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Multifaith Competencies of Chaplains
The competencies required of chaplains by the Ontario Multifaith Council on Spiritual and Religious Care (OMCSRC) are an excellent way of addressing the spiritual and religious needs of the diverse faith population that they serve in Ontario.
I want to share some reflections around those competencies that are specifically related to the multifaith nature of the spiritual and religious care that a chaplain affiliated to the OMCSRC is expected to make available. For example,
"Chaplains will demonstrate knowledge of their own faith tradition and the value of other faiths"
"Chaplains will be competent in interfaith dialogue "
"Chaplains will be knowledgeable of cultural diversity "
"Chaplains will assist others in exploring the spiritual meaning of their life... will demonstrate their ability to help others grow spiritually"
In this context, I was quite excited to note the questions raised in the article entitled What is Multifaith Pastoral Care? by Douglas Graydon in the Winter 2000 issue of Omni (pp5ff). In fact, it was those questions that encouraged me to offer this article, which was drafted a while ago, to further the conversation, but especially the action, regarding "Multifaith Spiritual and Religious Care".
To begin with, the question has been asked for several years now, "Is the term 'chaplain' an appropriate designation for a multifaith spiritual and religious care provider ?" Along with others, I think not. The word and all it connotes is so very Christian. Persons of other faiths do not relate to it. Neither do a large number, even perhaps a majority, of ordinary Christians. Like many another "chaplain", I receive mail addressed to "Chaplin" "Chapel", "Chapman" , "Champlain" and even, sometimes, "Chaplain". As in other professions, a more contemporary designation for a multifaith spiritual and religious care provider that will immediately describe the service the designee provides, and be more easily understood by all, is called for. The term "Spiritual Care Provider"(SCP) or a variation of it is a good a candidate to replace the term "Chaplain". For similar reasons, as might already be inferred from the above, our multifaith context calls for the term "Pastoral Care" to be replaced by the more inclusive one, "Spiritual Care".
But even if we soon overcome our pre-dominantly Christian reluctance to adopt appropriate new terms to describe "chaplains" and what they do, in our context of such cultural and spiritual diversity, the question arises, How does a client of a spiritual or religious tradition that is not the same as that of the on-site SCP in an institution receive spiritual support in the absence of a member of her/his own tradition? For example, in a chronic care facility, that has only an SCP of a Christian tradition on-site, a Christian patient in crisis can call upon her/him frequently, knowing that they are spiritual, religious and, may be even, denominationally akin. The SCP will likely be able to join this person in prayer or in deep spiritual intercourse.
However, a Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist patient in the next room most likely experiences no such 'kinship" with the SCP and so has to be content to wait on the very occasional visit of the imam, pandit or sangh or other member of her/his own tradition. Our response to this kind of increasingly common situation could be to just accept it as a "fact of life".
Alternatively, we can proceed further on the courageous path pointed out by the competencies expected and prepare our SCPs to be versatile so that they can be experienced as having spiritual affinity with clients, no matter what the faith profession of the latter. If this can be achieved, care providers will be able to offer ongoing spiritual support personally to any client in need, or at least to many more than they do now. This will happen more and more as SCPs become increasingly appreciative of spiritual experiences of persons of other traditions than their own. It would be even more likely if SCPs are adept, as Sitansu Chakravati is reported as proposing, in the OMNI article referred to above, to "seek first the spirituality that radiates from each person we meet". This would make SCPs more than mere "liaison" persons for the spiritual and religious care of clients who profess a tradition that is different from their own. It would equip them better with the multifaith competencies expected of them that are listed above, especially the last one. Of course, the spiritual support offered by the on-site provider would be in addition to that of an appropriate faith group member.
How can we train for Multifaith Spiritual and Religious Care Today
At the outset, I feel we need to recognize that all training in multifaith spiritual and religious care needs to primarily address a person's fundamental spiritual experience and the disposition (interiorly, theologically and practically) to multifaith communication that flows from it. Is my spiritual identity only co-extensive with my religious identity or is there more to it? What appreciation do I, at gut level, give to the experience of a person of a spiritual tradition other than my own? As an SCP, am I prepared to enter into that person's experience in a deep way so as to serve her/him (and be served richly as well)? How far am I prepared to go?
Further, the training needs to be primarily experiential. No amount of intellectual knowledge will by itself be effective. On the other hand, readiness to be exposed intellectually to the knowledge and practices of other spiritual traditions has been known to open people up to them experientially, sometimes in dramatic fashion. For the benefit of Christians, John Macquarrie speaks of the possibility of total commitment to Jesus while being radically open to other revelations (see Commitment and Openness: Christianity's Relation to Other Faiths, Theology Digest, 27 [1979] pp 347-55).
The following are suggestions to further the training of a prospective spiritual and religious care provider in our context:
A) All academic and other training programs sponsored by any faith group affiliated to OMCSRC should extensively and intensively address the spirituality of the future: Multifaith Spirituality. All spiritual traditions should, as far as possible, be specifically addressed as well.
B) Through OMCSRC, a potential or current SCP of any given faith tradition, should have opportunities to access in very practical, experiential ways, the other faith traditions in Ontario: their scriptures, philosophies, theologies; their contemplative and ascetic histories and practices; their ritual and festive celebrations; their socio-cultural and service outlook and practices; etc.
C) For a prospective or current Christian SCP, an internship (three months or more) in a completely different socio-cultural- religious milieu outside of North America and Europe would be invaluable (in my mind, indispensable). It could serve as a kind of multifaith-multicultural "immersion experience". This is not necessarily an expensive proposition, as it may first appear to be. The budget can be kept low as follows (or by other forms of resourcefulness):
Airfare and other expenses can be shared by OMCSRC, Chaplaincy Services , the internee and her/his faith group.
Living and food costs can be minimized by the internee being prepared (not just for economic reasons) to actually live with local families by arrangement. What better way to really enter into their life? In this way, three months in India, for example, could cost a lot less money than just the tuition fee for one CPE unit in North America. Incidentally, for a North American Christian wanting to access a fuller understanding of the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Zoroashtrian, Bahai, and even the Christian tradition (and others) in one geographical location, I can think of no more appropriate place to "intern" than India. Living in an ashram or in a gurudwara would be ideal. Since, the internee will usually be serving the local community in some way, part or all of the living, food and out of pocket expenses may be borne by that community. Foreign guests of local families in India have often been overwhelmed by the generosity of their hosts, including refusal to accept money.
The above suggestions are being made on the basis of the numerous instances that they
have been found workable and spiritually transforming for hundreds of persons in the past. For example, see Mansions of the Spirit by Michael Ingham, Chapter One, An Unexpected Conversion.
To those who are grappling with concerns surrounding multifaith spirituality, I commend the following prophetic words of various Christian spiritual writers:
From Thomas Merton (shortly before his death): "I am convinced that communication in depth across the lines that have hitherto divided religious and monastic traditions is now not only possible and desirable, but most important for the destinies of twentieth century man"
From John Dunne: "The holy man of our time is not a figure like Gautama or Jesus or Mohammed, a man who could found a world religion, but a figure like Gandhi, a man who passes over by sympathetic understanding from his own religion to other religions and comes back again with new insight to his own. Passing over and coming back, it seems, is the spiritual adventure of our time" (every time an SCP interacts spiritually with a person of another faith, she/he has the opportunity to engage in this spiritual adventure of "passing over", an adventure that perhaps has become a part of her/his inner nature or spirituality).
From Raimundo Panikkar: "I 'left' as a Christian; I 'found' myself a Hindu; and I 'returned' as a Buddhist, without having ceased to be a Christian. Granting my good faith, some people nevertheless doubt whether such an attitude is objectively tenable or even intelligible."
Again from Thomas Merton who spoke about the need of all interreligious communication to originate from a "Communion beyond the level of words, a communication in authentic experience "
From Paul Knitter: (referring to the above quotes) "Such a sharing in another faith, such a 'becoming Hindu' is necessary for dialogue. But is it possible? With a growing number of contemporary practitioners of dialogue, I urge that it is"
Not only do I urge that it is possible, but I sincerely believe that this is a fundamental competency which speaks to the very nature of a spiritual care provider in our multifaith context.
All of the above quotes can be found in the groundbreaking work by Paul Knitter, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions. I respectfully recommend this work as keynote reading for anybody who is addressing the nature of the multifaith spiritual helper of the twenty-first century. In addition to abundant more insights and exciting discussions that will inform this task, it also contains numerous practical suggestions regarding training. I similarly recommend to your attention the work of Michael Ingham, Mansions of the Spirit.
By way of conclusion, I want to congratulate members of the Peterborough Regional Multifaith Committee Task Group who are seriously trying to identify ways in which persons from other than Christian traditions can be attracted to become SCPs . There is hardly a better way for professionals in the field of spiritual care to grow in appreciation of each other's spiritual experience than to be rubbing shoulders frequently, even daily. This will make us more versatile care givers. It will also make the goals of OMCSRC more attainable.
Desmond Sequeira is the Spiritual Care Provider at the Rideau Regional Centre, Smith Falls, Ontario.
Posted by editor on September 30, 2003 10:11 AM