Negotiating Religious Differences: The Strategies of Interfaith Chaplains in Healthcare

Chaplains in healthcare increasingly work in interfaith roles with patients and families from a range of religious and spiritual backgrounds. Some move with ease between their own religious backgrounds and those of the individuals with whom they work. Others encounter tensions as their status as a person of faith comes into conflict with their status as an interfaith chaplain. We explore the two main strategies—neutralizing and code‐switching—chaplains at one large academic medical center use when working with patients and families whose religious and spiritual backgrounds are different from their own. Through training in clinical pastoral education and experiences on the job, chaplains learn to neutralize (use a broad language of spirituality that emphasizes commonalities rather than differences) and to code‐switch (use the languages, rituals, and practices of the people with whom they work). To the extent that the strategies evident here are present among chaplains in a broader range of institutional settings, they suggest a kind of spiritual secularism or broad approach to meaning makings that may be facilitated by interfaith chaplains in a range of settings.     

The spiritual care of sick children: reflections from a pilot participation project

The authors are a multi-disciplinary team of chaplains, one with a counselling qualification, and an academic with a research background in spirituality and youth work. A pilot participation project undertaken at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (UK) focused on increasing the understanding of the spiritual needs of sick children and young people and involving children and young people in improving the service and provision of spiritual and religious care to them. Views from children, young people and parents were sought with the intention of developing resources and training that help facilitate the meeting of spiritual and religious needs of children and young people in hospital. Within the wider chaplaincy team are chaplains from the six major world faiths and this project considers spiritual needs of children and young people who perceive themselves as belonging to a faith group or not. Reflections from the pilot include identifying ten principles and practices to inform the spiritual care of sick children and proposing the concept of interpretive spiritual encounters as a tool for spiritual care. The pilot study indicated that being more proactive in offering spiritual care enhanced the quality of service offered by Chaplaincy.     

Perspectives from the Edge: Chaplains in Greater Boston, 1945–2015

We follow Bender et al.’s (Religion on the Edge: De‐Centering and Recentering the Sociology of Religion) call to study religion “on the edge” by looking at the work of chaplains, religious professionals who work outside of congregations. Rather than studying chaplains within a single type of institution—the military, healthcare, or other sectors—we shift the unit of analysis to geography, asking where chaplains in Greater Boston worked between 1945 and the present. Based on coverage in the Boston Globe, we find that chaplains, mostly men, worked across Greater Boston between 1945 and 2015. The majority were Catholic with frequent minorities of Protestants and Jews, and—after 1995—a few Buddhists, Muslims, and Humanists. Most worked in higher education, healthcare, and prisons. While much of the chaplains’ work seems improvisational and varied, we identify services related to ceremonies, bearing witness, and working around death as common occurrences across the venues where chaplains worked. To the extent that these patterns are evident in other cities, they suggest that chaplains have regularly been a quiet part of the religious landscape, that they are a consistent part of the institutional field, and that their work has more commonalities across sectors than previous studies suggest.     

The military chaplain: a study in ambiguity

This article looks at the ambiguities in the role of the military chaplain from three points of view. The first considers the nature of the constituency within which the chaplain ministers, paying particular attention to the degree – or otherwise – of secularisation and the reasons for this. The second examines the role of the chaplain in relation to the two institutions which he or she serves (i.e. church and state) and the tensions that emerge as a result. These are articulated in terms of ‘an angle of eschatological tension’. The third is concerned with ‘the roles within the role’ – that is the variety of tasks that make up the role of chaplaincy and the degree to which these are compatible with each other. The significance of theology in the resolution of the ensuing issues is set against diminishing societal resources in terms of religious literacy.     

Provision of spiritual and pastoral care facilities in a high-security hospital and their increased use by those of Muslim compared to Christian faith

The relationship between religion and psychiatry remains controversial amongst British psychiatrists. We looked at the provision of spiritual and pastoral care facilities in a high-security hospital and the role of faith chaplains with particular reference to the Muslim minority group. There was a significantly higher uptake of pastoral care services amongst those of Muslim faith compared to Church of England and Roman Catholic Christians. Possible reasons for this are discussed. Resources allocated for the Muslim faith group were limited and heavily dependent on the availability of the Muslim faith chaplain. Our study highlighted the need for clearly defined standards for the provision of spiritual and pastoral care within high-secure psychiatric hospitals, and by implication other NHS psychiatric settings, a re-examination of the role of the faith chaplain in relation to the clinical team, and raised questions about the equitable allocation of resources between various faith groups within the hospital.