This paper captures my theology of clinical pastoral education, providing examples of ways in which I have utilized my doctrinal beliefs in empowering students to learn and grow.

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Theology Theory Paper
As the child of a Jewish father and an Anabaptist mother raised in the Presbyterian
Church, my early spiritual life was filled with a variety of voices. Each of these voices carried
wisdom, what I sensed to be part of a larger truth. Still, growing up I longed for a starting point
from which I could weave these many pieces of truth into a cohesive whole. One evening during
my senior year of college, while contemplating what I perceived to be my spiritual homelessness,
I heard a voice that sounded much like my own. The voice stated simply that my only task in this
life is to respond to the love of God. While the message was simple, it has since grounded my
own spiritual life and pastoral practice. My supervisory work with students is rooted in my belief
that God’s love is freely bestowed to each person, and it is our mission as humans to learn how
to most fully respond to that love with the experiences, talents, and personalities we have been
given. As a Christian in the Reformed tradition, there are several theologians who inform my
understanding of supervisory practice. The first is John Calvin, whose assertion that “God
himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty” speaks to my
belief that each person has inexorably bestowed gifts of grace and knowledge of the divine.
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The second is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose claim that “our love for another consists first of all in
listening” founds my conception of supervision as a form of service.2
Finally, disability
theologian Nancy Eiesland’s theories of suffering and mutuality have influenced how I view
brokenness and its response.
Bonhoeffer writes that, “The responsible man seeks to make his whole life a response to
the question and call of God.”3
In this assertion, he builds on Calvin’s theology of election that
articulates that grace is freely given rather than the product of good works or moral perfection.
Calvin argues that, “the whole intent of our election is that we should be to the praise of divine
grace.”4
I interpret this doctrine of election to mean that each person is given the gift of love
without earning it, and that this gift cannot be taken from us. Therefore, rather than spending the
hours of our days attempting to earn salvation, we may instead respond to the gift of grace by
living our lives in gratitude. For me this gratitude most often takes the form of service: teaching,
comforting, and supporting God’s children. It also allows us to learn more about ourselves
without fear that what we discover will somehow disqualify us from grace – a comforting
thought when engaging in the profound work of self-exploration that comes with CPE. I see
pastoral care and the work of training religious leaders to be my own response to God’s love. It
also impacts my interactions with individual students: I supervised student, JL, whose view of
the place of women in professional settings and the ends of pastoral care were far removed from
my own. However, there is an undeniable zeal that he brought to chaplaincy; he clearly desired
to respond to God’s love in his life by attempting to positively impact the lives of others. When
in the course of our interactions I grow frustrated with our differences, my belief that he and I
share this wish to respond to God’s love in our lives grounded me and filled our discussions with
a renewed energy and sense of peace.
Both Calvin and Bonhoeffer agree that comfort and peace are gifts of God, rather than
resident in any human spirit. Drawing from Biblical sources on the fallen nature of humanity,
Calvin writes that, “everything good in the will is the work of grace alone.”5
Bonhoeffer concurs
that as caregivers, “We have no comfort. Only God can fill the hole by breaking in upon a life.”6
Calvin and Bonhoeffer ground their beliefs in the doctrine of original sin, which for them taints
all human understanding and action. While I agree that there is no human who is free of sin, this
idea that comfort and goodness rest outside of the caregiver particularly resonates with me as a

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pastoral caregiver. There have been innumerable times when, sitting at the bedside of a patient or
across from a student, I have been struck by a sense of my own finitude, the limits of my
knowledge, my wisdom, even my compassion. It is a humbling feeling, but one that has made me
profoundly grateful for the fact that the care that I provide is far greater than the sum of my
talents and foibles. My task is to provide a safe and fertile ground for the light of God to enter,
not to provide that light myself. Student, CP confessed that he had met with a patient for whom
he felt no empathy. He spoke the words with a sense of shame, then marveled that the patient
appeared to appreciate his visit and even expressed interest in ongoing spiritual support. After
exploring this interaction, CP was able to acknowledge that even when our human emotions fail
us, the love of God symbolized by our presence can fill our patients with peace and comfort.
To live one’s life with an awareness of God is also to be struck by how much of the
divine is unknown to us; the questions of why, and who, and for what purpose echo down
hospital hallways and in the recesses of my own heart. As a person with a great sense of
curiosity, there are times when I feel frustrated by how much I do not know. This limited
knowledge of God is at times echoed in feelings of anxiety regarding how little we know our
patients. One student, TF, came to our group processing time frantic that she was unable to read
a patient’s chart before meeting with him. Her words rapid and filled with worry, she revealed
that she had felt terribly anxious visiting this patient, a man in an inpatient psychiatric unit,
because she did not know his history or how she ought to best respond to him. The group helped
TF to explore this anxiety; we reframed the situation so that instead of focusing on all that she
did not know, she could instead respond to the patient based how he was presenting at the
moment. Bonhoeffer writes that, “We should find God in what we do know, not in what we
don’t; not in outstanding problems, but in those we have already solved.”7
The question of why
certain terrible things occur, of why suffering and healing are not meted out equally, will most
likely never be answered. There is much about God that will remain, in this life, a mystery. But
there are things that we do know, and most importantly we know enough to act. The work of
chaplaincy is an act of compassion and trust based on a limited knowledge of God.
The fact that grace is, in my conception of God, freely given and inviolable leaves room
for human imperfections and error. Nancy Eiesland writes that, “To be human is to sin; to be a
human institution is to institutionalize sin.”8
I bow often before the golden calf of perfectionism;
my tendency to expect enormous amounts from myself and a great deal from others can leave me
frustrated. I interpret Eiesland’s comment as saying that no human is without flaw, and neither is
any program created by humans. My goal should not be individual perfection for myself or for
my students, but rather to establish an environment where mistakes are expected and safely
resolved. This impacts my supervision in two areas: the first is in holding students to clear
standards. It is acceptable to make a mistake, but trust must be maintained between the student
and supervisor. I had a student who failed to show up for a scheduled weekend shift. I called the
student to inquire about the missed shift; he apologized, saying he was ill and could not come in.
We discussed the need to be accountable to me and to his group. Because I expected issues such
as this to come up in the course of the program, my frustration was present but not
overpowering. The other way grace for flaws impacts my supervision is that it leads me to seek
ongoing student feedback. I realize that I, and the CPE program, am imperfect and may well be
blind to issues that affect the students. When I make changes or alter an aspect of the schedule, I
check in with them to see how that change might affect their learning and experience, trying to
communicate an attitude of openness and curiosity.

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Conceiving of my life as a response to God’s love frames my communications with
students. I attempt to treat them with compassion and respect as a way of imitating the divine
kindness shown to me. In one of my favorite quotations, Bonhoeffer warns budding clergy that,
“Our love for another consists first of all in listening.”9
Above all, the supervisor must listen to
her students, to the words spoken and unspoken, to become aware of who they are as individuals
and how they might best learn and grow along this piece of their journeys. It is this listening that
grounds my approach to teaching; I believe that individuals communicate to us what they need in
order to learn. I am continually struck by the students’ need to relate the most minute details of
their days in my office following their shifts; in listening to their interactions and the resulting
emotions, I can visualize the weight being lifted from their shoulders. To me this act of listening
is sacramental; it connects the human with the divine through the medium of words and gestures,
reminding me that God is present in the midst of our lived experience and struggle.
Communicating out of love also means that I use places of strength as the grounds for
supervision, rather than beginning by probing for brokenness and weakness. Bonhoeffer cautions
those who would approach human interaction in this way, stating, “It is though a beautiful house
could only be known after a cobweb has been found in the furthermost corner of the cellar.”10
One student brought an impressive intelligence and analytic mind to clinical pastoral education.
His ability to look at the clinical factors in a case and respond theologically were astounding; his
struggle was to access and work from his emotions. Due to CP’s history of childhood trauma,
this ability to tuck away his feelings served an adaptive purpose, as I discuss more in my
personality theory paper. Understanding that CP was under the care of a therapist, my approach
with him was to use the wisdom of his analytical mind to study his emotions. We would explore
intellectually what feelings he might utilize within a particular patient relationship in order to
deepen his connection. I also used humor with CP as a way of helping him to feel comfortable
and access emotions that are easier to cope with, such as a spirit of levity or camaraderie.
Brokenness and pain may well come into my work with students, but I do not seek them out for
my own curiosity or out of an idea that growth can only happen through the exploration of the
shameful or hidden.
Living in response to God’s love also clarifies my role as supervisor. I am not a
repository of specialized grace or perfection, but rather a companion on the human journey.
Bonhoeffer writes that, “Fundamentally there is no difference at all between pastor and
parishioner [supervisor and student, chaplain and patient]…It is not a question of power
relationships but a difference in commission.”11
As a supervisor, I may have more knowledge
and experience in the area of pastoral care than my students, and certainly more of a voice with
hospital administration and staff than they do. However, these differences do not speak to the
core of who we are as people: brothers and sisters under God. I hope that as I communicate this
message verbally and nonverbally through my interactions with students, they might similarly
model this way of being with their patients and with staff. Particularly in the psychiatric setting
where I serve, there can be a great deal of emotional separation and power differential between
the staff and patients. The idea of the client as “other” is communicated on a daily basis, which I
see as most likely rooted in the human sense of anxiety regarding difference. My wish for myself
and for the students is that they might approach patients with the respect and tender care shown
to a brother or sister.
In her work on disability liberation theology, Eiesland quotes activist Nancy Mairs: “I
must not only be an agent but the object of works of mercy. I must discipline myself to accept
and welcome another’s care.”12
Eiesland reminds individuals that as people of faith, we must not

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only be the givers of care, but also discipline ourselves to receive care from others. As a person
with a disability, there have been times when I was reluctant to accept care. As I have become
more comfortable in my own body, I realize that to not accept help is to deny others the chance
to enact their faith. As humans, we are meant to be in mutually dependent relationships. My
Christian belief in the Trinity undergirds this belief: God demonstrates that loving relationship is
the natural state of the universe. Reframing these situations as ones of healthy interdependence
has been helpful in allowing me to balance the care I both give and receive from others. Carrying
heavy loads is difficult for me; as a result, I ask the students to take responsibility for bringing
the log book and camera tripod to our educational space for group seminars, and they readily
agree. I allow them to do this because of my belief that to accept care from others is to treat them
as equals, rather than individuals who can only receive care. This situation led to the students
feeling a sense of partnership in creating the educational environment, a pattern that has
continued in broader and more abstract ways, such as suggesting outside speakers for didactics
and taking risks in IPR and verbatims.
Calvin, Bonhoeffer, and Eiesland share the belief that suffering is an unavoidable part of
the human experience. Eiesland builds upon these older theologians when she highlights the fact
that suffering does not imply a separation from God, but rather a point of connection: “Our
bodies participate in the imago Dei, not in spite of our impairments and contingencies, but
through them.”13
The wisdom that is gained through suffering is often broader and deeper than
that gained through those aspects of life that try us less. I recall one woman in the final stages of
cancer to whom I provided pastoral care. During one of our many conversations, she explained
that she had always been one to judge others based on their appearance. “Now that I’m dying,”
she said, “I don’t do that anymore…I don’t see hair, or clothing. Just love.” In many cases,
suffering has a way of allowing humans to see the world clearly. Calvin too saw physical and
emotional pain as a way of pulling people back to this true way of seeing the world. With typical
candor, he wrote: “Believers, warned…by such proofs of their diseases advance toward humility
and so, sloughing off perverse confidence in the flesh, betake themselves to God’s grace.”14
In
Calvin’s view, humans have a tendency to attribute good things to our own merit and doubt our
finitude and brokenness. When faced with illness and strife, we reorient ourselves and correctly
turn to God as the source of strength and healing. I notice in my students, and often in myself, a
tendency to want to bring people out of emotional pain as quickly as possible. Particularly in a
setting where a great many patients struggle with substance abuse, the tendency for a spiritual
“quick fix” often parallels the physical processes of addiction. As a supervisor, I try to help my
students look at suffering not simply as a problem to be solved, but a challenge to be worked
through. In one case, a woman with paranoid schizophrenia made multiple frantic calls each day
to the spiritual care office. She explained that she only felt safe with a chaplain, and that God
would not listen to her prayers without our assistance. The students attempted to meet with her
each time she called, hoping that their visits would spare her pain and fear. However, the
frequent visits had the paradoxical affect of bolstering the woman’s assertion that she was not
safe. Rather than reinforcing this false belief, we created a schedule where the woman would
receive one visit per day from the spiritual care team at a set time. This allowed her to feel
connected while at the same time reassuring her that God was with her with or without our
presence.
Cautioning those who would utilize spiritual care as an opportunity to convert the
vulnerable, Bonhoeffer writes, “The goal of spiritual care should never be a change of mental
condition. The mission itself is the decisive element, not the goal.”15
I minister to people who are

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ill not because I wish for them to become a particular sort of person, or to commit to a specific
set of doctrines, but because of my own religious beliefs. In the Bible, which I hold to be a
trustworthy, if not inerrant, guide to God’s desires for our lives, we are instructed again and
again to care for others, to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). Bonhoeffer adds that it is
out of the caregiver’s own belief in the nearness of God that we approach those who are ill,
“without ulterior motives simply to be with them and to help wherever help is desired.”16
Because I believe that the love and knowledge of God is already vested in each human being, I
feel no responsibility to change them to my own way of thinking about the transcendent. Rather,
again quoting Bonhoeffer, my goal is to, “lead people along in their own struggle to the point
where they can break through it on their own.”17
While students have learning goals and
outcomes that do indeed push them toward developing a certain set of competencies, my goal is
not to change them to a different type of person or to make them models of me, but rather to help
them to grow into deeper and richer versions of themselves.
While each of the aforementioned theologians has impacted my practice of pastoral care
and supervision, I find there are limits to each of their theories. Calvin’s conception of suffering
as punishment for past sin does not resonate with my experience. He speaks to those in pain by
stating, “Whenever we are afflicted…we shall doubtless find that we have committed something
deserving this sort of chastisement.”18
Reading his words, I wonder how he might respond to the
infants in the neonatal intensive care unit, too young to sin but certainly not to experience pain. I
do not pretend to know the origin of evil and suffering; for every time that it seems that justice is
done, there are countless others where I am left wringing my hands. I try to stand beside students
as they confront these same mysteries, creating space for them to recount the traumas they hear
without explanation or an attempt to fix. In Bonhoeffer’s case, spiritual care was not only rooted
in the Christian faith but also conceived as an activity between Christians. He stated, “Spiritual
care presumes the previous proclamation of the gospel and moves toward future proclamation.”19
Bonhoeffer conceives of pastoral care as an aspect of preaching, which assumes a shared
worldview and set of values. While this is certainly true in a congregational environment, it has
limited application in an interfaith hospital setting. Finally, I see limits to Eiesland’s idea that “a
liberatory theology of disability begins with our bodes and keeps faith with our hidden
history.”20
While our lived experience of inhabiting broken bodies might inform our conception
of the divine, I believe that any theology must first be rooted in the divine wisdom that God
places in each person and for Christians is supported by Scripture.
For me, chaplaincy and supervision are acts of gratitude toward God. It is this gratitude
that frames my communication with students, my attitude toward suffering, and my interactions
with individuals with values and beliefs far different from my own. Gratitude allows me to see
the world as a place of wonder to which we must respond, rather than as a problem to solve.
Though there is much that remains unknown about the divine, as well as the reasons for suffering
and injustice, as humans were are only expected to respond to what we know, and what we grasp
of God and this world is more than enough. I join with Bonhoeffer in his assertion that, “God
both can and will bring good out of evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use
of everything.”21
I see Clinical Pastoral Education as the art and discipline of making the best use
out of everything—our experiences, education, personalities, values, family histories, faith, and
talents—with the goal of responding to the love of God in the world. It is my hope that as a
supervisor, I will be able to support students as the respond to this call in their own lives.

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1
McNeill, John T., ed. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1. Trans. Ford Lewis Battles.
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Print. 43.
2
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Spiritual Care. Trans. Jay C. Rochelle. Fortress Press, 1985. Print. 36.
3
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Ed. Eberhard Bethge. Trans. Reginald H. Fuller.
New York: Macmillan, 1953. Print. 19.
4
McNeill, John T., ed. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2. Trans. Ford Lewis Battles.
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Print. 935.
5
McNeill, Vol. 1: 298. Here, Calvin draws from I Corinthians: “It is God who works all things in all.”
6
Bonhoeffer 1985: 34-5.
7
Bonhoeffer 1953: 190-1.
8
Eiesland, Nancy L. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994. Print. 70.
9
Bonhoeffer 1985: 36.
10
Bonhoeffer 1953: 213.
11
Bonhoeffer 1985: 37.
12
Eiesland: 45.
13
Ibid: 101.
14
McNeill, Vol. 2: 702.
15
Bonhoeffer 1985: 30.
16
Ibid: 57.
17
Ibid: 66-7.
18
McNeill, Vol. 2: 706.
19
Bonhoeffer 1985: 31.
20
Eiesland: 90.
21
Bonhoeffer 1953: 27.

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Betcher, Sharon. Spirit and the Politics of Disablement. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.
Kindle file.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Ed. Eberhard Bethge. Trans. Reginald H.
Fuller. New York: Macmillan, 1953. Print.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Spiritual Care. Trans. Jay C. Rochelle. Fortress Press, 1985. Print.
Eiesland, Nancy L. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994. Print.
McNeill, John T., ed. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vols. 1&2. Trans. Ford Lewis
Battles. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Print.