Maybe we could rename the job, ‘Official Military Missionaries’

October 20, 2005

It’s been a rough couple of years for military chaplains. For reasons that defy comprehension, several congressional Republicans seem anxious to make things worse.

The problems seemed to bottom out two years ago when we learned that the Navy had punished dozens of military chaplains for offenses ranging from sexual abuse to fraud. The Navy found that the misconduct rate among these ministers was higher than it was for any other group of military officers.

Yet, the problems didn’t fade. Shortly after that, a chaplain was apparently punished for theological disagreements with superior officers. Not long after, the Air Force Academy was rocked by a controversy regarding chaplains proselytizing and harassing religious minorities with official support.

Some congressional Republicans consider this recent history and have decided that the administration should make it do everything possible to exacerbate the problems.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) is spearheading the effort to persuade the Bush administration to ease the Pentagon’s policies on prayer.

Jones will send a letter to the president tomorrow to make the case that Christian military chaplains in particular have been muzzled by the Department of Defense (DoD).

Specifically, Jones and about 50 of his colleagues want Christian chaplains to be able to proselytize on the job. In other words, we’d have official government ministers, whose salary is paid with tax dollars, preaching Christianity to American troops. Suggesting that, at a minimum, official military prayers should be “non-sectarian” is, in the minds of these congressional critics, “censorship of Christian beliefs.”

What a mess. No wonder James Madison thought military chaplains were a bad idea.

I certainly see the point, but understand that Christian chaplains that are “required” to say a prayer that cannot reference the Trinitarian God that they worship and, frankly, the god in which the owe more allegiance toward than this nation is to say that the Constitution requires them to commit idolatry.

Same with Jewish and Muslim chaplains. Whether the Trinity, YHWH, or Allah, the reference itself requires specificity…it invokes a narrative, their place in this world, and their tradition that are separate from and no way reliant upon their being a citizen of the U.S.

Simply put, religious people must be allowed to pray using the particularities of their respective faith…otherwise, their god is the Constitution. And that is idolatry.

To say that prayer = proselytizing is to say that all prayer is coercive and hegemonic. That may be true, but so what? What’s not coercive about state-sponsored prayer that requires it to be directed to some god whose existence is contingent upon the birth of the U.S….the god of American civil order that occasionally requires you to kill on its behalf (eg. war, self-defense for the good of civil order, etc.)? Besides, is the chaplain supposed to allow the govt. to have more say over his life than the god s/he worships in the particularities of their faith? Who, exactly, said that, and why should they have more sway over the lives of believers than the history and tradition of their respective religion?

Anyway, if your induction is correct, we should hope that it has a hegemonic effect: maybe, just maybe, the new convert will take Jesus seriously and begin to love their enemy and pray for them, and no longer want to do them any harm. The Christian cannot take Jesus seriously and, on his command, both love their enemy and do them no harm AND pick up a gun and shoot him.

That would be the end of state-sponsored war in the name of America, don’t you think? Imagine what our military would look like if all of the sudden the Christians who make up its ranks refused to pick up and fire a gun toward someone?

Of course, this only reinforces my own vew that the military should not have chaplains primarily because the chaplain should be clear that serving in that role will require them to worship a god that by definition is forbidden. If the Christian chaplain were to take their job seriously, they’d be insubordinate and, frankly, the military wouldn’t let them be a part of the service because instead of blessing a soldier, s/he’d tell the soldier that to kill another person simply because they live in a land that flies a different colored flag is a sin.

My prayer is that Christians will one day come to understand that being Christian and serving in the military are mutually exclusive ways of life. Doing one requires you to walk away from the other w/o condition.

But instead, with “Christian” military chaplains, the roles are confused…people believe they can be both.

That’s the real issue here: that in the name of the State we’re actually telling people that the Constitution has more control over people than the history, text, and tradition of their particular religion, and whoever or whatever has more power to control your acts of faith and, frankly, your life…that’s your god.

That may be a good to some…I can’t imagine why the Jews would want anything different for Christians and Muslims considering what’s been done to them throughout history in the name of other religions, or why the stockholders of a company wouldn’t want this, too, considering that 1 in every 21 verses in the Bible speak directly toward economic inequality amongst God’s people being a sin…but it’s not at all a good for those who allow text, tradition, and history of the Church to control more than the Constitution.

If it were me, I’d be doing it anyway, regardless of what the Constitution says. And if they bring me up on charges, then I’ll know I’ve done my job.

The Gospel doesn’t exist unless and until it is read in a counter-cultural community called the Church.

  • Religions are inherently tribal. Nation-states are essentially defined by territorial jurisdiction. Who are you (family, language, religion) is a very different question that Where are you (which laws are you under).

    Madison was exactly correct. The two realms cannot be seemlessly mingled. We should also quit the (hypocritical) nonsense of prayers before legislative sessions, “God bless America” speech endings, “under God” pledges and “in God we trust” money.

  • Ed,
    Not necessarily. Read Michael Mann’s Sources of Social Power and you’ll see that religion actually was an important reason civilization emerged as well as a means by which nation-states can use ideological power in order to make institutions last perpetually (and thus solidify their control over everyone within the territorial boundaries).

    In short, at least since history began, no important religion was about individual liberty but rather a mechanism the state can use to justify the existence of the current power structure.

    After all, the same Christians who bless the USA also blessed despots like Constantine and Charlemagne.

  • Er, not necessarily that religions are inherently tribal and that religion and the state cannot be seamlessly mingled.

    That’s what I meant.

  • Ed:

    I agree completely. But I’m Christian (a Mennonite), and as Christian I agree with you not because the telos of eliminating religious gestures from national symbols or civil dialogue is for the good of the country, but because it’s elimination is singularly good for the Church.

    In short, I don’t agree because the Constitution mandates it, but rather because of my ecclesial tradition, historty, and Bible.

    The sustanence or maintenance of a particular form of govt. that a nation chooses to govern by is not ever the type of good that Christians should sacrifice their particularites for. Rather, we’re going to worship and carry on as we’re commanded to do regardless what Caesar says we can do or say or cannot do or say. If they kill us, big deal…it’s an affirmation that we’re a threat to their power.

    Many a Christian forgets that it was Rome that killed Jesus, not the Jews. And Rome did it because they considered Jesus to be a real threat to their power over the same people. Rightly so, I might add. Unlike today, Rome recognized that if people took following Jesus seriously, it necessarily meant that they would not be good Roman citizens…that the two are mutually exclusive categories.

    It’s no accident that the Church is referred to as the “Kingdom of God”…by definition, it is a political entity that has a king and subjects. But, unlike the State, it doesn’t “have” a justice or economic system…it IS an economy, it IS justice. And it’s proper place is not a homogenization to the govt. of the particularly nation-state it finds itself in, but rather to stand as a rival in opposition to ALL nations so as to be able to fulfill one of its many missions: speaking Truth to Power.

    That’s not to say that carrying out our practices and beliefs is not easier in a liberal democracy as opposed to some form of authoritarianism, but sacrificing some aspect of our religious faith in order to create or sustain liberal democracy merely because it’s “easier” on us is paradoxical if not altogether ironic: the sacrifice of the particularities of the faith transforms the Church into something that looks like Church, acts like Church, smells like Church, and talks like Church, but is not at all “Church.”

    In effect, the Church has been killed for the good of the social order….only this time it wasn’t because the Church was a threat, but rather because the members allowed it to happen and did it to themselves.

    Christians kill themselves when, whether intentionally or unintentionally, they confuse civil religion with the Church. And this happens because they’ve bought into the presupposition that its the State that dictates what you’re allowed to do and not do. But instead of just ignoring Caesar and doing it anyway, many a Christian nowadays sees the solution as “Christianizing” the social order…of having a Jesus-friendly Caesar who will then grant them the permission they see as necessary to carry out their faith.

    Bullshit. With government shekels come government shackles, and whenever governments appear to give you a little, they’re always going to require something in return. Unfortunately, the price is often required participation in war, violence, or an unjust economic practices. And if not outright participation, then a promise to remain quiet in the face of Caesar’s indiscretion.

    That’s the actual problem with the Christian right. They’ve willingly abdicated their position of standing in opposition to the government, but only so long as that government is in the hands of someone who they see as “one of them.” And why Democrats haven’t allowed someone, say… well, like me…to come in and rip them to shreds by “out-Christianing” them I don’t understand. Above all, showing their beliefs as being ultimately a selling out of the Church and, even more important, an active assisting of the State to kill the Church merely for the gain and/or maintenance of secular political power is beyond me. Every time they use the premises required to argue that Roe ought to be overturned, or that the State should forbid gays to wed, the commit the sin of idolatry. Every…single…time, the sell out the Church b/c they’re confused as to who they owe their allegiance to, and it’s maddening to not see Democrats come at it from this angle.

    So, while I agree, my simple goal is to maintain the separation of the two political entities so that the Church can be in the position of speaking Truth to Power, rather than willingly succumbing to it and remaining mum in return for acceptance.

    Whether from the left or the right.

  • “Why is religion the one area the Republicans don’t want to privatize?”

    Because it is too valuable as an institution of thought control & as a justification specifically for Republican control. Anything that can further political power is foolish to waste, which is why governments will inevitably attempt to suborn religions that can increase their power.

  • Darren, I’ve been out all day, so it’s probably too late for you to see this, but I agree with you. If I were religious, which I’m not, I wouldn’t want my beliefs tied in any way to a the visicitudes of a secular state. “Render unto Caesar” has a flip side, too; and failing to maintain the two realms corrupts religion, imho, far more than the state. Partly in response to Stalin’s question (How many troops does the Pope have?), the Pope has far more power than he ever had when he led a physical army through what became Italy.

    Mr. Fribble, I don’t think that I disagree with what you said. Religion certainly did play a major role in the emergence of what we call civilization, including the emergence of the nation-state we take so much for granted. And states do, and have, used religions to justify (even sanctify) earthly power and to maintain control. I’m just saying that they are distinctly different organizing systems, the one based in beliefs generated within the group (often an extended kin or language group), the other an arrangement of territorial governance internationally recognized. When one makes virtually religious demands of the citizenry (hyperpatriortism, e.g.), or when one tries to govern from a narrow sectarian perspective (views on sabbath businesses, contraception, pornography), the realms become confused and problem inevitably ensue. When my beliefs contradict yours we have no religious way to settle our differences (my Holy Book tells me one thing; yours tells you something else); in a nation-state we have to have a set of shared beliefs/institutions which will settle things. If we don’t share religions there has to be a Jeffersonian wall of separation.

  • Ed:

    Thanks (I’m here at the office waiting on a jury to return w/ a verdict….not for me, but my client). And you’re right again…the Church has much more to lose than the State. Witness it’s enthusiastic response to the church being co-opted by the National Socialist in Germany. From that co-option arose one of the greatest theological treatises of the 20th century (the Barmen Declaration). But a document like that is meaningless to a church whose fearful, pathetic apathy helped foster the murder of 12 million innocent people….all because they were afraid it would be them were they to speak up and say “No!”

    Goddammit, I’m tired of that weak-ass bullshit. It’s the exact same thing here when faced with the destitute poverty that is growing day by day in every city and town in America. A Church that is fearful of saying at thing lest they loose political influence and/or tax exempt status (which, btw, speaking out and against federal leaders in that manner is seen as “political speech” and under that pretext churches are hammered financially…or that’s what they’re told in this right wing cabal meetings “just in case” anyone gets any ideas).

    I’m not comparing the standing idly by of the German National Church w/ the lack of response to the poor here…there’s a difference between accomplice culpability by silence for the slaugher of millions vs. sitting and doing nothing to help the poor as an institution by speaking out, but the thinking behind is the same: fear and self-preservation. Which are the very last 2 things that the Church should worry about.

    Am I correct inferring that Winch is the source of your critique?

    Your initial post reminds me of something that is oftentimes thrown out toward the theologian who I did my M.T.S. with (Stanley Hauerwas), and I found out later that religious “tribalism” has its roots with Peter Winch. It’s strong stuff…a very good way of looking at things.

  • Ed,
    I don’t disagree with anything you wrote, either. Jefferson (and you) are right, as far as I’m concerned, with what “should” be. But government interests are not necessarily our interests, and we should recognize that–even with laws (or intent) expressly to the contrary–states will naturally gravitate toward taking control of religion as a means of expanding power. Problems will ensue, as you pointed out (after all, the Byzantine Empire fell apart to a significant degree because of religious persecution by the emperors), but no one has ever accused governments of taking the long perspective!

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