The United States is witnessing a rise in the religiously unaffiliated. Participation in traditional religious settings is in decline. But everyone inhabits a location relative to religion, whether or not they practice or identify with a religious tradition. People engage in religious encounters and relationships in myriad ways, and their religious location is one part of their intersecting identities. This shifting religious landscape challenges spiritual caregivers to provide competent care and counsel that honors how persons' religious locations intersect. Jill Snodgrass argues that without a theoretical understanding of religious location, chaplains, counselors, and other spiritual caregivers are left without sufficient tools to navigate this relational terrain. In The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference, she gathers practices and insights from experienced spiritual caregivers and scholars to explore the concept of religious location--a term initially coined by pastoral theologian Kathleen Greider--as an aspect of an individual's intersecting identity. Snodgrass presents a compilation of essays that help spiritual caregivers think reflexively about their own religious locations and how these locations influence relational dynamics with care seekers within a diversity of cultural contexts. This vigorous compilation advances the fields of pastoral and practical theology as well as spiritual care and counseling by developing a robust, interreligious theory of religious difference grounded in insights from Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam. As such, The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference presents a well-timed resource for the training of religiously competent caregivers to serve in hospitals, prisons, places of worship, community mental health centers, offices of campus ministry, and more. Scholars and practitioners will quickly discover that this book will serve as an enduring resource to meet the training needs for spiritual caregivers in ways that will help them to build enduring competencies.
Rev. Jill L. Snodgrass, PhD, is associate professor of theology at Loyola University Maryland. She is a pastoral-practical theologian, scholar-activist, and ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Her research focuses on spiritual care and counseling with traditionally marginalized populations. She recently coauthored Moral Injury After Abortion: Exploring the Psychospiritual Impact on Catholic Women.
Introduction. By Jill L. Snodgrass Part I: Theorizing Religious Difference Chapter 1: Religious Location and Counseling: Engaging Diversity andDifference in Views of Religion. By Kathleen J. Greider Chapter 2: The Practice of Relational-Ethical Pastoral Care: An Intercultural Approach. By Carrie Doehring Chapter 3: Engaging in Religious Pluralism: A Confucian-Based Model. By Insook Lee Chapter 4: Implications for Interfaith Chaplaincy from a Tibetan Buddhist Understanding of Religious Location and the Two Truths. By Victor Gabriel Chapter 5: "I follow the Religion of Love:" Wisdom from Ibn 'Arabi for Engaging Religious Difference in Counseling. By NazilaIsgandarova Part II: Navigating Religious Difference in Diverse Contexts Chapter 6: Interreligious Care in Totalitarian Contexts: Learnings from Cuba and Vietnam. By Duane R. Bidwell and Daniel S. Schipani Chapter 7: Thomas Merton and the Vocation of Peacemaking: Catholic Chaplaincy in a Multi-Faith Context. By DominiekLootens Chapter 8: The Impact of Indigenous African Thought on Pastoral Counseling. By Mazvita Machinga Chapter 9: Jewish Vulnerability and Progressive Politics in Spiritual Care. By Rochelle Robins Chapter 10: Secret Atheist: Internal and External Tensions Affecting Buddhists as Interreligious Caregiving Professionals. By Monica Sanford Chapter 11: A Hmong Metaphysic of Sickness and Healing: Healing with Implications for Interreligious Care. By SirojSorajjakool Chapter 12: I Know I've Been Changed: Black Womanist Buddhist and Christian Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Care for a Homicidal White Male Buddhist. By Pamela Ayo Yetunde Chapter 13: The Religious Locations of LGBTQ+ Survivors of Christian Nonsexual Spiritual Abuse. By Jennifer Yates and Jill L. Snodgrass
