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Spiritual Care for the Non-Religious

In October 2025, the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab hosted a webinar exploring appropriate ways to describe those often labeled as “Nones” or “Unaffiliated,” including by the Lab itself. We encourage you to check out the webinar, the recording of which is free and open to the public. Questions of self-identification, belonging, and naming are complex, personal, and fluid. Phrasing like “Nones” or “unaffiliated” or “non-religious” can obscure significant spiritual and philosophical diversity. While some may choose not to “check the box” of a historical tradition on surveys and censuses, this does not indicate they are “None.” And while we continue to refine our own discussion of these communities, we encourage you to check out some of the research we have done on the present reality and potential future of them.

The following resources are for chaplains and spiritual care providers to enable them to best serve those who are not affiliated. This page comes from the project “Spiritual Care Networks for Unaffiliated Chaplains,” supported by the Fetzer Institute. Learn more about that work here. Additional resources for unaffiliated chaplains themselves can be found here.

Video Resources

Spiritual Care of the Nonreligious

ACPE Webinar

Chaplaincy to the Non-Religious

CIL Webinar

Chaplaincy for the ‘Nones’

Tufts University Chaplaincy Webinar

Recommended Reading

Beresin, Neil. 2020. “A Chaplain’s Notebook: Poetry as Spiritual Nourishment.” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 74(1):61–67. doi: 10.1177/1542305019897558.

Understanding pastoral counseling 150sq

Greider, Kathleen J. 2015. “Religious Location and Counseling: Engaging Diversity and Difference in Views of Religion.” Pp. 235–56 in Understanding Pastoral Counseling, edited by E. A. Maynard and J. L. Snodgrass. New York: Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

McDargh, John. 2011. “Imagining the Real: Poetry and the Art of Pastoral Attending.” Pastoral Psychology 60(3):451–65. doi: 10.1007/s11089-011-0341-z

Potts, Garrett, Sage Hewitt, Monica Moore, Alaina Mui, and Barbara Lubrano. 2023. “Spiritual Caregiving and Assessments for America’s Religious ‘Nones’: A Chaplaincy Perspective.” Journal of Religion and Health 1513–31. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01757-z.

Savage, David. 2018. Non-Religious Pastoral Care: A Practical Guide. 1st ed. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Schuhmann, Carmen, and Annelieke Damen. 2018. “Representing the Good: Pastoral Care in a Secular Age.” Pastoral Psychology 67:405–17. doi: 10.1007/s11089-018-0826-0.

If you would like to suggest additional resources for this page, please contact the Lab here.