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More than "None": Spiritual Care by and for the Nonreligious

Citation: Lawton, Amy and Wendy Cadge (2024). “More than ‘None’: Spiritual Care by and for the Nonreligious.” Chaplaincy Innovation Lab. https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/working-papers/nones-spiritual-care.

Abstract of “More than ‘None'”:

This working paper describes the spiritual care landscape for Americans who do not identify as religious. We first describe what is known about the nonreligious population and their relationship to spiritual care in the United States. We consider how those who are not religious provide spiritual care themselves as chaplains and how growing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States receive spiritual care. For convenience, we use the terms chaplain and spiritual care provider interchangeably, each to describe religious or spiritual leaders who work outside of congregations in places such as hospitals, schools, prisons, and the military. We draw on original research findings about the experiences of nonreligious chaplains and conclude with suggestions to help chaplains better meet the needs of nonreligious people in the United States and to help the profession of spiritual care better support nonreligious chaplains.

We thank Fetzer Institute for its support of this work on spiritual care and those who are religiously / spiritually unaffiliated. You can read more about this project here.

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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.

More working papers

See our growing bibliography of working papers here. Our working papers are meant to stimulate discussion and advance both academic and applied conversations in the field of spiritual care.

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