Abstract
How can theological education respond to the shape-shifting and expanding nature of chaplaincy? What is the tension between maintaining professional standards while allowing space for new forms of chaplaincy to emerge, especially in increasingly interreligious contexts? What pedagogical innovations need to be developed to support training of chaplains? This chapter highlights the Master of Divinity program with the focus on training of Buddhist chaplains at Union Theological Seminary (NYC), a historically liberal Protestant seminary. It articulates the Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement program, structure, and rationale in the context of Buddhist chaplaincy in the U.S. The authors explore interreligious pedagogical interventions that allow meaningful religious difference to endure while cultivating the possibility for connections to be realized across that difference.
