How Organizational Leaders Negotiate Religious Differences: Frameworks of Mandate and Interpersonal Care

Abstract

Abstract The religious composition of the United States is rapidly shifting. As institutions and their stakeholders negotiate the needs of an increasingly diverse public, leaders of national chaplaincy organizations offer insight into how actors can effectively understand and engage matters of religious pluralism. This article identifies two distinct institutional frameworks (“mandate” and “interpersonal care”) that provide chaplaincy leaders with different schemas, tools, and strategies to use when understanding and motivating their engagement with religiously diverse publics. Using interviews with sixteen national chaplaincy leaders working in public and private settings, we delineate how institutional leaders interpret, articulate, and fulfill their roles as negotiators of religious differences within their respective frameworks. Our findings allow scholars and leaders to better understand how institutions and their actors can successfully interact with a diversifying, religiously pluralistic public.