ABSTRACT
Chris Swift is a significant figure in healthcare chaplaincy. When writing this article, he had just become President of the College of Health Care Chaplains and the doctoral research he was pursuing at the time - using auto-ethnographic methods - went on the be published as Hospital Chaplaincy in the Twenty-first Century: The Crisis of Spiritual Care on the NHS (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014). Building on the foundations of pioneering figures like Michael Wilson, and extending these for future research and development, Swift explores what remains a vexed question of identity in much chaplaincy experience and reflection. Here that question is focused on the tension between an identity located among the medical professions, and one rooted in the faith tradition. The professional status of chaplains has emerged as a pressing issue and such issues often play a significant role in driving practical theology research.
