, K. M., & McConnell, K. M. (2006). Spirituality: A pathway to posttraumatic growth or decline? In L. G. Calhoun & R. G. Tedeschi (Eds.), Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice (pp. 121-135). Erlbaum.

Trevino, K. M., Pargament, K., Krause, N., Ironson, G., & Hill, P. (2019). Stressful events and religious/spiritual struggle: Moderating effects of the general orienting system. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11(3), 214-224. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000149

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] The goals are elaborated with a case study in Doehring and Kestenbaum (in press).

[ii] Kendi (2019) defines “a racist policy [as] any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups” (p. 18) and “A racist idea is any idea that suggests one racial group is inferior or superior to another racial group in any way” (p. 20).

[iii] Pargament, Desai, and McConnell (2006, p. 130) defines spiritual integration as “the extent to which spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences are organized into a coherent whole.”

[iv] “For religious individuals, pluralism often presents a particularly radical confrontation with the constructed nature of one’s own meaning system. Nietzsche (1907) predicted that

 most people are not willing to accept the degree to which they construct cultural and religious meaning systems. Recognizing the cultural construction of belief often seems to imply the contingency and relativity of deeply held morals and values; therefore, people will often resist such self-awareness to limit existential anxiety. Since religious diversity can often force anxiety related to this recognition, it is perhaps not surprising that encounters with religious difference can lead to prejudice and even violence (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005). Conversely, such encounters can also be powerfully transforming for individuals and even entire religious traditions (Wuthnow, 2007).  Ricoeur (1967) described a “second naïveté” where individuals have faced the contingency of their morals and values, but nevertheless re-engage their religious traditions with full, post-critical awareness of the ambiguity of such participation. A similar description of mature faith is given by Tillich (1951), and re-emphasized by Neville (2013), who both urge the acceptance of broken symbols, which never fully capture the sacred that they point to, yet nevertheless offer a means for engaging that ineffable ultimate. From these perspectives, religious diversity is no longer a threat but an opportunity for deeper engagement and personal commitment” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 133).

[v] The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) uses The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI; Hammer, 2011; Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003) to assess development across this spectrum of responding to cultural differences.

[vi] When academic degree programs do not include courses in comparative studies of religion supporting interreligious practices, students and religious leaders may perpetuate spiritual harm through interreligious naivete. For an introduction to how comparative studies shape interreligious dialogue, see Paul Hedges, Controversies in Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 2010).

[vii]  One’s orienting system refers to stable values, beliefs, practices and relationships that guide the individual toward the realization of significant purposes in life (Pargament, 2007).

“The orienting system is an individual’s “general way of viewing and dealing with the world”

(Pargament, 2001, p. 99). It is multidimensional and includes core beliefs (e.g., life is fair), behavioral practices (e.g., diet), emotionality (e.g., anger), social connections (e.g., relationships with family/friends), and R/S factors (e.g., relationship with God). Resources within the orienting system such as strong social support and a secure relationship with God may be particularly helpful in the context of stressful life events by lending guidance and stability, thereby reducing the impact of those events on distress (Pargament, 2001). However, burdens within the orienting system such as negative emotions and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors are deficits that may increase distress after a disruptive life” (Trevino et al., 2019, p. 215).

[viii] Lizardy-Hajbi uses the term “’post/decolonial’ in order to acknowledge both the separate contextual and theoretical streams from which challenges to coloniality have arisen in the literature, as well as to highlight their common foundational aims as critiques to colonial being-thinking-acting” Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi, "Frameworks toward Post/Decolonial Pastoral Leaderships," Journal of Religious Leadership 19 no. 2 (2020): 98-128.

IST 2012 Pastoral Theology and Care Fall  2021 Hybrid

Date of revision: Sept. 11, 2021 [note: this syllabus will be fine-tuned, usually with the addition of optional reading as we go along]

Faculty: Carrie Doehring cdoehring@iliff.edu  Jeff Zust jzust@du.edu

Course Requirements

Learning Covenant

Learning Goals

Textbook

Doehring, C. (2015). The practice of pastoral care: A postmodern approach (Revised and Expanded Ed.). Westminster John Knox. Note: Do not buy the 2005 edition.

All other readings will be posted. 

Assignments

Discussion posts and responses: 65% of grade Note: Each point is 1% of the final grade

W1 Discussion – 10 points (every week 7 points will be for your initial post and 3 points for your response)

W2 Discussion – 10 points

W3 Discussion – 10 points

W4 Discussion – 10 points

W6 Discussion – 10 points

W9 Discussion – 10 points

W10 Discussion – 5 points

Grading Rubric for Weekly Forum Discussion Posts and Responses

Full Marks: 10/10 One point will be taken off for each of the ten rubric points that are not met.

1. Post is on time.
2. Well-written, in-depth reflections on each of the prompts.
3. References key concepts in each of the readings
4. Uses APA in-text references.
5. Commitment to spiritual self-care through exploring spiritual practices
6. Demonstrates awareness of the need for one's own process of spiritual integration
7. Demonstrates capacity for spiritual and social empathy and reflexivity.
8. Response on time
9. Response draws upon detailed references to peer’s forum post
10. Demonstrates spiritual empathy and respect.

Spiritual Care Conversation assignments and discussions: 35% of grade

W3 Spiritual Care Conversation Assignment: Find a partner -1 point for on time completion

W6 Schedule your W7 spiritual care conversation

W7 Record two 15–20-minute spiritual care conversations with your learning partner. In one conversation, you will be the spiritual caregiver, and in the other conversation, you will be the spiritual care seeker – 9 points

W8 Spiritual Care Conversation Reflection Assignment: how you did/did not demonstrate course learning outcomes in this spiritual care conversation. Upload your spiritual caregiver video and your reflections to (1) the Week 8 Assignment and (2) to the Week 9 Spiritual Care Discussion Group Page – 25 points

Grading Rubric for Week 8: Major Course Assignment

Full Marks: 25/25 Points will be taken off for each of the six rubric points that are not met.

• Post is on time (3/3)
• Well-written, in-depth reflections on each of the prompts (5/5)
• References key concepts in our course readings (5/5)
• Uses APA in-text references (2/3)
• Commitment to spiritual self-care through exploring spiritual practices (5/5)
• Demonstrates awareness of the need for one's own process of spiritual integration (5/5)

Final Grade Scale (Note: at Iliff professors determine grading scales they will use to assign final course grades) A 97-100; A- 93-96; B+ 89-92; B 85-88; B- 81-84; C+ 77-81; C: 73-76; C- 69-72; D+ 65-68; D 61-64; D- 57-60; F 0-59

 

WEEKLY READINGS, TASKS, ASSIGNMENTS

Week 1 Note: Our course is organized in Modules (click on the upper left-hand link), where you will find the Week 1 Instructions, and the Week 1 Discussion

1. Update your Canvas profile
2. Read 2021 Learning areas and goals
3. Read Course Learning Covenant
4. Read Doehring (2015) Introduction, pp. xiii –xxviii (15 pages) and Doehring, C. (2021). What makes care spiritual? In Spiritual trust as the foundation of spiritual care. Iliff School of Theology
5. Watch Carrie and Jeff’s video introducing themselves
6. Look through the set of PowerPoint slides describing how the course is organized.
7. Visit the APA website describing the effects of stress on the body https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress/index
8. Post/respond in the Week 1 Discussion Forum (10% of final grade: 7 points discussion post; 3 points response)

Week 2

1. Use a breath-centered spiritual practice (e.g., the one described in Doehring (2021))
2. Read Doehring (2015) Chapters 1 – 3 pp. 1-72 (72 pages)
3. Read Doehring, C., & Kestenbaum, A. (2021). Practicing socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based spiritual care (23 pages)
4. Read the section on “Why Spiritual over Pastoral Care” (pp. 2 – 6) in Lartey, E., & Moon, H. (2020). Introduction. In E. Lartey & H. Moon (Eds.), Postcolonial images of spiritual care: Challenges of care in a neoliberal age (pp. 1-14). Wipf and Stock. Note: we will return to this Introduction later in the course. (5 pages)
5. Look again at page 1 of the Syllabus (above) and the list of Spiritual Care Conversation Assignments and Discussions: 35% of grade
6. Watch the video Spiritual Care Conversation Between Pastor Lou and Lois (15:53)
7. Post/respond in the Week 2 Discussion Forum (10% of final grade)
8. Participate in your Week 2 synchronous zoom conversation.

Week 3

1. Use a spiritual practice that incorporates either deep, slow breathing or attention to your body or breath.
2. Read Doehring (2015) Chapters 5 & 6 (pp. 85-152) (~70 pages)
3. Read Lewis, S., et al. (2020). Introduction Another way: Living and leading change on purpose (pp. 1-22) St. Louis, Missouri, Chalice Press. (22 pages)
4. Watch video clips of pastoral care conversations from the film You Can Count on Me (~8 minutes total)
5. Watch Carrie and Jeff’s conversation. (32 minutes)
6. Post/respond in the Week 3 Discussion Forum (10% of final grade)

Week 4

1. Use a spiritual practice
2. Read Doehring (2015) Chapter 4, pp. 73-84 (12 pages)
3. Read Fortune, M. M. (2014). Confidentiality and Mandatory Reporting: A Clergy Dilemma? www.faithtrustinstitute.org. Fortune 2014 Confidentiality-and-Mandatory-Reporting2014.pdf (6 pages).
4. Go to this website: https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/statutes/clergymandated/ to find and read their information on clergy as mandated reporters.
5. Find your denominational/professional code of conduct, including sexual misconduct policy
6. Find your state requirements on mandated reporters of abuse
7. Post/respond in the Week 4 Discussion Forum (10% of final grade)
8. Find a partner (1 point)

Week 5 Gathering day classes are held on zoom on Wed., Oct. 13, 1 - 5 pm (in the second half of our time you will record your first spiritual care conversations with your partners) Thur., Oct. 14, 8 a.m. – noon: We may not use all of this time, but please set it aside in your schedule for now.

Week 6

1. Watch your week 5 video in which you are the caregiver 
2. Read Doehring (2015) Chapters 7 & 8, pp. 155-186 (31 pages)
3. Read chapters from DiAngelo's Nice Racism (22 pages).
4. Watch video conversation between Carrie and Jeff about how social advantages and disadvantages shape COVID stress and strategies for care of self and others
5. Post in the Week 6 Discussion Forum (10% of final grade)
6. Schedule your spiritual care conversations on zoom for week 7 (1 pt).

Week 7

Note: there is no discussion forum this week.

1. Do your zoom recordings in a 60” time block, recording two 15 – 20 minutes spiritual care conversations with your learning partner. In one conversation, you are the spiritual caregiver, and in the other conversation, you are the spiritual care seeker. You will record and post the conversation in which you portray the spiritual caregiver.
2. Before you begin each conversation, talk with your partner about the momentary spiritual practices you are going to try to use to stay focused and centered in either role.
3. Post the zoom recording in which you portray the caregiver to the week 7 assignment page. (9 points)
4. Provide your learning partner with a copy of this video.

Week 8: Major Course Assignment.

PART 1: Transcription of what you said as a caregiver: Create a WORD document (use your last name to begin the file name) in which you transcribe everything you said as the caregiver with brief summaries of what the care seeker said

PART 2: Reflections on your process of spiritual integration: Comment on whether/how you were able to use calming practices that helped you

1. pay attention to how you experience stress in your body and emotions associated with such stress (while you were preparing for and during your spiritual care conversations.
2. increase self-compassion
3. trust the process of spiritual care.

PART 3: Reflections on your role as spiritual care guide/listener

SPIRITUAL SELF-DIFFERENTIATION: After re-reading the description of spiritual self-differentiation in the Learning Goals, describe how well you were able to practice self-differentiation during the conversation by describing one particular moment in the conversation that was jarring, overwhelming, puzzling and made you want to disengage, fuse, fix, get more details, tell your story, etc.

SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL EMPATHY: After re-reading the description of spiritual and social empathy in the Learning Goals, draw upon a moment in the conversation to describe how well you were able to practice

• spiritual empathy by listening for and drawing upon particular details of the other’s experience.
• social empathy by listening for and imagining how aspects of their social advantages or disadvantages shaped their experience.

SPIRITUAL REFLEXIVITY: After re-reading the description of spiritual reflexivity in the Learning Goals, draw upon a moment to describe how spiritual care does/might further explore values and/or beliefs.

Upload your spiritual caregiver video and your reflections to (1) the Week 8 Assignment and (2) the Week 9 Spiritual Care Discussion Group Page (25 points; see rubric above)

 

Week 9

1. Watch the videos and read the three assignments of your discussion group participants (including your partner’s assignment)
2. Post your reflections to the Week 9 Discussion Forum (11 points)

Week 10

1. Reflect on course content and what you learned
2. Post to the Week 10 Discussion Forum (5 points)

Bibliography: All of our readings and resources referenced each week are also gathered here so that you can quickly find a reading or resource from a past week.

Policies & Services: S ee the link on the left side menu for information about Iliff-wide course policies.

If this course makes you aware of sources of stress you'd like to work on with professional support, please see details about these professional services available for Iliff students:

If you feel like you need professional support, please know that you are eligible to receive free services from EAP (Employee Assistance Program).  All of Iliff students are enrolled in the EAP.  This is a comprehensive support service that provides counseling, coaching, and thousands of other resources. Regardless of where you live, you have access to this service!  Usually, an EAP service is provided for staff and faculty in higher education, but we have extended it to Iliff students! 

Here is a summary of their services, and you can find all of their available services and how to access them by clicking HERE (Links to an external site.):

• Individual, couples, and family tele-counseling
• Peak performance coaching
• Legal services
• Debt counseling
• Child and elder care
• Caregiver benefits
• Self-help resources
• Wellness Center
• Lifestyle benefits
• Stress assessment and services
• and more! 

Let Carrie know if you have any questions. We look forward to our time together!

Faculty

Carrie Doehring Email: cdoehring@iliff.edu

Jeff Zust email: Jeff.Zust@du.edu