What Can Chaplains Teach About Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy?

Abstract

This essay considers how chaplains embody the core tenets of cross–cultural religious literacy. This work begins with empathy and humility and in its ideal supports individuals and institutions in their mission driven work. Every day chaplains and spiritual care providers work across many axes of difference, ideally embodying the mutual engagement which builds mutual respect, mutual reliance, and resilience. This essay provides a brief description of chaplains and their work as well as changes in their training and preparation needed to better prepare them to do this everyday work of covenantal pluralism.

Keywords:

• chaplain
• spiritual care
• cross-cultural religious literacy
• theological education
• religion
• spirituality
• covenantal pluralism

Acknowledgments

This essay is based on the project, “Chaplains as Facilitators of Covenantal Pluralism” funded by the Templeton Religion Trust.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy Cadge

Wendy Cadge is the Barbara Mandel Professor of Humanistic Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University. She is the author of three books, Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains, Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine, and Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America, and a co-editor of Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care in the Twenty-First Century and Religion on the Edge: De-Centering and Re-Centering the Sociology of Religion. She launched the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab in 2018. Email: [email protected]