Why are we here?
Many school reform efforts in America, according to my friend John, have a common end: "To give everybody an equal shot at the dough."That's not a bad benchmark, I suppose. But it assumes a pretty stunted vision of what it means to be human.
Call it the consumerist-consumptionist theory of human nature.
Whatever we call it, it's a view that infects much of American politics, social critique, and Christian ministry. It certainly underlies the therapeutic model of pastoral care that has dominated American ministry for the past half century.
During a conversation with John last week, I started to wonder if an insufficient theological anthropology is one reason that our educational reforms, political platforms, outreach ministries, and faith practices continue to fail?
In my own field, the communal-contextual model of pastoral theology seeks to move away from individual well-being as the primary goal of Christian pastoral care. That's an important, emergent reform. But I'm not sure the communal-contextual model reaches beyond a consumerist-consumptionist definition of the "good life."
Theology has sought for a long time to establish an adequate understanding of what it means to be human. I tend to embrace the Shorter Catechism's perspective, when amended for inclusive language, which affirms that humanity's "chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy God forever."
What would pastoral care, spiritual direction, and pastoral counseling look like if we accepted the Shorter Catechism's perspective as a foundational understanding of why human beings exist and what it means to be human?
It might mean we'd be less focused on who has access to money and power--and that might not be a helpful move at all.
But it could move us closer to the development of sapiential wisdom [not phronesis, but something closer to what Edward Farley would call the habitus of theologia] as the underlying purpose of humanity.
That would seem both a noble endeavor and a radically different foundation for pastoral theology.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Sunday, October 10, 2004
Comments:
See Moltmann's Theology of Play. He has a great deal to say about this very thing. He refers to a biologist that uses the phrase 'demonstrative value of being.' I love that. Brett has this down better than anyone I know. LDF
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