Currently J. Benton and Faye French Tulley Professor of Pastoral Psychology, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California, and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, EDWARD V. STEIN has been contributing books and articles to the field of pastoral care for a number of years, especially in the area of guilt formation and therapy. He has also engaged in considerable post-doctoral training in family therapy. The family in our day and time - ambiguous and needed, imperfect and hopeful, growing and struggling - is the subject of Edward Stein’s affirmative and open-styled sermon The Family Was God’s Idea. It was preached to the congregation of Lakeside Church in San Francisco.

One night after I’d been speaking in the central valley of California, I started to drive home and rea…