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This paper utilizes quantitative analysis of surveys conducted by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to explore the future of chaplaincy. Drawing from responses from 350-400 individuals serving or intending to serve as chaplains in the US and Canada, the study explores career options for chaplains, including multi-vocational roles. It investigates job positions held upon graduation and anticipated in five years, both within and outside congregational settings. Additionally, it assesses the effectiveness of chaplain education and identifies key skills and competencies. The findings provide valuable insights into the preparedness of chaplains for interdisciplinary settings and the outcomes of graduate education in chaplaincy.
This paper investigates whether the U.S. Federal agency charged with executing violence on its enemies also does violence to theological education systems. We trace the relationship between the Department of Defense (DoD) and theological education institutions as it develops from World War I to the present. Ted Smith’s work in The End of Theological Education (2023) provides the framework through which we examine how the dynamics of professionalization and individualization converge around military chaplaincy. The DoD requirements for chaplains contributed to the founding of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) with the mass mobilizations of the World Wars. Moral outrage over Vietnam disrupted this dynamic relationship. In the wake of 9/11 and new wartime needs, the DoD unilaterally revised the requirements for military chaplaincy, which has hastened and exacerbated the forces of individualization in theological education: diminishing residency, reducing credit hour requirements, and changing accreditation obligations.
Expanding Chaplain Competencies: Tradition-Aware Chaplaincy is a project exploring the relationship between beliefs and practices of patients from multiple traditions and the ways participants engage healthcare. The project’s goal is to provide practical guidance equipping Association for Clinical Pastoral Education Certified Educators and Board Certified Chaplains to offer tradition-aware chaplaincy education and chaplaincy. Interviews with leaders from each tradition and focus groups with members of each tradition provide the data for this qualitative research project. Participants are asked how those in their tradition make meaning, cope, make medical decisions, and navigate spiritual struggle in times of serious illness. Participating traditions include African Methodist Episcopal, Baha’i, Buddhist, Biblical Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jehovah’s Witness, Muslim, Native American, Orthodox Jewish, and Roman Catholic. Competencies will be developed from the results of qualitative interviews with leaders and focus groups with members from participating traditions.
This paper examines the relationship between Hindu college chaplains and the students they serve through the lens of three models of faith development: one arising from a study of Muslim-American students (Peek, 2005); a second based largely on research conducted with Christian students (Parks, 2019); and a third that borrows from a Hindu framework (Gosvamin, 2003) that I seek to re-interpret here. Drawing from my doctoral research on Hindu student life in higher education and my lived experience as a Hindu college chaplain, I seek to juxtapose the stories of the Hindu student /chaplain relationship with these three faith development models. I hope to shed light on an under-studied, marginalized, and minoritized religious community within our field, as well as suggest lessons that might be applicable to our evolving understanding of chaplaincy more generally.