This study is about spiritual maturity in establishing the identity of pastors' wives. It is said on the basis of the concept of Carol Gilligan's caring and that of Henri Nouwen's soul care.
Carol Gilligan defined the development of female identity a...
This study is about spiritual maturity in establishing the identity of pastors' wives. It is said on the basis of the concept of Carol Gilligan's caring and that of Henri Nouwen's soul care.
Carol Gilligan defined the development of female identity as the concept of caring characterizing feminity. Henri Nouwen applied the concept of soul care to the individual's inner, others(the others), and the relationship with God.
Henri Nouwen showed himself as a psychologist and theologian living out the viewpoint of the unity in psychology, theology, and spirituality. Therefore this writer wanted to consider the identity of pastors' wives psychologically on the concept of Gilligan‘s care and within the limitation, study it theologically on the concept of Nouwen’s soul care in the view of integrity.
The identity of pastors' wives was described by dividing through the variables of identity, such as uniqueness, stability, goal-directness, interpersonal role expectation, self-acceptance, self-assertiveness between individual and relational.
In chapter two, Gilligan suggested understanding the development of the identity into three steps and two stages as follows; ego-centered step, the stage of fulfillment from egoistic to responsibility, the step of responsibility and self-sacrifice, the stage of relationship from goodness to truth, and the step of care between self and others. This study discussed the debatable points and limitations of Gilligan's care theory.
In chapter three, Nouwen described his soul care ministry dividing into inner journey, outer journey, and spiritual maturity journey to God upward. In chapter four, two theories above are stated in synthetic understanding perspective between psychology and theology in care and inner journey, maturity and outer journey, the relationship between integrated understanding of spiritual maturity and the identity of pastors' wives.
The self understanding of pastors' wives was understood synthetically among 'self' in Gilligan's psychological view, 'self-knowledge' in Nouwen’s inner journey, and 'self' focused theological view. And Gilligan defined maturity as the last level in identity development including steps and levels. Nouwen defined spiritual maturity as the Christian's identity development step making one known who he is, with journey for God starting from inner self identification. This resulted in integrated study suggesting the insight of inner maturity within 'maturity' steps for the establishment of pastor wives' identity development.
The establishment of pastors' wives' identity, a practical step for spiritual life, suggested self-knowledge, outer soul care serving ministry, and spiritual maturity in recovery with God. This step is an imperfect ministry caring for others' souls with confession in front of Cross and recognition of inner weakness and brokenness through self-knowledge. This is a holistic step for pastors' wives to be unified with Jesus through enduring cross suffering and also matured through their weakness in soul care ministry. Through this study, we came to see pastors' wives who identified themselves as being loved by God and their own, furthermore soul care ministers for neighbors and communities with their own heart. They identified themselves through those steps in their life journey so that defined firmly who they are.