IST2018-1OL-FA13 - Impact of War on P. C. of Families

Larry Graham ( lgraham@iliff.edu )

Course Description

This course will examine the impact of war on families and the dimensions of spiritual and pastoral care of families touched by war.  We will closely examine the pastoral and spiritual needs of soldiers, protestors, bystanders, refugees, and veterans in the context of family dynamics. Interreligious and cross-cultural families will be examined. Religious symbolism, national and ethnic narratives, and ethical orientations operating in families will be analyzed through family histories, case studies, research literature, and novels.  Particular attention will be given to the impact of war on female members of families.

IST2018 Current Weekly Schedule

Iliff MDiv Curricular Goals Central to this Course 

1.1.   Demonstrate basic awareness of a range of religious traditions and an emerging capacity to engage in comparative analysis between traditions around a particular topic

1.2.   Identify and critically evaluate the symbolic systems and religious meanings at play in everyday events and interactions, institutional structures, and cultural artifacts

2.      Think theologically in a contemporary context and articulate a constructive theological position.

2.2.   Critically engage historical theological expressions of Christianity in relation to contemporary events and/or situations

2.3.   Identify and articulate their constructive theological position on an issue, current event, or traditional Christian doctrinal category with clarity

2.5.   Engage in social analysis of contemporary religious traditions and institutions in order to assess current religious practices and to design meaningful practices of ministry within particular contexts

3.      Demonstrate personal and professional self-awareness and emerging competency in characteristic practices of religious leadership

3.5.   Demonstrate capacity to perform and to assess characteristic practices of religious leadership in ways that are sensitive to contextual realities and relationships: preaching, teaching, administering, leading worship, and pastoral caregiving

3.6.   Establish an effective presence as a leader in the vocational context to which they feel called, and demonstrate adequate self-awareness of their characteristic styles of interaction, commitments, strengths and limitations as they move into new contexts

3.7.   Clearly interpret one's beliefs and behavior to the community one serves

4. Demonstrate personal and professional self-awareness and emerging competency in characteristic practices of religious leadership

4.6.   Establish an effective presence as a leader in the vocational context to which they feel called, and demonstrate adequate self-awareness of their characteristic styles of interaction, commitments, strengths and limitations as they move into new contexts

Focused Objectives of this Course

1. To demonstrate familiarity with basic literature on the topic of war and its relationship to family dynamics and pastoral and spiritual care of families.
2. To gain an ability to enter the culture of families through the multiple narratives (family, faith, ethnicity and nation) of war operating within families over at least three generations in the life of the family.
3. To identify and become appreciative of the major religious themes and resources for care within selected Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist families.
4. To gain a greater knowledge of one’s own family history in relation of war and to articulate more effectively its influence on the student caregiver’s values, vocation, and theological and moral orientations.
5. To identity, evaluate, and demonstrate appropriate strategies of private and public care to families and communities during and after war.
6. To demonstrate a capacity to be a positive pastoral and spiritual presence in relation to those whose views and experiences of war are in conflict with one’s own.

Readings

“A” Books  [All Participants Purchase and Read]

• Henderson, Kristen, While They’re at War:  The True Story of American Families on the Home front.  Houghton Mifflin, February 2006.  ISBN  13: 978-0-618-55875-9
• Ninh, Bao, The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam.  NY: Riverhead Books, 1993.  ISBN 1-57322-543-6
• Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. NY: Fawcett Books, 1956. ISBN 0-449-21394-3
• Tick, Edward.  War and the Soul: Healing our Nation’s Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.  Wheaton, IL, Quest Books, 2005.  ISBN 13: 978-0-8356-0831-2

“B” Books  [Recommended for Purchase; Some assignments from these books]

• French, Shannon E. The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values Past and Present. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 
• Hedges, Chris.  War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. NY: Random House, 2002.
• Mollica, Richard F.  Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Home and Recovery in a Violent World. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2009.  ISBN 978-0-8265-164-1
• White, Michael and D. Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends.  NY: Norton, 1991.

Other Occasional Website and Reserve Assignments (TBA)

Please note:  All materials posted to Canvas for this course are posted in accordance with fair use, acceptable academic practice, and copyright laws. They are posted in a secure site for your personal use in connection with this course. Students are not authorized to make copies and distribute this material electronically beyond the purposes of successfully completing this course.

Note:   Research assistance is available from Laura Harris, the Reference and Instruction Librarian at Iliff School of Theology.  You may contact her at lharris@iliff.edu  You may also find help at her Research Assistance Page where you will find posted a research mind map (including links to information and tutorials on using databases) and other very helpful (and enjoyable) resources. 

Graham Bibliography in Pastoral Theology and Care

I have prepared a bibliography of Pastoral Theology and Care that I try to keep current.  It is an open source document that others may add to.  You will find it at:

Graham Bibliography in Pastoral Theology and Care 2012

Requirements

Readings and audios/videos as assigned, including posted discussion (40 % of grade)

Genogram and Family History focusing on the impact of war (40% of grade) 

Written presentation of a current event (newspaper or periodical) or another project or case study of your choice (negotiated with the instructor). (20% of grade) 

Final Project (Optional for extra credit).   

• Analysis of current event (newspaper or periodical)
• Case Study
• Book Review
• Field Trip
• Research Paper
• Other 

Policies and Services

Professional Confidentiality and Mandatory Reporting

All students must agree to abide by professional confidentiality in all matters, which means that they will preserve anonymity by disguising the identity of cases when seeking consultation and case reporting.  Student disclosures to one another and to the professor will remain confidential, unless the law requires otherwise.  In all cases, students must be aware of 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. We will work together to establish an appropriate pastoral relationship with all parties facing these crises. 

State laws on mandatory reporting are available at State Laws on Mandatory Clergy Reporting  Colorado mandatory reporting requirements may be found at Colorado Revised Statutes 19-3-304, 1a, 2(aa, II, III); 13-90-107c.

Incompletes:  If incompletes are allowed in this course, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures.

Pass/Fail:  Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook, or the Joint PhD Statement on Academic Honesty, as published in the Joint PhD Student Handbook, as appropriate.  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Accommodations:  Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs.   Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations.  The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146. 

Writing Lab:  Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments.  Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft. 

Inclusive Language:  It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community. 

Teaching Methods, Course Expectations, and Working Style

I value forthrightness and negotiation.  If something isn’t working for you, please feel free to be direct about it and offer an alternative.  We will work it out.  If we can’t work it out, we can agree to disagree.

Since this is a course in pastoral care all communications in this course--telephone, email, online postings, responses to one another’s work, disagreements and conflict—will be in the mode of pastoral conversation. This means careful and effective listening, emotional attending, open and direct communication, and respectful give and take.  Participants are responsible for own responses to the material and to one another.  Part of the pastoral care process is to learn to monitor, explore, and modify one’s own responses to what takes place in group and interpersonal interaction.  The instructor and course participants will work together to explore ways to enhance this dimension of the pastoral care enterprise.

Each participant is responsible for deciding their own level of self-disclosure the instructor and fellow students.  What is said in the course, stays in the course, unless decided otherwise by agreement. 

We will follow the canons of professional confidentiality for all personal disclosures and clinical deliberations in the course.  Anonymity will be preserved in the written clinical materials presented in the course.