Abstract
This article results from an invitation. It is a certain reflection upon a movement in pastoral care during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. If it is the case that typically very little historical perspectives enter pastoral care analysis, then this article attempts a corrective. The picture above invites us to think in terms of a visual metaphor. There is evidence of a pathway through the terrain toward the sea, and various plant life, big and small size lava rocks. Some appear to be standing or fallen and covered by the rising tide of the sea. Still others may not be seen at all- even with a receding sea. All co-exist within a larger, yet changing environment of things, which include sky, sand, sea and all that is invisible. Therefore, pastoral care is encouraged to pay close attention to detail and gestalt. Nothing stands alone. This article features collective, systemic and reciprocal effects, an early, perhaps invisible or yet-to-be-recognized pastoral care influence upon Edward Powell Wimberly, a prolific African American pastoral theologian. In-order to appreciate E.P. Wimberly’s contribution and see things more clearly, one needs to situate them within an interpretive frame work or enlarged and still unfolding “picture”. I argue that it takes historical perspectives and a lot of people over a period of time, seen and unseen to influence a thought-shift in an entire paradigm. But, the collective efforts of many contributors to a paradigm shift may have been overlooked or ignored, fallen and forgotten.
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Notes
Paraphrased with permission from a personal communication with Anne S. Wimberly, August 15, 2017; In an earlier personal, communication Anne Streatly Wimberly wrote to me: Would you. .. share your experiences during those early years together, what you saw in Ed that caused you to introduce him to the field, what it was like and why it was important for Black males to enter the field at that time, how you saw Ed’s growth in that field, and meanings of being colleagues in early ministry and being part of a growing movement? It would also be wonderful if you would add other thoughts as they come to you.—Anne Streaty Wimberly, July 14, 2017 (personal communication).
According to the August 22, 2001, obituary for Henry C. Brooks in The Boston Globe, “Rev. Brooks was professor of psychology and clinical studies at the theological school in Newton from 1958 until his retirement in 1995. He was chaplain at Boston City Hospital from 1963 to 1993. As director of the school’s clinical pastoral education program, he trained more than 1000 ministers and religious educators in spiritually based counseling and family crisis intervention. Many of his students got their first taste of clinical work at his office at Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center.”
Boston University is located in Boston, which was founded September 7, 1630. It is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It continues to be a pioneer in the twenty-first century with its vibrant medical, educational, and religious institutions. It is also known as a city with a long racist history. As an opinion piece on the website of Boston radio station WGBH put it recently: “Boston’s Racist Past Haunts Its Present” (Irene Monroe, “Boston’s Racist Past Haunts Its Present,” WGBH, April 10, 2017, https://www.wgbh.org/news/2017/04/10/how-we-live/bostons-racist-past-haunts-its-present).
See Fisk (1975). This was the first church of its kind anywhere in the United States.
See, for example, Williams (2015), the work of the Pew Research Center, and race-based stress and trauma studies.
References
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Niebuhr, R. (1952). The irony of American history. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Thurman, H. (1980). The centering moment. Richmond: Friends United Press.
Williams, M. T. (2015, Sept. 6). The link between racism and PTSD. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-speaking/201509/the-link-between-racism-and-ptsd.
Wimberly, E. P. (1979). Pastoral care in the Black church. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Wimberly, E. P. (2000). Relational refugees: Alienation and reincorporation in African American churches and communities. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Wimberly, E. P. (2006). African American pastoral care and counseling: The politics of oppression and empowerment. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press.
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Smith, A. The Fallen and the Forgotten: Henry Brooks, Howard Thurman, and All Sheroes and Heroes of Long Ago. Pastoral Psychol 67, 419–428 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-018-0824-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-018-0824-2