Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age

Bruce Rogers-Vaughn is Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral Theology and Counseling at Vanderbilt Divinity School, USA. He brings 30 years of experience in clinical pastoral psychotherapy to his teaching and research. He is also President and Co-founder of the Pastoral Center for Healing, USA, where he continues his clinical practice.

• 1. Introduction: Preface to a Post-Capitalist Pastoral Theology.- 2. Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Erosion of Social Well-being.- 3. Going Viral: The Neoliberal Infiltration of the Living Human Web.- 4. Neoliberalism as a Paradigm for Human Affliction: Third Order Suffering as the New Normal.- 5. Muting and Mutating Suffering: Sexism, Racism and Class Struggle.- 6. Beyond Self-Management: Re-Membering Soul.- 7. Concluding Theological Postscripts.

“In Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age, Bruce Rogers-Vaughn (2016) describes the impact of late capitalism on the political, economic, and cultural domains of our lives. … This is, all in all, a remarkable book, and one that is dearly needed. While pastoral theologians have long asserted that there are links between personal, social, and political aspects of life, Rogers-Vaughn’s well-researched and carefully argued volume offers an explanation of how these realms overlap and interact.” (Mary Clark Moschella, Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 66, 2017)