The book explores the intersection of religion and incarceration in America, focusing on the implications of faith-based prison programs for the separation of church and state. It examines a 2005 lawsuit that questioned the constitutionality of a religious rehabilitation initiative in an Iowa prison, raising critical issues about the privileges granted to participating inmates. Through this legal case, the author delves into broader societal questions about the relationship between faith and the penal system, highlighting the complexities of religious influence in correctional environments.
Most people in the United States today no longer live their lives under the guidance of local institutionalized religious leadership, such as rabbis, ministers, and priests; rather, liberals and conservatives alike have taken charge of their own religious or spiritual practices. This shift, along with other social and cultural changes, has opened up a perhaps surprising space for chaplains—spiritual professionals who usually work with the endorsement of a religious community but do that work away from its immediate hierarchy, ministering in a secular institution, such as a prison, the military, or an airport, to an ever-changing group of clients of widely varying faiths and beliefs. In A Ministry of Presence, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan explores how chaplaincy works in the United States—and in particular how it sits uneasily at the intersection of law and religion, spiritual care, and government regulation. Responsible for ministering to the wandering souls of the globalized economy, the chaplain works with a clientele often unmarked by a specific religious identity, and does so on behalf of a secular institution, like a hospital. Sullivan's examination of the sometimes heroic but often deeply ambiguous work yields fascinating insights into contemporary spiritual life, the politics of religious freedom, and the never-ending negotiation of religion's place in American institutional life.
Portrays the unsuccessful struggle of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish
families in Boca Raton to preserve the practice of placing such religious
artifacts as crosses and stars of David on the graves of the city-owned burial
ground. This book demonstrates how citizens from all walks of life were
harassed to define just what their religion is.
