Pastoral theologians from Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address, in this book, the issues of leadership, Ubuntu (community), gender-based violence, political violence, healing, and deliverance faced by pastors and ministers in African contexts today. Drawing on biblical, theological, social scientific, and cultural contextual perspectives, these African Christians offer much needed insights to assist in the care and counseling of persons towards healing, health, and well-being.

Pastoral Care to the Sick in Africa should not and cannot be given in a vacuum. It must take seriously the deeply rooted African Spirituality of the sick. It could do this by the method of dialectic dialogue between the gospel of Jesus Christ and African Spirituality. In this approach, African wholistic healthy practices and symbols are brought to bear on the Christian symbols. To this end the sick can identify with as well as invoke deep spiritual response. Consequently, the sick's faith in Christ is deepened and becomes a strong coping mechanism. This cross-cultural approach, though one of many, is significant. It enriches the overall understanding of the Christian Ministry of healing to the sick in Africa, Europe, North America and Asia.

Respond to God's unfolding drama to bring healing and reconciliation. In this major revision of his classic book, Dr. Edward Wimberly updates his narrative methodology by examining current issues in African American pastoral care and counseling.

The coming of Colonization and Christianity to Africa and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts was a "mixed bag" of pros and cons. The impact of the advent of the two has had a lasting effect being felt even today. It created issues of bi-culturalism and bi-religiousness in personal and religious identities that counselors and the church need to address when working with people from these contexts. There is the existence of deep cultural trauma (including psychological and spiritual scars) needing healing for those living in most of these post-colonial contexts. The Western counseling approaches and Christian rituals need contextualization. A counselor or pastoral caregiver with an integrative consciousness is required to address the psychological and religious identity conflicts existing in African and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts.

"Ed Wimberly's important book links politics and pastoral care, two practices I haven't seen connected very often. Wimberly's book comes at a critical time in the life of theological education and religious practice in America. There is a raging debate afoot within black church culture about the appropriate balance of personal and political construal of the Christian message. This book could advance a much needed approach to a complicated conversation about the kind of pastoral care best suited for people who have known racism, sexism, poverty, and religious abuse. Wimberly's dedication, warmth, intelligence, and charisma will transform this book into a tool for opening closed minds and closing open arguments that do not liberate."—Robert M. Franklin, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics, Candler School of Theology, Emory University It is because pastoral care and counseling facilitate person agency and efficacy (personal, social, and political empowerment and transformation) that African American pastoral care and counseling are inherently political processes, contends Edward Wimberly. In African American Pastoral Care and Counseling: The Politics of Oppression and Empowerment, Wimberly outlines the theological anthropology that undergirds the practices of care and the practices of self as holistic processes. Wimberly shows those who engage in pastoral counseling with African Americans how to navigate around the negative self-images, identities, and stories into which they have been recruited in order to liberate themselves to discern how to best make use of their personal and political agency and efficacy.

In Ghana today, many people who suffer from a variety of human ills wander from one pastor to another in search of a spiritual cure. Because of the way cultural beliefs about the spiritual world have interwoven with their Christian faith, many Ghanaian Christians live in bondage to their fears of evil spiritual powers, seeing Jesus as a superior power to use against these malevolent spiritual forces. In For Freedom or Bondage? Esther Acolatse argues that Christian pastoral practices in many African churches include too much influence from African traditional religions. She examines Ghana Independent Charismatic churches as a case study, offering theological and psychological analysis of current pastoral care practices through the lenses of Barth and Jung. Facilitating a three-strand conversation between African traditional religion, Barthian theology, and Jungian analytical psychology, Acolatse interrogates problematic cultural narratives and offers a more nuanced approach to pastoral care.