Addiction and pastoral care

Abstract

Sonia E. Water’s Addiction and Pastoral Care makes many welcome contributions to persons seeking a more comprehensive and contemporary understanding of the multiple origins and impact of addictions and a range of respectful interventions. A professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Waters writes in an accessible, conversational, and compassionate tone that allows the reader to overhear material she shares with her students to assist them in developing a substantive, trauma-informed, and justice based theology of addiction. In sum, her book ‘exegetes’ the nature of addiction from several interdisciplinary perspectives and provides much for readers to learn from, borrow, and build upon in the construction of their own theologies of addiction. From the outset, Waters asserts that addiction is a socially constructed, highly contested, and confusing concept to which she hopes to bring greater clarity. She admits