Wendy Cadge’s Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains (OUP 2022) adds to a growing body of studies about chaplaincy from scholars of religion. Her work examines chaplains as “America's hidden religious leaders,” contextualizing the spiritual care of chaplains within their diverse religious and workplace ecologies. For this session, we will explore her contributions regarding chaplaincy in its multiple relations to healthcare settings. This panel represents engagements with this book from a wide range of perspectives—from various scholarly disciplines to direct engagements with embedded practices—as well as from a range of voices regarding the nature of healing and of spiritual care. Some panelists will also address how we teach Cadge’s work or train future healthcare professionals about religion and the role of chaplains in light of her contributions.
Wendy Cadge argues that Chaplains are "brokers of death" in a secularizing culture. This is sometimes true, but in many areas of the country, religion remains a strong force, and chaplains must become "bi-lingual" capable of navigating both secular and religious languages and rituals, sometimes toggling back and forth between the two. I agree with much of Cadge's analysis, but argue that chaplains need different sorts of education then they are currently offered in Clinical Pastoral Education to prepare for ministry in this "bi-lingual" reality where strong religion and strong secularity may co-exist in the same hospital or hospice, and vary between patients. I offer some thoughts about what chaplaincy education might look like amid growing secularism, but also the ways Chaplains continue to draw on religious heritages for ministry in such contexts.
Chaplains in nineteenth-century British asylums played a pivotal role. They did not merely perform services and provide spiritual advice, but were often also in charge of educational classes, the library and particular entertainments. In his many capacities, the chaplain fostered relationships with patients, staff and the wider local community, offering those inside as well as outside the institution opportunities for agency and interaction. By revealing the therapeutic value assigned to chaplains in these asylums, this paper will historically underpin Wendy Cadge’s statement that ‘mental health services (…) are not sufficient or holistic for healing these wounds that are often deep and spiritual, calling for further support from figures like chaplains’ (2023, p. 196). It seeks to help us better understand the interconnectedness of religion and healing and underline the therapeutic potential of spiritual aid for patients struggling with mental ill-health today.
In her recent work on chaplaincy, Wendy Cadge has adeptly interviewed 66 chaplains in the Boston area, following them down hospital hallways and cavernous corridors. She approachs the term "chaplain" inductively [8], through interviews, field data, and ethnographic research. Using the work of John Chrysostom and the Oath attributed to Hippocrates, this paper considers the term deductively.
John Chrysostom (4th century CE) was concerned with *dis-eases of the soul* and advocated the use of every means of cure. This paper develops this patristic Greek and Christian concept, *physician of souls*, in a way that is not only currently relevant to the wounds of society, but to the pain of individuals as well. As Cadge points out, the term "chaplain" has been resisted by some institutions because of the connection with Christianity. The nomenclature *Physician of Souls* may not only be more inclusive but could strengthen the connection of body-mind-spirit/soul.
| Wendy Cadge | wcadge@brandeis.edu | View |