The Minister and the Care of Souls by Daniel Day Williams
Chapter 4: Forgiveness, Judgment and Acceptance
V. The Pastor and Acceptance
to love no matter what happens. To be forgiven, to accept the divine acceptance, is always to venture into a new order of life which begins strangely and wonderfully enough just where we discover God bearing with us in our present life of fear and distrust
One of the books on the atonement which expressed this kind of personal understanding was J. McLeod Campbell’s in the nineteenth century. His theory that Christ atoned for sin by making a confession of sin for the whole race of men has been often criticized on the ground that the sinless Christ cannot confess the sin from which he sets men free. But in the light of an understanding of acceptance, we can see that Campbell grasped something about the redemptive power of the Gospel which older theories overlooked. He saw the dynamic significance of Christ’s self-identification with man.ii Christ confesses man’s sin, not indeed as one individual arbitrarily substituted for others, but in his aflirmnation of the solidarity of the human community and his
identification with its burden. Campbell saw that this act of confession has power to lead men toward a new communion with God. We should not think of confession as a preliminary condition to a later
reconciliation. In the light of the psychology of acceptance, confession is a movement within the total action of reconciliation. There is literally no point at which confession leaves off and the new life begins.
sacrificial acceptance of persons in their struggles. It is a judgment upon the Church and its ministry if, with our belief in God’s grace, we repeat the great symbols and doctrines of atonement but actually practice less of a costing identification with the sufferings of men and women than do those who counsel with them under secular auspices.
The pastor shares with the psychiatrist the status of being one to whom others come for help. Like the psychologist, he has his personal
problems, and like him, if he is to do his work he must have some basic health and mental poise. But however other counselors may interpret their relationship to those who seek health, the Christian pastor says the General Confession with all men. He stands in the same ultimate need as all, and with all. This is why, when acceptance is transformed into a witness to God’s grace, it unites men in the deepest community of all, that which God has created through his mercy shed upon all men, and upon which they all depend.
The word "acceptance," like a good many others, has become in our technical-minded age a part of the special vocabulary of psychology.
But, as in the case of so many of the great words, this one has its roots in the biblical tradition. It is in the New Testament that we learn the full power and spaciousness of "acceptance" in relation to the meaning of the atonement. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," says the writer to the Ephesians, "who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: . . . Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:3-6). Thus the translators of the King James version rendered echaritosen, "objects of grace."
Notes:
1. Gene Fowler, Good Night, Sweet Prince, (New York: Viking Press, 1944), p. 136.
2. C. G. Jung, The Integration of the Personality (New York: Farrar &
Rinehart, 1939).
S. Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Lecture XXI.
3. Paul Tillich, "Heal the sick, cast out demons," Union Seminary Quarterly Review, Vol. XI. No. 1 (1955).
4. Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth (New York: W. W.
Norton & Co.. Inc., 1950), p. 158.
5. William Ernest Hocking, The Self: Its Body and Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. ix.
6. William J. Wolf, No Cross, No Crown (New York; Doubleday &
Company, 1957), pp. 149 ff.
7. Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), pp. 167 ff.
8. C. A. Whitaker and T. P. Malone. The Roots of Psychotherapy (New York: Blakistan, 1953), p. 65. I am indebted to Charles Stinnette for directing me to this statement.
9. Max Lerner, "Is Analysis Dangerous?" New York Post, Feb. 13, 1958.
10. Gustav Aulén, Christus Victor (New York: Macmillan Co., 1931).
11. J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement (Cambridge:
Macmillan, 1856), passim.
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The Minister and the Care of Souls by Daniel Day Williams
Daniel Day Williams was associate professor of Christian theology in the Federated theological Faculty of the University of Chicago and the Chicago Theological Seminary, then Professor of Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Published by Harper & Row, New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London, 1954. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
Chapter. 5: The Minister’s Self- Knowledge
"Physician, heal thyself." Those who undertake the care of souls must attain self-understanding. We have seen how the counselor’s inner life is involved in his healing ministry. The pastor can obstruct the work of grace if he does not understand himself or his people. That is why churches, theological schools, and laymen are taking a new look at the preparation of the Christian minister. Have we kept theological study in clear relation to the issues of life? The medical doctor who becomes a psychiatrist must undergo his psychoanalysis. Should there be a
comparable requirement for every minister? How should psychological testing and theory come into the course of theological study? Some believe that the theological curriculum, with its heavy emphasis on the traditional disciplines -- Bible, Theology, Church History -- should be radically revised, and that the methods of teaching should be altered to bring the student more quickly to face the question of his faith’s
relevance to contemporary life. There is increasing interest in field-work experience, clinical training, and similar methods of providing
encounter with living problems in theological study. Our task in this chapter is to see what basic principles are involved in the minister’s achievement of self-understanding, and his growth toward maturity.
The word frequently used to describe what we are seeking here is "self- knowledge." It is a good term, combining as it does the Christian
concern for the person with the psychological emphasis upon facing the self. Self-knowledge includes but transcends intellectual understanding.
It means recognition of one’s motives, fears, hopes, and habitual
reactions. It requires emotional balance, the capacity to face one’s past, confess one’s limitations and capacities, and establish one’s ultimate loyalties. But in a Christian perspective all this is related to man’s knowledge of God. We require a theological clarification of the term
"self-knowledge" if we are to have a valid conception of its place in theological education. While we concentrate our attention on the training of the minister, we recognize that the issues we are now considering arise in every Christian life.