Eunil David Cho

Dr. Eunil David Cho is Assistant Professor of Spiritual Care and Counseling and Co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology at BUSTH. He is a practical theologian whose research in pastoral theology and spiritual care engages narrative studies, psychology of religion, trauma studies, intercultural studies, critical race theory, and religion and health. He teaches courses in spiritual care, chaplaincy, practical theology, and contextual analysis.

His first monograph, Undocumented Migration as a Theologizing Experience, was published by Brill in 2024 in the Theology in Practice series. He is currently co-editing the second edition of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology with Bonnie Miller-McLemore and Mindy McGarrah Sharp. His articles have appeared in Pastoral Psychology, Journal of Pastoral Theology, Theology Today, and Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He currently serves as co-editor of the Journal of Pastoral Theology and co-chair of the Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion.

In partnership with Dr. Shelly Rambo at BUSTH and Dr. Eric Brown at BU Medical School, Dr. Cho also leads the Trauma-Responsive Congregations project, a multi-year Lilly Endowment-funded research initiative. Beyond academia, he is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has served the church at regional and national levels, including as Moderator of the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic from 2023 to 2024.

Publications

Books

Undocumented Migration as a Theologizing Experience: Religious Stories Korean American Dreamers Tell in the Face of Uncertainty. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2024.

Edited Volumes

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, 2nd ed, co-editor with Bonnie Miller-McLemore and Mindy McGarrah Sharp. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell (forthcoming in 2027).

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“The Genesis of William James’s Psychology of Religion: From ‘The Principles of Psychology’ to ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience,’” Religions 16, no. 11 (2025): 1404, 1-14, (co-authored with John Snarey and Shelby Hall).

“Breaking the Asian American Silence at a Time Like This: Lessons from Esther 4,” Theology Today 82, no. 3 (2025): 217-231 (co-authored with Hyun Woo Kim).

“Is Eco-Anxiety Racial Anxiety?: Harnessing Eco- Anxiety for Practicing Racial and Climate Justice,” International Academy of Practical Theology Conference Series 3 (2025): 31-37.

“A Call for More Culturally Responsive Reading of Texts: Jamesian Reading of Howard Thurman’s New Testament Spirituality,” Homiletic 49, no. 2 (2024): 59-62.

“Cultivating Virtuous Imagination Among Asian American Dreamers in the Face of Violent
Uncertainty,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 43, no. 2 (2023): 399-415 (co-authored with Wonchul Shin).

“Counterstorytelling as an Analytical Framework for Pastoral Research and Anti-racist Pastoral Care and Theology” Journal of Pastoral Theology 33, no. 3 (2023): 154-170.

“Migration, Trauma, and Spirituality: Intercultural, Collective, and Contextual Understanding and Treatment of Trauma for Displaced Communities,” Pastoral Psychology 72 (2023): 403-416.

“A Pilgrimage to the Motherland: Understanding Pilgrimage Experience as Embodied Religious Education for Korean American Youth and Young Adults,” Religious Education 118, no. 5 (2023): 401-414 (co-authored with Garam Han).

“From the Yellow Peril to the Model Minority and Back Again: Unraveling the Orientalist Representations of Asian Americans in the Age of Covid-19,” Journal of Pastoral Theology 31, no. 2-3 (2021): 175-192.

“Do We All Live Story-Shaped Lives? Narrative Identity, Episodic Life, and Religious Experience,” Religions 12, no. 2 (2021): 71.

“Prayer as a Religious Narrative: The Spiritual Self and the Image of God,” Pastoral Psychology 68, no. 9 (2019): 639–649.

“Constructing Interreligious Identity: Narrative Personality Approach,” Journal of Pastoral Theology 28, no. 3 (2018): 175-188.

Book Chapters

“Buying and Remaining on Land in Minari as Trauma-Responsive Resistance: A Pastoral Theological Dialogue with Jeremiah 32” In Korean Lenses for Literature, Film, and Cultural Perspectives in Biblical Studies: Pachinko, Minari, and Minor Feelings (De Gruyter) edited by Chan Sok Park, Paul Kim, and Jin Young Kim (forthcoming).

“Psychospiritual Stress, Trauma, and Migration: Understandings for Displaced Communities.” In Reframing Trauma: A Psychospiritual Theory and Theology, edited by M. Jan Holton and Jill Snodgrass, 109-130. Minneapolis, MD: Fortress Press, 2025. 

“From the Yellow Peril to the Model Minority and Back Again: Unraveling the Orientalist Representations of Asian Americans in the Age of Covid-19.” In Justice Matters: Spiritual Care and Pastoral Theological Imaginations in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic, edited by K. Samuel Lee and Danjuma Gibson, 102-120. London: Routledge, 2022.

“Coping with a Double Pandemic of Health Crisis and Anti-Asian Racism in America: The Role of  Immigrant Churches.” In Between Pandemonium and Pandemethics: Responses to Covid-19 in Theology and Religions, edited by Dorothea Erbele-Küster and Volker Küster, 57-68. Leipzig, Germany: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2022.