Chaplains – religious professionals that work outside of congregations, usually in public settings – have a long history in the United States. They served alongside soldiers in the Revolutionary War, are deeply embedded in the military, prisons, healthcare organizations and many universities and have been present in business settings ranging from the British East India company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Tyson Foods today (Sullivan 2014).
Chaplains encounter people in existentially fraught moments and are in unique positions to comfort, support and console.
With changes in American religious demographics – most especially growing numbers of people not affiliated or attending local congregations – the work and face of chaplaincy is changing (Smith et al. 2019, Cadge and Skaggs 2018). Chaplains are on the ground in many disaster settings, are training to work in social movements and are emerging everywhere from homeless shelters to neighborhoods, airports, and veterinary clinics. In a survey conducted in March of 2019, 20% of the American public reported having contact with a chaplain in the last two years – just over half in healthcare organizations (Cadge, Winfield, and Skaggs 2020). More than a quarter of theological schools currently have degree programs focused on chaplaincy and spiritual care, most of them started in the last twenty years (Cadge et al. 2020). As they are deployed with members of the armed forces, pray with patients before they enter surgery, and counsel those in the criminal justice system, chaplains encounter people in existentially fraught moments and are in unique positions to comfort, support and console.
Key text for those studying and working in chaplaincy
This edited volume brings together social scientists, theological educators and the clinical educators to lay the groundwork for spiritual care education that is responsive to the changing religious landscape and to the on-the-ground challenges of those providing spiritual care. It asks how institutions can best train chaplains and provides a broad and accessible structure for engaging the work of spiritual care to meet the demands of the future. This is the first edited volume to ask big picture questions about the field, situate those questions in broader conversations in religious studies, and engage a breadth of scholars not usually in conversation with one another to address them, offering an introduction to chaplaincy and spiritual care in the process. We intend the volume as a key text for those studying and working in chaplaincy and spiritual care that describes the skills and competencies needed to do the work and provides materials for teaching them.
