‘We are All Disaster Chaplains Now’: Pastoral Accountability and Planning Care in Pandemic Reality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Disaster chaplains are there to support the temporal mission of disaster response and recovery, and the spiritual realities of symbolizing the presence and care of the divine. These two dimensions of chaplaincy speak of a systemic accountability. This article focuses on the formation of pastoral accountability in seminary education, chaplaincy practice, and disaster spiritual care. Drawing on the work of Carrie Doehring, it discusses the need to foreground safety and accountability during the COVID-19 pandemic, where religious leaders are called on to practice in ways more familiar to chaplains, being dually accountable to the temporal realities of pandemic protocols as well as pastoral realities, requiring acts of both compassion and assertion. The COVID-19 disaster highlights the need in seminary education to teach not just a trauma-informed approach, but a ‘disaster-informed’ approach, highlighting a systemic accountability needed in the long haul of disasters that require both immediate and sustained response.