Research project In Sweden, contemporary research on military spiritual care is severely limited. There is therefore a great need to develop the ways in which military spiritual care can be understood, described, defined and developed in the face of current and future challenges.
The project consists of interviews with Ukrainian military chaplains, questionnaires/interviews with Swedish military chaplains and field observations of lived religion in military contexts as well as knowledge gathering from and participation in NATO research groups in relevant areas.
Swedish Armed Forces
Military activities – from training, international operations to war – actualize existential concerns and accelerate existential stresses among military personnel. The war in Ukraine has put a particular spotlight on these kinds of spiritual, moral and life issue-oriented challenges on and behind the front lines. Since the end of the 1500s, Swedish military chaplains have addressed such an existential dimension within the framework of military spiritual care in the Swedish Armed Forces. The growing awareness of the existential challenges of the battlefield, as well as the risk of conflict in Sweden and/or our immediate area, makes military spiritual care more important and relevant than it has been for a very long time. In Sweden, however, contemporary research on military spiritual care is severely limited. There is therefore a great need to develop the ways in which military spiritual care can be understood, described, defined and developed in the face of current and future challenges.
Four overarching research questions are formulated within this project.
The project consists of interviews with Ukrainian military chaplains, questionnaires/interviews with Swedish military chaplains and field observations of lived religion in military contexts as well as knowledge gathering from and participation in NATO research groups in relevant areas.
The interview study with Ukrainian military chaplains is designed to learn and understand military spiritual care and its challenges during a full-scale war.
Questionnaires/interviews with Swedish military chaplains and field observations are used to understand the Swedish context.
The two empirical and contextual studies complement each other and aim to create a robust knowledge production.
The analysis findings from the project will be used specifically by the Swedish Armed Forces to gain a deeper understanding of Swedish military spiritual care given the four research questions. Articles from the project are intended to be published in peer-reviewed journals and will then be available to those who want to know more about the results of the studies.
