The Political, Social, Cultural and Religious Activities - Essay Example

Pastoral Care Module Module ID: Pastoral Experience By critically examining the political, social, cultural and religious activities taking place in the contemporary world, it becomes evident that every social establishment lays stress upon division of labour for the best interest of the individuals. It is partly due to the very reality that different people have command over performing different duties and obligations in a better way than the rest of society because of some innate talent, learned skill, education, experience and exposure in the area he has selected as his profession. Consequently, the services of teachers are hired for coaching the students, and lawyers are appointed to represent the clients at the court of law. The same is applied to the church minister, the help and support of whom is sought while performing spiritual obligations; baptism, matrimonial services, funeral services and prayers at every joyous and gloomy incident are included the religious obligations according to the Christian faith, which could not be performed without the presence and supervision of the church ministers. One of the most important role played by the pastors included the providing of complete guidance to the Christian community in their religious affairs. While pastoral care, according to Malphurs, may have been an aspect of what some leaders in the Old Testament did, their primary role was that of leadership (2003:1). Although the Christian community has separated the role and duties of the state and the church, where the former enjoys all the privileges from devising and implementation of all the policies and strategies related to internal, external, political, social and financial affairs of the country on the one hand, and ruling over the masses through all state agencies and institutions on the other. On the other hand, the powers of the church have been confined to religious affairs, though the church is supreme in this regards, and everyone seeks its help in all spiritual activities and matters at large; it is particularly the case at the eve of birth, matrimony and death of every Christian. Pastor services maintain central place in Christianity particularly at the eve of the death of every follower of the faith. Pastoral services are conducted in order to identify the spiritual relationship between man and his Lord, where the Lord has the power to bestow life and impose death upon every human, and thus soul is bound to return to the Lord after spending the appointed time on the earth. Pastoral care services are conducted in the name of Jesus Christ, who has spiritual control of the church actually. The church, Thorpe insists, does not exist of herself but lives in the life of Christ. She does not only begin in Jesus Christ, but lives and ends by him. This means that there is no source for our understanding of what pastoring is than the word of Christ or the gospel (2009:1). Consequently, the churchmen actually represent Christ, whose presence would protect the deceased from any harm. Hence, the pastoral care services are requested for easing the mind, comforting the body and honouring the spirit. It is fact that the atheists declare death as the end of life; nevertheless, reincarnation and life after death is a certain reality, according to Christian faith and teachings, and man will surely experience rebirth in order to get responsible for the deeds or misdeeds he has performed or committed during his earthly life. Although various images of heaven and hell emerged during the middle Ages, the central theme remained that heaven was a place of eternal reward for the faithful and hell was a place of eternal punishment of sinners (Johnson & McGee, 1998: quoted in Flannelly et al, 2008:4); it is particularly applied to Christianity, where its followers not only maintain sound belief in the end of mortal life through death and the beginning of eternal life in the Hereafter, but also argue that the true believers would be rewarded after their incarnation on the Resurrection Day by the Lord by granting them the permission to re-enter the blissful place i.e. the Eden Garden from where the first parents of humanity had been expelled because of their tasting the fruit of the forbidden tree on the temptations made by their arch-enemy Satan. Since the Christians have developed the doctrines of salvation and atonement, they strongly believe that their entire sinful life would be pardoned by the Creator because of their unflinching love for Jesus Christ; consequently, the Christians are not afraid of the torment and anguish after death altogether. St. Paul once stated that “for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians, 1:21: quoted in Cornford, 2008:3). Somehow, observing goodness, chastity, generosity and benevolence and abstaining from evil practices including fornication, adultery, homicide, fraud and other sins is vehemently reiterated and preached in Christianity at wide scale. The concept of confession, salvation and others also reflect the same that one should at least be regretful and repentant of all the sins and mistakes he has committed against the Christian teachings; not only this but also performing of the funeral services is also the part of the same belief that recitation and prayers are essential for the peace and satisfaction of the departed soul. It has aptly been observed that a large majority belonging to the Christian community does not attend religious services anymore in everyday life. The studies reveal that percentage of regular church attendants has witnessed considerable decline during the contemporary era. According to the research conducted by Tearfund (2007), only 15% of the British Christians attend church service only once a month, and the percentage of every Sunday church attendance is far lower even. Furthermore, the Christians also appear to be escaping other religious obligations and teachings manifestly described in Leviticus (chapters 18, 19 & 20) and other parts of the Old and New Testaments. Not only this that they have got indulged into extra marital sexual relationships, but have also declared homosexual marriages and relationships as legitimate and lawful ones, which is extremely contradictory to the real Christian teachings that do not allow man’s sleeping with another man in the same manner as he sleeps with a woman. Nevertheless, all Christians, living in different regions or states of the world, make proper arrangements for performing complete pastoral services at the eve of every death. They actually perform the same in order to soothe the departed soul on the one hand, and to console the family members of the dead person on the other. Moreover, it is a dominant part of the Christian belief that Almighty God Himself had infused soul in the body of all humans, and had blessed them with life; it is therefore, body of every human must be protected in life as well as after his death. Natural procreation demonstrates that according to Genesis man was created in the image of God, every human bears the same image, which requires appropriate respect (Decker, 2007:3). In life time, man himself is responsible for the protection of his body, but after he has passed away, the responsibility transfers to the family and friends to make proper arrangements for the funeral and burial of the body in an adequate mode. In addition, by performing funeral services at bereavement, they actually preach the teachings of their faith by demonstrating their viewpoint that the departed soul has reached the next world, and is being welcomed warmly by Jesus Christ and the angels. Christian consolation, Baver submits, is rooted in that hope that comes from faith in the saving death and Resurrection of Christ. Christian hope faces the reality of death and the anguish of grief but trusts confidently that the power of sin and death has been vanquished by the risen Lord. Death of a family member is the moment of unabated agony and grief for the children, parents, siblings and spouse of the dead one. It becomes very difficult for the family to believe that their loved one has left them forever, and they would not be able to meet him or hear his voice, and smile anymore. As a result, his stay in the world will become mere a dream, where he used to give vent to his ideas, shared joys and sorrows of family. The permanent departure of the loved one served as an astounding shock and agonising reality, which requires a powerful consolation from some spiritual person. Since the people have not experienced death of a dear one as a routine matter, they are not aware of experiencing their grief in an adequate way. They are not familiar with the words should be applied to say goodbye to the deceased fellow because of the grief-stricken hearts and minds. At such a perturbed state of affairs, people call the pastor to recite the holy verses stating the universality of inevitable death one day, when the soul would join the other souls in the world hereafter. The pastor informs the family members that death should be greeted by the faithful Christians with the belief that it is a source of entrance into the world of everlasting happiness. The apostles saw that the prime attention for their service was service of the word and prayer (Acts 6:2-4). Thus, conveying the word of God to His creatures is an essential part of the religious obligations of the pastor. It is particularly true at the eve of death, when he consoles the aggrieved family and communicates with them through the word of Scripture that the departed soul has entered the blissful place under the blessings of the Lord. The pastor starts his prayers, in the name of the Lord, for the peace and spiritual uplift of the departed soul, which had strong belief in God and Christ. The pastor also prays for the long and happy life of the family of the deceased fellow. Another important duty the church minister should pay includes teaching and preaching the noble commandments of the Lord explicitly defined and described in the Holy Scripture. It is the professional and moral obligation of a church minister to communicate to the Christians that they are bound to lead a pious, generous and virtuous life according to the word of God. He should demonstrate the importance of prayers, meditation, keeping fast and abstaining from immoral and prohibited acts like adultery, extra-martial sexual union, alcohol, theft, dishonesty and homicide etc. It is fact that the Creator would forgive our sins, but we will have to be responsible for hurting and harming others as well as detracting the fellow beings by seducing them towards malpractices, fornication, greed, lying and others. The pastor should convince the people to display charity, meekness and benevolence towards others, and they should abstain from the temptations made by the satanic forces. Since it was Satan to cause the expulsion of our first parents, we should be well aware of all his nefarious designs and obnoxious plans as true followers of the word of God. The Christian family demonstrates grave concerns regarding the fate of the departed souls in the afterlife. It is therefore, they hire the services of the churchmen, pastors and bishops, which are considered to be sacred ones and having spiritual association with the Lord as well as the mysteries of life and death. As a result, the Christian community arranges funerals during the course of which they recite the holy words of God from the Scripture and make collective prayers for the peace of the departed soul. The recitation of holy verses from the Scripture indicates that the departed Christian had maintained faith in all the basic concepts of the religion including God, Jesus, Gabriel, death, Resurrection, reward, punishment and eternity etc. At such a precarious state of affairs, the pastors and priests console the family by convincing them that the soul has reached his Master, Who will not leave it in the lurch. On the contrary, He will keep the soul in protection and care, and will reward it for observing kindness, chastity, virtue, generosity, meekness and benevolence towards the fellow-beings during its stay with them on the earth. The minister, Powell argues, has a two-fold task—to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. Funerals are important because they provide an opportunity to give comfort to the living (1994:20). The church minister also informs the aggrieved family that belief in God, all His holy prophets, angels, Scriptures sent by Him, Day of Resurrection, reward and punishment and heaven and hell will be highly supportive in seeking the Will of Almighty God in hereafter. Such consoling words from the Scriptures, holy sayings and traditions turn out to be helpful in mitigating the woe and anguish of the aggrieved family, and its belief in God and death observes strengthening to a great extent. Bibliography Baver, Rev. Msgr. William F. (2007) The Catholic Cemetery: Fulfilling our worship and belief in the Resurrection Available at http://www.ntriplec.com/pdfs/generalinformation/TheCatholicCemetery.pdf Cornford, Paul (2008) A Christian Perspective of Death pp. 1-7 Available at http://www.northpinepresbyterianchurch.org/downloads/sermons/pdf/Philippians.1:19-26.pdf Decker, Rodney J. (2007) If you Meet the Undertaker before you meet the Upper-taker Baptist Bible Seminary pp. 1-5 Available at http://ntresources.com/documents/DeathDyingFuneralsWeb.pdf Flannelly, Kevin J., Ellison, Christopher G., Galek, Kathleen & Koenig, Harold G. (2008) Beliefs about Life-After-Death, Psychiatric Symptomology and Cognitive Theories of Psychopathology Journal of Psychology and Theology Rosemead School of Psychology Biola University Vol. 36, No. 2 pp. 94-103 Malphurs, Aubrey (2003) Is Pastoral Care the Primary Role of the Pastor? Number 10, August 10, 2003 Available at http://www.malphursgroup.com/images/PDFs/Newsletters/PastoralCare.pdf Powell, Paul W. (1994) The New Minister Manual George W Truett Theological Seminary Lockman Foundation New York pp. 20-22 Stenger, Victor J. (2008) Life after Death: Examining the Evidence Psychosomatic Medicine 70, No. 7 pp. 741-56 Available at http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/RelSci/LAD.pdf Thorpe, Rev. Grant (2009) The Nature of Pastoral Service: Representing Christ’s Lordship to His Church and the World pp. 1-9 Available at http://www.corobaptist.org.au/articles/pdf/pastors.pdf Why Church Organisation (2008) How many people go to Church in the UK? Churchgoing in the UK Tearfund Research Available at http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php Read More