Negotiating Religious Differences: The Strategies of Interfaith Chaplains in Healthcare

Abstract

Chaplains in healthcare increasingly work in interfaith roles with patients and families from a range of religious and spiritual backgrounds. Some move with ease between their own religious backgrounds and those of the individuals with whom they work. Others encounter tensions as their status as a person of faith comes into INTRODUCTIONIn a recent critique of the sociology of religion as a field, colleagues and I call on scholars to consider religion from four edges or new perspectives in order to "de-center many taken-forgranted ways of thinking about religion" (Cadge, Levitt, and Smilde 2011:438). This approach will diversify the study of religion, lead scholars to question conventional conceptualizations, and encourage a wider range of social scientists to consider how religion intersects with other aspects of social life. "Questioning conventional categories and wisdom" will lead sociologists of religion "to creatively rethink core concepts and to engage more fully with sociology in general" (Cadge, Levitt, and Smilde 2011:447).We take up this call here by focusing on religion outside of religious organizations-one of the four edges we identify. Religion is present (and must be negotiated) outside of religious organizations in public life and through holiday displays, rules about dress, casual conversation, and in the religious beliefs and practices of staff and constituents in secular organizations (Adding Eid 2010;Bender 2003;Calhoun 2010;Heclo 2003;Pierce 2008;Taylor 2007;Trautner and Kwan 2010). While sociologists have focused significant attention on the dynamics of religious organizations, less is known about how religion is present and negotiated in secular organizations Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank Nancy Ammerman, Jim Beckford, Marie Cornwall, and three anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this article. (Chang 2003;Demerath et al. 1998).1 Classic secularization arguments are partially to blame as scholars historically argued that institutional differentiation would lead religion or the sacred to disappear from secular organizations (Demerath et al. 1998). It clearly has not and failing to ask about how religion is present and religious differences negotiated in secular organizations furthers what Ammerman calls "one of the . . . great 'problems' of modernity . . . the differentiation of institutional spheres, the separation of one part of life from another" (2007:228). We respond to this problem here by investigating one of the "multiple spaces (including secular ones) where religious sensitivities and selves are robustly explored and cultivated" and asking how religious diversity is negotiated as different spheres of life come together in one place (Bender 2010:182).We focus on how secular organizations negotiate religious diversity through the case of one secular academic medical center. While much has been written about religion, health, and healthcare, little focuses on how healthcare organizations themselves manage religious diversity (Cadge 2009;Cadge and ...

Procesos de institucionalización del servicio de capellanía y la asistencia espiritual no católica para hospitales públicos de Argentina

“…Así como el Estado interviene formateando a las minorías religiosas, coincidimos con Algranti (21) que estamos aquí también ante una estrategia de acoplamiento institucional, una intervención en el mundo de las instituciones seculares para reconvertir su lógica, sentido y reglas de procedimiento. A diferencia de los casos estadounidenses (3,5,6,7,8) y europeos (45,46,54,55) el proceso de institucionalización y profesionalización de las capellanías no católicas no implica -aún-un reconocimiento oficial por parte del Estado. Si bien el modelo de asistencia espiritual no ha dejado de ser cristianocéntrico en la Argentina, ya que no encontramos aún modelos de asistencia espiritual multiconfesionales (4) ni tampoco una creciente profesionalización de la tarea de la capellanía (5) , presenciamos algunos procesos similares a los hallazgos de las investigaciones realizadas sobre esta temática en los países centrales.…”

“…Esto refleja la demanda de la feligresía de recibir asistencia espiritual, la necesidad de recibir formación de estos actores religiosos para tomar contacto con el campo de la salud y la necesidad de seguir profundizando en estudios que den cuenta de las dinámicas de estas capellanías tanto en cárceles como instituciones de salud. El crecimiento de estas capellanías podría implicar una salida del modelo de solicitud de capellanes particulares a pedido de los pacientes no católicos a un modelo de asistencia religiosa general o interreligiosa como sostienen estudios recientes en otros contextos (3,4) .…”

“…En los últimos años ha surgido un creciente interés en las ciencias sociales por el estudio de la intersección entre la religión y la salud y sobre las formas en que la religión es negociada en organizaciones seculares, particularmente, en hospitales (3) . Diversos autores han documentado el pasaje de un modelo de capellanías -consideradas como cristianocéntricas-a otro de asistencia espiritual o religiosa multiconfesional (4) y a una creciente profesionalización de las capellanías hospitalarias (5) .…”

Humanizing Agents of Modern Capitalism? The Daily Work of Port Chaplains

“…Port chaplains tend to be excellent code-switchers, able to speak to seafarers, broader port audiences, and their donor bases in very different frames (Cadge and Sigalow 2013). While most told us they downplay explicitly religious language with seafarers unless seafarers bring it up, they use it often when talking with congregants and religious donors.…”

Responses to Religious Diversity in Spain

“…As Irene Becci, among others, notes (2012), public institutions standascrucial sites in the study of the relation between religion and the state.B ye mphasising different analyticald imensions and thematic focuses,these studies evince the continuity of dividing lines between majority churchesand minority religious groups (Becci /Knobel 2014;Sheik et al 2004), the institutionalisationo fM uslimc haplaincies in various institutions (Gilliat-Ray 2010;M ichalowski 2015), the variouss trategies of interfaith chaplains in secularc ontexts (Cadge /S igalow 2013) and the influences of the institutions characteristics on the religiosity of inmates (Becci 2012).…”