In spiritual care research, studies on military chaplaincy are underrepresented, and most available studies center on moral injury. This article contributes to the existing literature on spiritual care in the military by presenting a study of 13 case descriptions of spiritual care provision by military chaplains from the Netherlands. These were analyzed using the framework method, a qualitative method of systematically searching for patterns in data sets, in order to answer the question: How do military chaplains contribute to the moral resilience of soldiers and veterans experiencing moral stress? The analytical framework was constructed on the basis of Doehring’s (Pastoral Psychology, 64(5), 635–649, 2015) conceptual understanding of moral resilience as the outcome of processes of spiritual integration of moral stress in caregiving relationships. This study shows that soldiers experience moral stress when core values associated with ‘being a soldier’ conflict with expectations or actions of soldiers themselves or of others, with the way the military organization functions, or with the spiritual notion of ‘being a good, loving and loveworthy human being’. In their responses to moral stress, chaplains contribute to moral resilience by engaging in co-creating spiritual orienting frameworks which accommodate a sense of goodness of self and others and allow for nuanced, biographically rooted moral views. Soldiers experience conversations and brief encounters with chaplains as relational ‘moments of goodness’, which may also contribute to moral resilience.

Spiritual care interventions depend upon the context in which care is provided, its institutional setting and the actors involved. In order to understand the relationship between interventions in spiritual care and the context in which care is provided, we study the spiritual interventions of military chaplains against the background of the armed forces. In our study, we demonstrate that the military context needs its own conceptualization to understand the pastoral practices of military chaplains. This article uses a qualitative comparative methodology and is based upon 13 case studies that have been generated over the course of five years by a team of eight military chaplains within the framework of the Dutch Case Study Project. The analysis results in four concepts that describe the relationship between spiritual care practices and the context of the armed forces in more detail: structuring pastoral availability, positioning within the military environment, existential negotiation of being human and being a soldier and transforming military time. We conclude that the study of spiritual care in context leads to a contextualized understanding of spiritual care practices and stimulates comparison of pastoral care practices across contexts.

This representative survey amongst 653 ministers in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) maps their experiences and views with regard to euthanasia. We found that three-quarters of the ministers have experience with euthanasia requests from their parishioners. Almost two-thirds of them respect a parishioner’s euthanasia request. Differentiating the answers on the basis of modality, we see differences in attitudes, both regarding euthanasia itself and regarding the pastoral approach. Although ministers have considerable experience with euthanasia, the open questions posed reveal that ministers encounter many difficulties and dilemmas: there is urgent need for discussion and support. The article intends to contribute to the search for a best pastoral practice in dealing with euthanasia requests and explores the need for a renewed role for the PKN in the social and political debate on euthanasia.

In the past, research was done in the Netherlands among pastors to study their attitudes and experiences regarding euthanasia. Also, the attitudes of protestant believers have been studied, however very superficially. This paper presents the results of a survey among 736 parishioners of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands about their experiences, views, and understanding of euthanasia and about what they expect from their pastor. Two-thirds of the respondents are positive about euthanasia being permissible in the Netherlands, and half of them consider euthanasia a possibility for themselves. A parishioner’s theological subdenomination (orthodox, evangelical, middle-orthodox, liberal) is related significantly to their views about euthanasia and pastoral care. Most parishioners value a central role for their pastor at the end of their lives, including those who would possibly consider euthanasia. The relevance of this survey is that a better insight in the parishioners’ wishes about euthanasia can improve the practice of pastoral care at the end of life.

What happened to the human soul in contemporary theories of preaching? The field of homiletics shows a wide variety of themes, approaches, perspectives, and theologies. Somewhere between the social critique, in postcolonial and post-human approaches, and sense-making, in cultural and experiential approaches, the issue of humanity re-emerges. This essay inquires whether and how it might be possible to re-envision preaching as a practice of care for the soul. The essay closes with a homiletical agenda in the form of three conditions for retrieving the soul in homiletics, a hermeneutical, a rhetorical, and a theological condition.