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KERYGMA AND COUNSELING by Thomas C. Oden

KERYGMA AND COUNSELING

By

Publisher: Westminster

The thesis on which this study is posited is that there is an assumption hidden in all effective psychotherapy which is made explicit in Christian proclamation. On this premise, the author, who is a member of the faculty of Seminary, undertakes an exploration of the relationship between a psychology of self-disclosure and a theology of God's self-disclosure. Carl Rogers is taken as spokesman for the first term here, and Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, and especially, as ""kerygmatic theologians""--are taken as representative of the second. Rogers failed to find the audience for whom he is searching among these theologians; but the author also asserts that theologians have failed to understand and appreciate what Rogers is saying. The volume proceeds to identify the basic, though hidden, similarities between a Barthian theology of divine self-disclosure and a Rog therapy of human self-disclosure. The treatment is concise, though perhaps