A Pastoral Theological Response to Miguel De La Torre

ABSTRACT

This article responds to Miguel De La Torre's essay, “Embracing the Hopelessness of Those Seeking Pastoral Care,” which argues that the use of hope as a core concept in pastoral theology reinforces the white supremacy and Eurocentrism of the academy. In contrast, this article acknowledges that pastoral theology has been deeply shaped by white cultural norms, but contends that the discipline's commitments to lived experience and reflective practice create the conditions for new, more liberative understandings of hope to emerge.

KEYWORDS:

• Miguel De La Torre
• hope
• hopelessness
• lived experience
• reflective practice
• suffering
• white supremacy
• Eurocentrism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Leanna K. Fuller is a Associate Professor of Pastoral Care.

Notes

1 See, for example: De La Torre, Reading the Bible from the Margins; De La Torre and Floyd-Thomas, eds., Beyond the Pale; De La Torre, Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins.

2 Over the last few decades, numerous scholars have explicitly named and challenged white supremacy and Eurocentrism within the discipline of pastoral theology. Instead of trying to offer a comprehensive list of those scholars here (a list that would almost certainly be incomplete), I point to this essay by Lee H. Butler, Jr. and K. Samuel Lee, which offers a concise summary of the pervasiveness of white cultural hegemony in the field: “Changing the Margins.”

3 As K. Samuel Lee has noted, ‘the pastoral theology movement in the United States has been significantly formed by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants,’ Butler and Lee, “Changing the Margins,” 119.

4 Beaudoin and Turpin, “White Practical Theology,” 256.

5 Ibid.

6 Indeed, as Pamela R. McCarroll notes, ‘across the care-centered literature, there is a baffling array of definitions of hope  …  in the literature there is no agreed-upon definition or understanding of exactly what it is we are talking about,’ (The End of Hope—The Beginning, 19).

7 McCarroll, The End of Hope—The Beginning.

8 EllisonII, Cut Dead But Still Alive.

9 Thornton, Broken Yet Beloved.

10 Ashby, Our Home is Over Jordan.

11 Hardison-Moody, When Religion Matters.

12 As Sharon G. Thornton notes, ‘Someone who bears witness cannot look on from afar. Holy necessity requires the witness to bear the reality of the other within his or her very being,’ (Broken Yet Beloved, 127).

13 Lartey, In Living Color, 64.

14 Beaudoin and Turpin caution practical and pastoral theologians against careless use of the concept of ‘transformation,’ asking: ‘Is confidence in future transformation an unearned degree of purchase on the theologian’s ability to foretell the improvement of others’ lives?’ “White Practical Theology,” 256.

15 Butler and Lee, “Changing the Margins,” 115.