Where Is the Bachata in Spiritual Care?

This book offers a new formulation, "decolonial spiritual care after religion,” in order to expand the way spiritual care is understood and recognize the colonial legacy of religion.Though often discussed within postcolonial fields, the colonial histories of religion and spiritual care are not as frequent a talking point within religious circles. Chanmi Byun seeks to change that, affirming that spiritual care, as it is currently understood, needs to be decolonized. Adopting the metaphor of a genre of social dance called “bachata,” Byun deconstructs the colonial understanding of religion, widening the definition of spiritual care to attend to the embodied reality of both the caregiver and the care receiver and a form of spiritual care that extends beyond the professional care setting. This book affirms that the way spiritual care is understood and practiced without interrogating the category of religion itself and its colonial legacy may not be sufficiently holistic to care for the multiplicity of people.