Master of Divinity in Interreligious Chaplaincy

The MDiv in Interreligious Chaplaincy program will prepare you for a career in chaplaincy and provide you with interreligious and intercultural spiritual care competency. You’ll learn to serve as an effective and compassionate minister, working with people from diverse faith backgrounds and walks of life.

This interfaith chaplaincy program may be a good fit for you if you plan to pursue a career in chaplaincy in any of a number of contexts, including:

• the military
• hospitals and other healthcare settings
• prisons
• schools
• first responder units
• corporate settings

You also may pursue a career providing pastoral and spiritual care within religious and spiritual communities.

Concentration Learning Outcomes

In addition to achieving the core MDiv degree learning outcomes, a graduate of the Interreligious Chaplaincy program will be able to:

• demonstrate skills for effective, professional, ethical, and compassionate pastoral and spiritual care to a diversity of persons;
• craft, deliver, and reflect on a sermon or public address that demonstrates effective speaking form/style and content based on a selected context;
• articulate effective strategies for pastoral/spiritual care and counseling with a person or group of a given cultural identity that demonstrate an informed understanding of the student’s own culture(s) and theology, as well as the behavioral and social sciences;
• articulate effective strategies for providing spiritual care in a given interreligious setting; 
• incorporate an informed understanding of trauma into describing its impact on the spiritual well-being of individuals, families, and communities;
• articulate their own theology/spirituality of trauma informed pastoral care, particularly as it relates to their ministerial/vocational path; and
• identify appropriate specific strategies for trauma healing that they can incorporate into their practice as a spiritual/pastoral care provider.

United’s MDiv at a Glance

• 72 credits
• Twenty-four 3-credit courses, including one field experience
• A final thesis or project is not required, but you can choose to complete a thesis as an elective course
• Can be completed in three years if you take a full-time course load (24 credits per year)
• Most MDiv concentrations, including Interreligious Chaplaincy, can be completed entirely via distance learning; many courses can be taken completely asynchronously

Employment as a chaplain requires completion of additional CPE units beyond United’s degree requirements and endorsement/support by a recognized faith group, which may require additional coursework. BCCI certification, which is a common employment requirement, requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution and an additional 2,000 hours of chaplaincy work experience after CPE.