The future is almost here
The day is soon upon us when the population of the U.S. will no longer be majority Christian. In fact that day may have already arrived, like a thief in the night. The fact is that there is no official public record of the religion of any specific American citizen. Thus an individual citizen may tell the Census taker that he or she is Christian while in fact knowing little or nothing about Christianity and never having set foot in any Christian church. In the U.S. an umbrella of privacy covers religious associations, making accurate religious statistics somewhat uncertain. But what is certain is that the number of Americans who self-identify as Christian have declined in the past half-century from about 90% to about 62%, according to Pew Research. These numbers are based on the answers given to Census takers, but with no corroboration. Census takers ask citizens for their religious identification but answering is optional, and any effort to verify the answer is not allowed. Census takers are not permitted to seek documentation of religious affiliation. Under the freedom of religion mandate, no one is required to disclose a religious affiliation to the public. Thus we should look with a jaundiced eye at any declaration of any citizen’s particular religious commitment, especially if that commitment signals that the person in question is a part of the American religious mainstream. A citizen who has never set foot in a Christian Church may declare Christian identity with no questions asked and no documentation, as undoubtedly many do. That is how the system works. Religious identity is whatever an individual declares it to be. What we do know is that a little over half the American population currently identifies as Christian. We also know that the numbers of those who do claim a Christian identity have been in a steady sixty-year decline, drawing Christianity close to a minority status in the country at large. In fact, the nation may have already reached the status of a minority Christian country.
But does anyone care? Probably not very many. And why should they? When the U. S. is no longer a nation with a Christian majority the consequences will not be dramatic, nor necessarily negative, and life will probably go on very little differently from years past. Indeed, given the behavior of certain Christians, we could do better with fewer of them. Certain public rituals will have to be revised or modified, particularly in the government and in the courts. Signals of Christian hegemony will need to be revised or removed, but that should be a simple and rational process, except for certain hysterics among us. For example, swearing on the Bible in court to support one’s claim to speak the truth will no longer be a credible assurance for half the population. But was it ever a credible testimony?
However, closer to home, or closer to our home as health care workers, the slippage of Christianity into minority religion status will have monumental and problematic implications. Chaplains who serve in public institutions such as hospitals and other medical institutions will need to reconstruct their public presentation of themselves. Such professionals will no longer be permitted to proclaim their Christian faith to the public while on public payroll. If I am still in touch with the public pulse, this is going to be a monumental shock to many current institutional chaplains functioning in our public hospitals. Nor will the many religiously-supported hospitals be exempt from the new order insofar as they are supported by public funds, which I believe is probably all of them.
Of course, there are many chaplains, particularly those in our CPSP community who are prepared for this future. I refer to those who function as and use the identifying label of “pastoral psychotherapist,” which is generic, signaling no specific religion. This or some similar label that is entirely disassociated from allegiance to a specific religion will be the only way forward for public chaplaincy. In the near term no chaplain will be permitted to remain on public salary while identified as an advocate for any particular religion.
Currently, it appears that most medical institutions in the U.S. support chaplaincies which are allegedly multi-faith. But typically they are multi-faith in name only, with a decided tilt toward Christianity, some subtly and others blatantly. Promoting Christianity overtly or by innuendo is still a common practice in most hospital and medical center chaplaincy departments. And chaplains regularly offer implicit Christian solace to patients without disclosing their covert agenda. It is quite clear that chaplains who regularly avoid invoking the name of Jesus, for example, continue to use Christian innuendo.
We cannot expect any particular chaplain to speak for all the religions of the world. Such an expectation would be illusory. For example, what Christian chaplain can ever be expected to offer a prayer to Allah the only God and Muhammed his prophet? Or what Muslim chaplain could be expected to offer a prayer to Jesus? Or what Christian chaplain is prepared to pray to the Elephant God on behalf of a Hindu patient? Or to participate authentically in an atheistic Buddhist rite? Or how is any chaplain going to respond when encountering a member of the FFRF, Ron Reagan’s Freedom From Religion Foundation? The FFRF is also a religion, the religion of the anti-religionists. The clinically competent chaplain neither supports nor critiques any religion or anti-religion. Taking no religious posture whatsoever, the appropriately trained chaplain responds clinically and pastorally, irrespective of any religion or anti-religion. The clinical chaplain in the U.S. today swims in dangerous and disorienting waters. It is no place for an untrained clinical chaplain.
Exactly a century ago Anton Boisen taught us how to address the crisis that is now upon us. In the years since, few have paid attention. The chaplain’s role, according to Boisen, is not the promotion of religion of any sort, not even his own, or especially not his own. Boisen’s injunction to chaplains was to engage in the cure of souls, also known as pastoral psychotherapy, irrespective of any religion, and to perform this assignment in a caring manner, like a shepherd with the sheep. And Boisen taught and promoted that discipline detached from any religious identification. Such was his mandate.
No one seems to remember Boisen in this generation. But we better begin reading him, before we get put on the street without knowing what happened to us. If we in our roles as chaplains continue promoting religion - any religion - hospitals will soon figure out that we are a legal liability, and that they no longer need us. and we will be escorted to the door. Or worse, they might discover us dabbling in a discussion with a patient or staff on the subject of the authenticity of some particular religion, and decide that we are a financial liability.
If you want to be a promoter of religion - any religion whatsoever - do it on your own dime, not on public funds. A paradox of the contemporary institutional chaplaincy role is that a candidate for such a role must represent and be approved by one of the established religions of the world, but that proselytizing for that religion while on duty is unacceptable. If you want to play the role of a public chaplain, follow Boisen in the role of pastoral psychotherapist, engaged in the cure of souls, functionally detached from any specific iteration of religion.
