Wayne E. Oates was born June 24, 1917, in the poverty stricken rural county of Greenville, South Carolina. Left by his father at birth, and with a mother who spent her long hard days at the cotton mill, he was raised by his grandmother and sister. As a young boy it seemed that destiny was repeating itself as he too faced work in the cotton mill. However, providence intervened when he was selected at age 14 on the basis of his intellect and poverty to become a page in the United States Senate.
Wayne understood education to be his way out of poverty and away from feelings of inferiority. At a young age he began his "struggle to be free," as expressed in his autobiography. InStruggle To Be Free, Wayne wrote:
Any effort to be free of poverty calls for a stubborn, gutsy struggle. It is uphill all the way ... Education became my God-given path to freedom. God does not intend that human intelligence be snuffed out by hunger, grinding poverty, and a squalid lack of care and discipline. I know this: that once we have won the struggle to be free of poverty, God intends that we have a burning sense of social justice that is dedicated to the enabling of others in that same struggle.
The passion born of his own childhood pain began to weave in Wayne a powerful combination of knowledge and compassion. As one wounded by deprivation, the abandonment of his father, the resentment of his brothers, and later by chronic back pain, Wayne developed a tremendous capacity to empathize with others.
Continuing the struggle, Oates graduated from Mars Hill Junior College, and Wake Forest University. He served as a pastor of churches in North Carolina and Kentucky, and after combining the best of the behavioral sciences with Biblical and theological perspective, Wayne received his Ph.D. in the field of Psychology of Religion from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1947, he began his full time career on the faculty of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
In those days, the field of Psychology of Religion was new and seminary faculty wanted to put it under Religious Education. However, Wayne Oates fought hard to get it in the theology department as part of the Master of Divinity program.
Freud for the Christian Faith. It would be called,The Christian Pastor, a title chosen intentionally after being advised, "a person's first book tends to tell people who the author thinks he or she is."
Noted for pioneering an academic body of literature in the fields of pastoral care and pastoral counseling, his books have been translated into more than three languages. The first of the 57 books Wayne Oates would author, would not bear the name of his dissertation,The Significance of the Work of SigmundBorn out of the freedom to create, and with his capacity to empathize, Wayne Oates coined the term "workaholic," while counseling a man who was trying to accept his own alcoholism. The term workaholic spread like wildfire and found its way to the dictionary soon after Wayne published his book,Confessions of a Workaholic.
Even as a young man, Wayne Oates was considered old and wise. He had a great sense of "pastoral identity." While fully human, he extended his compassion and empathy to hear the pain and fear of others. Out of his own painful experiences he knew how to be fully "present" to others in the midst of their depression, anxiety, or anger. For Wayne, the incarnation of Jesus Christ was the central theological theme of God's Presence.To be a Christian pastor to another was to embody God's presence.
Wayne Oates gave us the term "trialogue," in his book,The Presence of God in Pastoral Counseling, in order to describe the experience when the pastor or counselor in conversation with another allows enough silence to be aware or hear the insight and presence of God.
Several years ago in his editorial for the Kentucky Baptist paper, Mark Wingfield, then the editor, wrote:
If a minister in your Baptist church excels at pastoral care, you probably have Wayne Oates to thank. If you've been touched by the ministry of a Christian chaplain in the hospital, in the military or in a business setting, you probably have Wayne Oates to thank. Oates may never have stepped foot in the church, hospital or military base where you received ministry, but his writings and teachings over the past 50 years probably have been influential in the life of the minister or chaplain you encountered.
Wayne Oates worked to find freedom as he described his healing process and then turned to share that freedom with others.
Dialogue Between Pastoral Care and Health Care
As early as 1947, Wayne E. Oates was teaching theology students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition, he was writing, speaking nationally, supervising students in Clinical Pastoral Education, and providing pastoral care in hospital settings. His ministry grew out of his clear understanding of himself as a pastor.