Pastoral Care has One Fundamental Aim
By George Hull
Editor, Pastoral Report - The Newsletter of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy
Pastoral care has one fundamental aim: to help people to know love, both as something to be received and as something to give. - Alastair V. Campbell
Why Alastair V. Campbell Still Matters
Pastoral care unfolds across many broad settings: parish halls, hospital corridors, hospice rooms, prisons, and military bases. Today’s chaplains are academically educated, clinically trained, and professionally credentialed. They serve on interdisciplinary ethics committees, navigate complex institutional policies, and document their work in accordance with rigorous standards. These professional structures provide procedures and accountability, safeguarding both those who are served and the pastoral care providers.
Yet the origins of pastoral care lie not in credentialing, policies, or procedures, but in the ancient human response to suffering: the willingness to step beyond routine and role when another person’s pain demands attention. At its heart is the timeless call to love one’s neighbor, a calling older than hospitals, ethics boards, or clinical pastoral training programs. Campbell (b. 1938–) insisted that this ethic of love and the demands of professionalism are always in tension, and he refused to smooth over that tension. He urged pastoral care providers to acknowledge it, feel it, and reflect on how it shapes and informs who we are.
Campbell’s work reminds us that pastoral care did not begin as a professional guild; it began as a moral and relational act of caring for another in the face of their distress. Over time, professional structures, standards, and credentialing processes emerged to provide formal support and accountability, ensuring care is both responsible and ethically sound. These structures reflect a commitment to protecting and empowering vulnerable individuals while sustaining the integrity of the pastoral encounter.
Professionalism and Its Challenges
Yet Campbell recognized that professionalism carries inherent challenges. When institutional systems dominate, the heart of the pastoral encounter can easily become a set of tasks. The person in distress becomes a patient, a case, or a client; the chaplain becomes the pastoral expert, the one who knows, manages, and remains emotionally contained.
Professionalism, Campbell argued, is necessary, but it must never overshadow the heart of the pastoral encounter. The purpose of professionalism is clear: to safeguard vulnerable individuals and uphold boundaries that permit care to take place, without demand or coercion. Pastoral care unfolds in fragile, unscripted moments when one person offers presence and support to another, messy, uncertain, and yet deeply human. Professionalism helps us manage the inherent risks of these encounters; yet if risk management becomes the primary focus, care can slip into performance, even though thoughtful oversight remains an essential component of meaningful pastoral practice.
Campbell offered no tidy solutions. Love and care without structure risks chaos, while structure without love risks becoming rigid and impersonal. The vocation of pastoral care, he insisted, is to live fully into this unresolved moment, adopting a professional posture to ensure safety, but never allowing it to replace the heart of the encounter. That tension is not a problem to solve; it is the weight and depth of the work itself.
In an era shaped by institutional pressures, Campbell’s voice remains a source of orientation and hope. He reminds us that pastoral care is grounded in being faithfully present to those who suffer, with professional standards serving that deeper moral calling rather than replacing it.
A Word About Alastair V. Campbell
Alastair V. Campbell, Emeritus Director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore, is widely recognized as one of the most influential voices in modern pastoral theology, medical ethics, and bioethics research.
Theologically trained and deeply engaged with healthcare practice, Campbell addressed the complexities of pastoral care. He resisted both the romantic idealization of pastoral ministry prior to the development of formal professional standards and the uncritical acceptance of institutional models of professionalization. Instead, he articulated an approach that takes institutional obligations seriously while upholding the ethical imperative to remain attentive and present to those in distress. Through his work, he helped a generation of chaplains and pastoral caregivers identify a tension they were already experiencing but had rarely expressed.
His landmark book, Professionalism and Pastoral Care (1985, Fortress Press), continues to inspire pastoral care providers to ask not only how to carry out their roles competently, but also how to remain fully attentive, morally grounded, and present to those they serve.
In 2026, Campbell’s contributions remain a cornerstone of healthcare ethics education, providing a vital framework for reconciling formal professional requirements with a caregiver’s personal moral engagement.
Selected Works and Publication Details
Professionalism and Pastoral Care: Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. ISBN 0800617339 / 9780800617332
Paid to Care: The Limits of Professionalism in Pastoral Care. London: SPCK, 1985. ISBN 0281041326 / 9780281041329
Rediscovering Pastoral Care: London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986 (2nd ed.; original 1981). ISBN 0232516952 / 9780232516951
Campbell, Alastair V. (ed.) A Dictionary of Pastoral Care. New York: Crossroad, 1987. ISBN 0824508343 / 9780824508340
Health as Liberation: Medicine, Theology, and the Quest for Justice. London: SPCK, 1995
