Sacred Calling, Secular Accountability


Book Description

Increasingly, counselors are practicing spiritual or complementary interventions. In balance, how counselors use such interventions is under closer examination by law. This effort to protect clients is embedded in ethical and legal principles, but rarely addressed in the mental health literature. This book will fill that gap by offering a clear understanding of the context of the law. Detailed case studies are given in each chapter as a centerpiece to the understanding, interpretation, and application of the laws. The author, with his unique qualifications in legal and spiritual areas, pays critical attention to the issues of culture throughout this resource that includes handy appendices of a legal glossary, abbreviations, literature review, and an exercise on how to find the law.




Sovereignty and the Sacred


Book Description

Sovereignty and the Sacred challenges contemporary models of polity and economy through a two-step engagement with the history of religions. Beginning with the recognition of the convergence in the history of European political theology between the sacred and the sovereign as creating “states of exception”—that is, moments of rupture in the normative order that, by transcending this order, are capable of re-founding or remaking it—Robert A. Yelle identifies our secular, capitalist system as an attempt to exclude such moments by subordinating them to the calculability of laws and markets. The second step marshals evidence from history and anthropology that helps us to recognize the contribution of such states of exception to ethical life, as a means of release from the legal or economic order. Yelle draws on evidence from the Hebrew Bible to English deism, and from the Aztecs to ancient India, to develop a theory of polity that finds a place and a purpose for those aspects of religion that are often marginalized and dismissed as irrational by Enlightenment liberalism and utilitarianism. Developing this close analogy between two elemental domains of society, Sovereignty and the Sacred offers a new theory of religion while suggesting alternative ways of organizing our political and economic life. By rethinking the transcendent foundations and liberating potential of both religion and politics, Yelle points to more hopeful and ethical modes of collective life based on egalitarianism and popular sovereignty. Deliberately countering the narrowness of currently dominant economic, political, and legal theories, he demonstrates the potential of a revived history of religions to contribute to a rethinking of the foundations of our political and social order.




Reinventing Accountability


Book Description

A deepening crisis in accountability in developing democracies has triggered much debate on accountability and the mechanisms needed for overcoming deficiencies of democracy. This book analyzes a wide variety of contemporary efforts to reform accountability systems in developing countries.




Breaking Down the Sacred-Secular Divide


Book Description

For many centuries a false distinction between "sacred" and "secular" has plagued the church, divided the Body, and discouraged the people of God. For over twenty years, Michael Baer has been writing and speaking about the integration of all of life as sacred under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is one of the early founders of the modern Business as Mission movement, the founder of International Micro Enterprise Development (aka the Jholdas Project) and the author of numerous books on business, missions, and integrated Kingdom living.




Trustworthy Connections


Book Description

Although God is at the center of the process of spiritual direction, the more readily visible participants are human beings. Like all other people, directors and directees are subject to relationship dynamics. Trustworthy Connections identifies some issues and challenges that can arise in spiritual direction relationships and offers resources for further consideration and reflection. The topics and examples are focused on traditional one–to–one, face–to–face spiritual direction, although some are also relevant to group direction and direction by correspondence. Trustworthy Connections is designed for use as a reference and a springboard for discussion for spiritual directors and anyone else who is interested in spiritual direction. Like the process of spiritual direction itself, this book is about asking questions, discussing ideas, and suggesting alternatives rather than giving advice or getting answers.




The Ethical and Professional Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

In addition to providing foundational information about ethical codes and legal statues, this new text advocates for counseling personnel to view ethical issues as challenges for personal and professional growth. Written in an accessible, concise and easy to read style, this book endeavors to broaden the traditional focus of ethical study to include topics that students and practicing clinicians will find consistent with their own personal strivings and professional needs. While covering the traditional core percepts of professional ethics in considerable detail: confidentiality, informed consent, boundaries and the use of power, and competency and professional responsibility, it also advocates for counseling personnel to view ethical issues as challenges for personal and professional growth. And, it includes a number of critical topics that counselors and therapists face or will face in daily practice. These include organizational ethics, virtue ethics, and an expanded view of multicultural ethics with a focus on community values as well as on religious and spiritual issues. This new book includes a special chapter in the appendix that emphasizes ways in which counselors and therapists can grow and achieve excellence in their personal and professional lives. Unique and essential coverage of organizational ethics (OE) is addressed making readers aware of how organizational dynamics can exert such powerful influence on ethical decision making (Ch 4 & 10-14). Unique coverage of the ethical considerations involving spiritual and religious issues as well as the use of alternative interventions in counseling and psychotherapy are covered, including the common lawsuits brought against counselors and therapists using spiritual and alternative interventions (Ch 3). A unique section in the appendix describes the psychological and philosophical basis of ethical decision-making for readers who want and need a more in-depth discussion.




Prayer in Counselling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

Gubi argues that philosophically, all counselling can be regarded as prayer, particularly when working at relational depth; that prayer plays an important part in maintaining many mainstream counsellors' well-being and, with considered ethical awareness, prayer can be integrated ethically into counselling when working with people of faith.




Kingdom Calling


Book Description

Amy Sherman unpacks Proverbs 11:10--"When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices"--to develop a theology and program of vocational stewardship. Here is practical help for churches, ministries and other faith communities to navigate the complex process of following Jesus in those places where we happen to prosper.







Christian Counseling 3rd Edition


Book Description

This proven guide in pastoral counseling has been extensively expanded and revised by the author to include recent developments and research, new resources, and attention to newly urgent needs such as AIDS, eating disorders, homosexuality, and violence. Written with clarity and sensitivity, this volume builds on biblical foundations and the best resources of professional psychology. It reflects the insights the author has gained from many years of Christian counseling. New Sections include: The Legal, Ethical and Moral Issues in Counseling The Multicultural, Multiracial Issues in Counseling Conflict and Relationships Dealing with Death and Grief Alcoholism and Other Substance Abuse Crises and Trauma Counseling and Terrorism