Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students
This article explores how pastoral care is performed in an age of climate change. University students suffer from a wide range of stresses, reducing their well-being. Climate change compounds these stress reactions, even where students are not directly affected. As climate change affects concrete, m...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2022-06-01
|
| Series: | Religions |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/6/527 |
| _version_ | 1827657106319212544 |
|---|---|
| author | Christine Tind Johannessen |
| author_facet | Christine Tind Johannessen |
| author_sort | Christine Tind Johannessen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article explores how pastoral care is performed in an age of climate change. University students suffer from a wide range of stresses, reducing their well-being. Climate change compounds these stress reactions, even where students are not directly affected. As climate change affects concrete, material matters, human reactions to it may no longer be viewed and treated as purely inner psychic states. Thus, climate change disrupts usual divisions of material, social, and mental features as separate categories, underscoring instead the close-knit relations between them. Given the far-reaching ways climate change affects mental health, the article presents an ethnographical-theologically-driven model for basic conversation in pastoral care with students in the midst of escalating climate events. Making use of theories from anthropology, psychology, and theology, this article builds on in-depth interviews with Danish university chaplains about their pastoral care with students. The model extrapolates from these theories how pastoral care may support students in the era of climate change through a triad of organizing themes that come to the fore in the interviews: “Mothering the Content”, “Loving Vital Force”, and “Befriending the Environment”. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T22:37:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4e81fe7b49024a05ba9be5cb1b6f66e9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T22:37:39Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj.art-4e81fe7b49024a05ba9be5cb1b6f66e92023-11-23T18:45:08ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442022-06-0113652710.3390/rel13060527Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University StudentsChristine Tind Johannessen0Centre for Pastoral Education and Research, Church of Denmark, 8230 Aarhus, DenmarkThis article explores how pastoral care is performed in an age of climate change. University students suffer from a wide range of stresses, reducing their well-being. Climate change compounds these stress reactions, even where students are not directly affected. As climate change affects concrete, material matters, human reactions to it may no longer be viewed and treated as purely inner psychic states. Thus, climate change disrupts usual divisions of material, social, and mental features as separate categories, underscoring instead the close-knit relations between them. Given the far-reaching ways climate change affects mental health, the article presents an ethnographical-theologically-driven model for basic conversation in pastoral care with students in the midst of escalating climate events. Making use of theories from anthropology, psychology, and theology, this article builds on in-depth interviews with Danish university chaplains about their pastoral care with students. The model extrapolates from these theories how pastoral care may support students in the era of climate change through a triad of organizing themes that come to the fore in the interviews: “Mothering the Content”, “Loving Vital Force”, and “Befriending the Environment”.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/6/527pastoral careclimate changesustainabilitypsychological stressuniversity studentsethnography |
| spellingShingle | Christine Tind Johannessen Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students Religions pastoral care climate change sustainability psychological stress university students ethnography |
| title | Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students |
| title_full | Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students |
| title_fullStr | Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students |
| title_full_unstemmed | Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students |
| title_short | Belonging to the World through Body, Trust, and Trinity: Climate Change and Pastoral Care with University Students |
| title_sort | belonging to the world through body trust and trinity climate change and pastoral care with university students |
| topic | pastoral care climate change sustainability psychological stress university students ethnography |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/6/527 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT christinetindjohannessen belongingtotheworldthroughbodytrustandtrinityclimatechangeandpastoralcarewithuniversitystudents |