Alumnus Profile: Ryan Swale

I serve as the pastor of Immanuel URC in Jordan Station, Ontario. During my time here, I have also been working on a DMin (Doctor of Ministry degree) at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA, with a focus on the imprecatory psalms and their use in pastoral ministry. Much has been written about these psalms and the question of whether or not Christians may use them (they may!), but considerably less has been written on the question of how we are to use them and in what way they might even inform pastoral ministry. For example, how do they bear witness apologetically to the justice of God in a world f illed with terror and scandal? How can they be employed in pastoral counseling of victims of abuse who have experienced great harm? Or how might they engage the church in caring about injustice and praying for God to right every wrong?

These are the sorts of issues that my project, The Imprecatory Pastor: A Practical Theology of the Imprecatory Psalms, aims to address, in the hopes of helping the church to recover this oftneglected resource for the care of souls and for the cause of Christ’s kingdom. Lord willing, I will defend my project in February 2025, and graduate in May, with the prayer that my labors might be of benefit to the church more broadly, both in helping pastors to think through this difficult subject, and in showing its relevance in this “age of rage.”

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