Thursday 8 September 2011 Papers (13. 30 15. 00) Stream A

One of the projects funded by the AHRC/ESRC ‘Religion and Society’ programme investigated the work of Muslim chaplains in Britain, especially those working in hospitals. The findings of this research provide a lens through which to look at various dimensions of the public accommodation of Islam in Britain and the relationships and synergies between Muslim communities, Established churches, policy-makers, and the managers of public institutions. The research shows that where British Muslims have in previous generations have been principally concerned to engage in “bonding activities” that have strengthened the internal coherence and resources of Islamic organisations, Muslim chaplains are often engaged in “bridging activities” (Fetzer and Soper, 2004: 154) that are enabling Islamic traditions to reach out, and make positive and practical contributions to British societies and public institutions.

This paper will combine academic and practitioner perspectives to examine some of the particular ways in which Muslim chaplains are shaping the delivery of religious and pastoral care in hospitals. Based on empirical research and practical experiences, it will discuss examples of how Muslim chaplains contribute to service development and delivery. We show that this often involves the capacity to ‘translate’ between a variety of linguistic, professional, ethical, social, and religious worldviews, and the ability to work across the blurred boundary of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres.
Paper 2: Peter Kevern (14.00)

It is widely accepted that nurses should now offer ‘spiritual care’ to patients, but among the barriers to it are ethical considerations to do with the patient’s vulnerability and the nurse’s proper involvement with matters of personal conviction. Accepting the argument that the terms of such personal interactions between nurse and patient cannot be prescribed in detail, the author explores the potential influences on them of the nurse’s and patient’s own beliefs. Using an analytical method derived from Hutsebaut’s ‘Post-Critical Belief Scale’ he argues that not all nurses should engage in this type of interaction with all patients: there is a case to be made for some nurses to ‘specialize’ in such interactions, and others to avoid them altogether.

One of the projects funded by the AHRC/ESRC ‘religion and society’ programme has been investigating the work of Muslim chaplains in Britain. The objective of the project was to see how the British context is facilitating the professionalization of Muslim religious leadership. It was also written in the bid that data gathered from the project will be compared with international perspectives on Muslim chaplaincy, specifically the American context. The aim is to develop an understanding of Muslim chaplaincy in USA, and its growth and development, compared to the UK. To compare similarities and differences between accredited chaplaincy programmes provided in the United States and the courses in the UK. It also aimed at identifying gaps in current international discussion on Muslim chaplaincy, and identify future research possibilities.

This paper will examine some of the literature (academic and non-academic) available on American Muslim chaplaincy and a comparison will be made with the dataset from the British Muslim chaplaincy project. The literature will be looked at through the lens of four major themes which are parallel to the themes used in the AHRC/ESRC project.

People: who decides to become a Muslim chaplain in USA? What qualifications and experience do they bring to the role?

Practice: How do they minister their chaplaincy? To what extent are they influenced by predominant Christian models?

Politics: to what extent are state politics and institutional policies affecting the way they perform their role? What are the tensions and challenges within Muslim chaplaincy circles?

Potential: to what extent are they contributing to discussions about the wider religious leadership of Muslims? Are they contributing to debates about issues of criminal justice, health and bereavement, or inter-faith relations within and outside Muslim communities?

Stream B (13.30 – 15.00)

Richmond Building F Floor Escalate Chair: Bob Davidson

Paper 1: Enric Benavent (13.30)
How to attend people’s spiritual needs in the social services is not clearly stipulated in Catalonia. Whereas in the prison, health and education service legislation regulates attention to these needs, who has to attend to them and who has to pay for them, no such regulation or guideline exists in social services. People’s spiritual needs are dealt with privately, at the discretion of those social workers or social educators in the specific service.

Even the social services provided by the most professionalised institutions of the Catholic Church are given without any intention to proselytise. It is in social action initiatives carried out by volunteers or nuns both in the Catholic Church and other religions that a more explicit concern for the spiritual dimension of the person being dealt with can be found.

However, the relationship between spirituality and social education or social work is clear. Social workers and social educators are working with people whose lives are characterised by loss and distress. Vulnerability increases the spiritual dimension of people, but to meet the spiritual needs of our users, we must first have them identified. Most professionals in our country are not prepared to work these issues. Social work and social education courses are not teaching on spirituality. Therefore, service users feel unable to raise their spiritual needs because they do not receive appropriate response from workers.

Once the interest in the spiritual dimension of people is increasing everywhere, it is important to sensitize social workers and social educators to take care of this dimension of human beings.

The profession of social work has a core commitment to applying the principles of diversity and anti discriminatory perspectives. Recent legislative changes and their associated cultural values and norms have brought into contest some faith based values and some expressions of lesbian, gay and bi-sexual sexuality. Such tension is apparent in social work as it reflects the values of the society it operates in. Social work education has been charged with having a dominant outlook that is secular humanist neglecting the relevance of spiritual matters. Equally, the diversity of sexual orientation has been underdeveloped in social work training with a need identified to challenge heterosexist discriminatory assumptions to better prepare students for practice. For learners to integrate such training into practice requires exploration of their own values and identity. Student or educator personal disclosure in higher education of religious beliefs or LGB sexual identity needs to be carefully managed. This paper presents findings from a social work student attitudanal survey which explored the commonalities of faith based and LGB perspectives both being neglected in social work education. This paper considers how social work education can be simultaneously anti discriminatory around both religious and sexual diversity and how social work students can be equipped to handle the tensions that may arise.

Social work is one of the youngest professions in Romania. With less than twenty years since Romanian universities saw the first social work graduates, one could even say that this young profession is still struggling with certain identity issues – not untypical for its teen age! One of these issues has to do with the relationship between professional practice and religious values (of the clients or the practitioners). On the one hand, social work in Romania is not immune to the widespread tendency towards secularisation of professions in Europe and beyond. Any inclusion of religious matters in the social work education or practice is, according to this tendency, viewed with great reserve and suspicion. On the other hand, both the education and the practice cannot ignore the fact that Romania is a highly religious nation. Moreover, some of the new trends in social work highlight the importance of a culturally-sensitive practice, the need for the practitioner to build on the client’s strengths, etc., thus suggesting the relevance of religious matters (along with many other factors) in the social work education and practice. As an effort to address this dilemma, the author has been involved over the last ten years in establishing and directing a Master’s program on spirituality and social work at the West University of Timisoara – an experience which will be briefly outlined in the paper.

Anthropologists, if not theologians and sociologists of religion, have long recognised that belief consists in far more than a set of linguistic propositions – that belief is not simply ‘a linguistic event’ (Morgan). Belief may be much more productively described as emerging from and enfolded within the practices, things and feelings that shape individuals and communities over time. Beliefs are what people do, how they do it, where and when, not just why, which is the traditional framing of contents of belief.

Using examples from data collected between 2004 -2006 in south Cumbria in a study of 70 older women, some of whom remain affiliates of the Christian church in one form or another, I attempt to illustrate how paying attention to practices, things and feelings enriches our understanding not only of belief(s) but of the members of the communities who practise them.

Morgan, David. "Introduction: The Matter of Belief." Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief. Ed. Morgan, David. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. 1-17.

The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which Muslim congregations in Sweden cooperate with organizations in the public and voluntary sectors and to identify the internal and external factors that favor or disfavor such cooperation. The study is based on a nationwide survey of Swedish local Muslim congregations (n=105), and is the first survey of its kind i Europe. Muslim congregations in Sweden are not only religious meeting places, but also centers for the organization of a broad range of social welfare services. According to an isolationist discourse, often voiced by the media, voluntary social work of this kind is seen as contributing to self-segregation. Claims of this type seem, however, to be largely unfounded. The Swedish Muslim congregations that carry out the most voluntary social work are those most interested in cooperation with other voluntary organizations and with local authorities of different types. Ethnic heterogeneity is another internal factor that affects the degree of cooperation. Congregations that have an open attitude towards different Muslim traditions, the pre-condition for a multi-ethnic organization, is also those most interested in cooperation with other organizations and institutions. Of central importance are also different external factors. In Sweden, cooperation between organizations and institutions is strongly encouraged, which results in a system that provides the Muslim congregations with opportunity structures. Other external factors that influence the degree of cooperation include the local demographic and socio-economic situation: there is a higher degree of cooperation in small municipalities with many social problems.

There is currently considerable debate over the aims and objectives of chaplaincies and what the nature of their provisions should be in the 21st century across a number of institutional settings including universities, prisons, hospitals and armed forces. Undoubtedly, such provisions have transformed radically in order to keep step with a changing society that is increasingly pluralistic, secular and multi-ethnic. In reflecting these challenges, chaplaincies have moved from an exclusively Christian ethical and service-based provider to cater for the challenges presented by a broad range of needs. Today, further changes in chaplaincy provisions can be observed in some of these settings which are progressively departing from their narrow ‘religious’ base. There is now a discernible tentative step towards embracing provisions encompassing a more holistic vision of ‘Well-being’ and ‘spirituality’.