Traumatic suicide attempt due to lack of remuneration to clergy by the church : a pastoral care perspective

Abstract

The focus of this study was on traumatic suicide attempt due to lack of remuneration to the clergy by the church: a pastoral care perspective. The assumption was that no one in the church took responsibility of caring for clergy families. Trauma referred to a spiritual wound in the soul of humankind and it is a spiritual event when humankind was experiencing loss of faith, loss of hope, loss of trust, loss of meaning, loss of innocence and when the spiritual wound was being healed spiritually. Suicide was defined as purely personal act that appeared to be entirely the outcome of the extreme personal unhappiness of the minister who as a result of non-payment of their stipend by the church. The operational framework of research methodology included: the research design, literature review and interviews; data collection method and data analysis and interpretation. The Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa belongs to the Reformed family of the Protestant churches. In this project, semi-structured scheduled interview open-ended Questions were designed to allow interviewers free movement. The concluding chapter dealt with research findings and recommendations to the church.