More on Harding: Identity and the Contemporary Chaplain

Rev. Stephen Harding’s recent pieces in PlainViews on “making a case for” and “continuing a discussion” on theology (v2, no.10 and v2, no.14) have certainly touched a sensitive, and I would argue critical, nerve for contemporary chaplaincy. This nerve has a lot to do with identity, specifically the value of the religious and theological identity for the contemporary chaplain.

Harding uses words like “giving away authority,” he notices the multi-disciplinary team’s perception that there is an apparent “overlap” of chaplain’s work with other disciplines, and he describes a “system where anyone can have a conversation about spirituality.” When I hear these descriptors, I hear identity issues. For some reason, there is some question as to the value of a chaplain rooted in and representative of a faith-based theological tradition when it comes to talking about spirituality.

In some ways, pastoral identity is not a new question. It is well within the history of pastoral care to ask how religious or faith-based identities fit into who we are as chaplains. A brief survey of current literature on the modern clinical pastoral education movement reveals deep tensions in this area.[1] More than a generation ago, as pastors learned more about psychological methods and language, an ever-increasing tension developed in the relationship between Christian theology and psychology.

Although the Christian theologians engaged in pastoral care at the time agreed that the psychological “tools for analysis and interpretation must be brought to bear on the pastoral task,”[2] there was a growing concern by some that the discipline of Christian theology was losing out to psychology. The debate concerned whether pastoral care could find, or needed to find, a way to remain “rooted in the Christian tradition and language” [3] while engaging new psychological tools or methodologies.

What is new about contemporary pastoral identity is the changing workplace milieu. This emerging milieu is increasingly non-religious. Most Canadian institutions have “non-denominational” chaplains who are no longer designated representatives of particular religions and these chaplains often facilitate multi-faith needs. This new milieu includes a clientele – and staff – who increasingly profess to be spiritual in a way that is not necessarily connected to a religious tradition; and includes, perhaps more importantly, chaplains who themselves are more inclined toward a wider spirituality rather than a specific religious tradition. It is this last point that really concerns me: what was once a tension between pastoral care identity and the role of psychology has now developed into a similar tension between pastoral care identity and a movement to non-religious spirituality.

This last point is best summarized by the expression popular in Canada, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” The “spiritual but not religious” distinction raises important questions for pastoral care, and its relationship with other disciplines.[4] Are the spiritual and the religious related? If so, how? Are they opposites, different realities altogether, or integral to one another? Or, are they really the same? Whatever the answer may be – and Harding raises the importance of clarifying terms in his second article – the larger question is “How can the chaplain, historically a representative of a faith tradition, assist or support people within these parameters?” If the answer is “not at all” or that “others can do this” then the writing is on the wall.

Much of the modern popular discourse on this relationship sees spirituality and religion as opposites. My understanding is that this is not so. Nor are they synonymous, but they are potentially related. I agree with Saundra Schneiders’ definition of spirituality: “The experience of consciously striving to integrate one’s life in terms not of isolation but of self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.”[5] I agree that, from a client’s perspective, the ultimate value may be religious but then again it may not be. I also believe that chaplains need to be able to present spirituality in a way that includes the religious.

I take up Harding’s excellent observations because chaplains must engage our changing health care landscape; or else we will be left behind. Harding has encouraged us to ask who we are.

As an invitation, I encourage you to reply to this question: how important is it that you, an institutional chaplain, are rooted in and representative of a faith-based tradition?

Footnotes:
[1] A brief survey of some of the literature points to this concern: In 1981, Allistair Campbell called for a “rediscovery” of pastoral care because of “a contemporary confusion about the true nature of Christian caring and by a feeling of alienation from traditional understandings of the pastoral task.” See Allistair Campbell, Rediscovering Pastoral Care (London:Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981). Around this time, Thomas Oden called for a return to classical theological language and practice. He took issue, among other things, with “an anti-theological style of pastoral care.” See Thomas Oden, Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984, p. 130.) In 1984, Charles V. Gerkin looked for a middle way through this tension seeing both aspects of the debate as “tools of interpretation.” Calling this a “re-visioning” in a “hermeneutic model,” he proposed a “process of interpretation and re-interpretation of human experience within the framework of a primary orientation towards the Christian mode of interpretation in dialogue with contemporary psychological modes of interpretation.” See Charles V. Gerkin, The Living Human Document: Re-Visioning Pastoral Counselling in a Hermeneutical Mode (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984 p. 20.)
[2] Gerkin, p.14
[3] Ibid., p 21.
[4] Even a cursory literature review indicates that most health care disciplines (medicine, nursing, social work, occupational therapy, etc.) are studying and publishing on spirituality. In fact, beyond health care, spirituality is alive and well in other places: see for example "spirituality at work" seminars.
[5] Saundra Schneiders, “Spirituality in the Academy,” in Theological Studies Vol 50, 1989, p. 684.

Do you have thoughts about advocacy you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org.