Outline:
- What is the central problem or issue at the center of my vocational work?
- The lack of accessible spiritual care and spiritual community for people whose religious identities and practices fall outside or between traditional religious institutions.
- What does this problem look like?
- Those in alternative or minority faiths, those who feel they are religiously plural, or feel unwelcome in majority religious spaces/communities face more hardships due to:
- Access to spiritual care outside institutional religion.
- Religious pluralism and theological legitimacy
- Spiritual homelessness after religious transition
- Economic limitations
- Vocationally, I am developing a spiritual companionship ministry. As a person in a minority religious tradition, I have seen and experienced first hand how difficult it can be to find people of a like mind, develop a sense of community with spirituality as the uniting thread, and the crushing emotional toll that loneliness can take. I feel that spiritual care should focus less on “What do you believe?” and more on asking “What is sacred to you, and how are you relating to it?”
- How would I describe it to someone who was curious but had never heard of it?
- religious/spiritual identities don’t always fit neatly within institutional categories spiritual-care systems often assume institutional belonging. This alienates people who do not fit within Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, or Buddhism (although it could be argued people in the later two have less access than those in the Abrahamic faiths due to their minority status in America).
- What intersection of identities is uniquely affected by this problem?
- People who fit into this category would be religiously unaffiliated people such as (but not limited to) spiritual-but-not-religious people, New Age religions, Agnostics, Pagans, Religious Naturalists and Humanists, Spiritual Satanists, Religiously plural people, or people who may identify with a majority religion but feel unwelcome in those spaces such as queer individuals, sex workers, or those in alternative lifestyles.
- What other social or political realities relate to this problem, and how?
- whose spirituality gets recognized as legitimate enough to deserve care, resources, space, and trained accompaniment? Take the recent shortening of recognized religions in the US military for example. Or the requirement for ecclesiastical backing for chaplains even though the options are EXTREMELY limited for those not within the majority religions, often forcing those of us in minority faiths to go through training in another faith for backing.
- Economics; Those of us not part of a majority religion have a harder time finding employment in the faith field. As a pagan I would be hard pressed to find a church willing to hire me, someone of a different faith, on a salaried basis as a spiritual care provider. The vast majority, estimated at 80% to 90% or more, of formal, institutional chaplain jobs (including military, Veterans Affairs, federal prisons, and major healthcare networks) require an ecclesiastical endorsement. Not only this, but it puts a financial burden on those in minority spiritual traditions; as unlike those who attend churches or mosques, they have to pay for spiritual care services offered by private practices (such as spiritual direction or companionship).
- “If access to spiritual care is a legitimate dimension of human flourishing, then responsibility for sustaining that care should not fall exclusively upon either religious institutions or isolated individuals purchasing services in the private market. And importantly: The labor of providing that care should itself be valued and materially sustained.”
