Eunil David Cho

Rev. Dr. Eunil David Cho is an Assistant Professor of Spiritual Care and Counseling and Co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology at Boston University School of Theology at BUSTH. He is a practical theologian whose research in pastoral theology and spiritual care encompasses narrative studies, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, trauma studies, and intercultural studies. He teaches a variety of courses in spiritual care and pastoral theology, bringing additional proficiency in critical race theory, global migration, religion and health, and qualitative research methods.

His academic publications have appeared in several journals, including Pastoral Psychology, Journal of Pastoral Theology, Religious Education, and Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. His first monograph, Undocumented Migration as a Theologizing Experience: Religious Stories Korean American Dreamers Tell in the Face of Uncertainty (Brill), is scheduled for publication on October 31, 2024. He is currently the Co-Editor of the Journal of Pastoral Theology and served as a member of the steering committee of the Society for Pastoral Theology (2021-2023). In the American Academy of Religion (AAR), he currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Psychology, Culture, and Religion (PCR) Unit.

Furthermore, in partnership with Dr. Shelly Rambo at BUSTH and Dr. Eric Brown at BU Medical School, he has been leading the “Trauma-Responsive Congregations: Equipping Thriving Urban Congregations to Respond to Collective Trauma” project, a multi-year research initiative funded by Lilly Endowment. He has also received competitive grants and awards from the Louisville Institute, Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE).

Beyond academia, as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he has also served the Presbyterian Church at the regional and national levels, having been elected as the Moderator of the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic (2023-2024), an upper judicatory that oversees fourteen presbyteries in five Mid-Atlantic states and D.C.

Publications

Book

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

Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

“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.

“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, K. Samuel Lee and Danjuma Gibson, eds., London: Routledge, (forthcoming in August 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, Dorothea Erbele-Küster and Volker Küster, eds., Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, (forthcoming in August 2022).

Selected Reviews

 Joyce Ann Mercer and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, ed. Conundrums in Practical Theology, AAR Reading Religion, September (2017).

Courtney G. Goto, Taking on Practical Theology: The Idolization of Context and the Hope for Community, Homiletic 43, no. 2 (2018).

Kim-Cragg, HyeRan, Interdependence: A Postcolonial Feminist Practical Theology, Journal of Pastoral Theology 29, no. 2 (2019): 132-135.

Jennifer R. Ayres, Inhabitance: Ecological Religious Education, AAR Reading Religion, March 2021.

Choi, Hee An. A Postcolonial Leadership Asian Immigrant Christian Leadership and Its Challenges, International Journal of Practical Theology (forthcoming).

Wong, Jessica Wai-Fong, Disordered: The Holy Icon and Racial Myths, Scottish Journal of Theology (forthcoming).