Abstract
Research about religion and community is more likely to look at religious communities than at the presence and significance of religion in secular settings. The author considers religion in such settings by asking how religion and spirituality are present in one set of large academic hospitals in the United States. She focuses on the physical spaces – typically called chapels or meditation rooms – these hospitals demarcate for religious or spiritual purposes. She finds hospitals increasingly removing religious symbols and objects from these spaces in an effort to make them more versatile and accessible to a range of people. Rather than multi-faith spaces shared by people from a range of religious backgrounds, hospitals are creating seemingly neutral spaces focused on art or nature that sometimes nevertheless continue to reflect underlying Christian assumptions. A clearer picture of how religion is present in secular organizations is essential to a complete understanding of how it operates in a range of institutions, sectors and national contexts.