Agents of Hope: A Pastoral Psychology

by Donald Capps

In searching, sensitive, and stunningly thorough essay, supplemented with case studies and poetry, and drawing lucidly on important psychological theorists, Capps portrays hope as the fundamental nucleus and engine of human experience. He wants to remind pastors that fueling this hope is their distinctive and distinctively Christian calling. James Dittes, Yale University Don Capps has written a lucid and persuasive account of the one task unique to the to be an agent of hope. His eschatological imagination pops up repeatedly in his case studies and phenomenology of hoping, translating into concrete terms the promise of a God of hope for people in the most hopeless of situations. A book rich in insights and a pleasure to read. Robert A. Johnson, Wellesley College This book is an intelligent reclamation of the theological virtue of hope, which goes to the very heart of the psychology and spirituality of pastoral ministry. Patricia Howery Davis, Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University

Genres: Theology

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Donald Eric Capps was born in Omaha, NE, USA on January 30, 1939. After studying at Lewis & Clark College (B.A. 1960) and Yale Divinity School (B.D. 1963, S.T.M. 1965) and University of Chicago (M.A. 1966), he earned his Ph.D. also at the University of Chicago in 1970. His dissertation explored a psycho-historical analysis of the personality of the English theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman, and particularly his vocational struggles.
His academic career started as Instructor at the Department of Religious Studies at the Oregon State University during the Spring/Summer of 1969. He then became Instructor and Assistant Professor at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago between 1969 and 1974. Later, he was appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he lectured between 1974 and 1976. Between 1976 and 1981 he was Associate Professor and then Professor at the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University.
In 1981 he joined the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was appointed the William Harte Felmeth Professor of Pastoral Theology. In May 2009 he retired with the status of Professor emeritus[2] but remains lecturing as adjunct.[3] In 1989, the Uppsala University, Sweden awarded him a degree of Doctor honoris causa in Theology for his contributions to the Psychology of Religion.[4]
Other honors include the William F. Bier Award for contribution to Psychology of Religion, granted in 1995 by the Division 36 of the American Psychological Association; the Helen Flanders Dunbar Centennial Award, granted in 2002 by the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York; and the Joseph A. Sittler Award for Theological Leadership, granted in 2003 by Trinity Lutheran Seminary.
He was the book review editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion between 1980 and 1983 and editor for the same journal between 1983 and 1988. Furthermore, between 1990 and 1992 he was the president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 1972. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E...)

Reviews

[VocalBillity - the Voice of one crying in the Bewilderness (tm)]

This book is my coursework in my Doctor of Pastoral Psychology pursuit.

Wow... it is a MUST READ, and will help you realize what HOPE actually is and how it motivates your life, or causes you to just sit there in a puddle.

[Musa Munaji]

valuable for pastors and spiritual caregivers