In the Netherlands, a growing number of spiritual care givers are working without being endorsed by any church or worldview organization. Since 2015, these non-denominational spiritual care givers can undergo an assessment of their “spiritual competence” on top of their Master’s degree in Spiritual Care, which leads to a mandate in this area. This enables them to obtain full membership of the professional Association of Spiritual Caregivers in the Netherlands (Vereniging van Geestelijk VerZorgers, VGVZ), from which they previously were excluded. The VGVZ seeks to secure the quality and professionalism of spiritual care, and full membership is a condition typically required by clients or employers. The VGVZ’s Professional Standard outlines the membership criteria and states that a spiritual care giver needs to have both a certain expertise, derived from a Master’s degree, and authorization, derived from an endorsement or mandate that ought to safeguard their spiritual competence and authentic, lived spirituality. However, as this study illustrates, the terminology used in the Professional Standard is rather unclear. Reference is made to “spiritual”, “worldview” and “hermeneutic” competencies, which are all situated in the domain of substantive, process-orientated and personal capabilities. This article critically examines the notion of spiritual competence as a leading concept in the acceptance and assessment of non-denominational spiritual care givers. By doing so, it offers a novel systematic analysis of the field and sets the agenda for future research.

When “Manoosh” arrived in our busy public hospital, bereft of English and accompanied by a daughter wearing a hijab, religious assumptions and limited understanding of their cultural needs created a difficult path to person-centred care. Adding to the complexity, Manoosh became a “long stay” palliative patient, creating logistical and funding complications. As their Spiritual Care provider, I made missteps, faced personal tensions within the multi-disciplinary team but also provided helpful non-religious spiritual care during the family’s long journey to the passing of their beloved wife and mother. This case study reflects upon the effectiveness of this extended episode of Spiritual Care, and in the broader context, explores the provision of spiritual versus religious care and the role of Spiritual Care within a multi-disciplinary team.

The proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans has grown dramatically over the last few decades. Using updated data from the author’s previous study, “Non-religious people's experiences with spiritual care when seriously ill or injured,” 1,040 people expressed a willingness to be interviewed or part of a focus group concerning their spiritual care experiences, indicating significant interest among non-religious patients. Participant candidates self-identified as “religious and affiliated,” “religious and unaffiliated,” “spiritual but not religious,” “neither spiritual nor religious,” “none of the above,” or “other.” Patients in these groups were not offered hospital chaplaincy services evenly: “none of the above” (50%) were most likely to have not been offered chaplain services, and “religious and unaffiliated” (40%) the least. Findings and quotes from the interviews and focus groups help illustrate additional sentiments. These findings are relevant for managers of healthcare chaplaincy services in revising how they screen patients for spiritual care needs.

Clearly, chaplaincy is concerned with spirituality. But spirituality does not cover all that chaplaincy is about. In addition, there is critique on the clarity, usefulness and precision of the concept of spirituality. In order to express the richness of the profession and safeguard the particular characteristics of spirituality, this article proposes a new arrangement of chaplaincy’s domain: meaning and worldviews, including existential, ethical, spiritual and aesthetic dimensions. The model is considered with regard to two criteria: does the definition do justice to the plural, rich and various experiences of spirituality and meaning, including non-Christian and secular experiences? And does the definition help to communicate chaplaincy and its particular characteristics to other professions? The definition of the Dutch Association of Spiritual Caregivers is presented and reflected upon from a philosophical view. Finally, the definition is tested for its usefulness through application in some case studies.

Recent developments in Dutch society and its healthcare system pose new challenges to humanist chaplaincy. Thus far, chaplaincy has been predominantly rooted in institutionalized religion, but it now has to serve a diversity of people who are increasingly secularized with personal ways of worldviewing. Moreover, chaplaincy is increasingly becoming a profession like many others, reducing the focus on its worldviewing competencies. The main question this article addresses is what this implies for the education of chaplains, more specifically for humanist chaplains who are educated on a Master’s level course at the University of Humanistic Studies. Using the concepts of interprofessional learning communities (Stoll & Seashore Louis, 2007) and dialogical professionalism (Jacobs, 2010), two visions are put forward for developing the education of humanist chaplains that might also be relevant for other chaplaincy educational programs.

Employing the praxis method of theological reflection, this article draws on a spiritual care encounter with a person holding a worldview derived from an empirical approach to the natural world, in order to reflect on the nature of non-religious spirituality and its implications for the spiritual care sector. Non-religious spirituality is examined as a genuine form of spirituality. The hypothesis that the genuine nature of non-religious spirituality necessarily suggests that non-religious people can both receive and provide spiritual care is presented. Healthy secularity is examined as the underlying sociocultural condition for non-religious spiritual care to be recognized in a sector currently dominated by religious assumptions. The study concludes with a call to spiritual care educators and accrediting bodies in the Australian context to begin working toward a secular perspective that is inclusive of non-religious spirituality and spiritual care. The conclusions of the article will have significance for the global spiritual care community, particularly in countries recording increases in populations identifying as non-religious.

Unlike Western countries with a majority of Protestant citizens, initiatives in the field of spiritual care provision in Israel have involved mostly lay leadership and secular individuals from their very inception, rather than clergy and religious adherents. This religiously neutral position made it easier for spiritual care to be accepted across the varied sub-populations that compose the unique mosaic of Israeli culture. Adhering to a religiously neutral approach led to the use of a broader set of tools in order to reach people in their time of distress. Currently, there are about 130 certified spiritual caregivers in Israel who graduated from four accredited training programs. This article describes three short case studies, in which we can see the benefits of three such neutral approaches – connecting with nature, gentle touch, and non-theistic personal prayer.