The chaplain as the complete philosopher

This paper argues that professional chaplaincy must reflect an authentic understanding of the religion and science dialogue by drawing not simply on the popular culture's views but on the long traditions of serious scholarship and research that explores both these worlds. The author claims that what often passes as science is really scientism or technophilia and that such distortions should not be allowed to guide or define the chaplain's or the clinical educator's healthcare ministry. The chaplain, as a reflection of religion, is obligated to draw on all of humankind's projects of enquiry-science, art, humanities, theological and religious studies, ethics- and ought not become a captive of a Zeitgeist that invites idolatry either in the forms of scientism and technophilia or in the forms of provincial and superficial understandings of religion.