I think it’s safe to say military chaplains have had a rough few months.
Yesterday we learned that Capt. James Yee, a Muslim Army chaplain stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is being held in a Navy brig in South Carolina after getting caught with classified documents about the Arab detainees being held at the base.
Yee was reportedly arrested and brought up on espionage-related charges on Sept. 10. No one seems to know why Yee had the classified documents or what he was prepared to do with him, only that he was not supposed to have them.
Unfortunately, this is the latest in a line of controversies regarding chaplains in the U.S. military from just the last few months.
In June, The Washington Post discovered that “some Defense Department chaplain services have been directing military personnel to a Web site that promotes material from radical Muslim jihadists, including two Saudis who have been identified as Osama bin Laden’s spiritual advisers.”
In April, we learned that a Southern Baptist military chaplain serving with the troops in Iraq was using a limited supply of clean water to try and coerce conversions from hot and thirsty soldiers.
”It’s simple,” the Rev. Josh Llano explained. “They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized.” He added, “You have to be aggressive to help people find themselves in God.”
And in July the AP reported that the U.S. Navy has punished dozens of military chaplains over the last decade for offenses ranging from sexual abuse to fraud. The misconduct rate among these ministers is higher than it is for any other group of military officers.
“Navy chaplains, in fact, create a disproportionate number of problem cases,” Navy Chaplain Corps official Bradford E. Ableson wrote in a 1999 memo obtained by the AP.
The AP report uncovered chaplain-related incidents including adultery, spousal assault, and sexual harassment. One minister, Neal Destefano, was convicted and sentenced to prison for drugging and molesting two Marines.
In fact, the AP discovered that a Roman Catholic chaplain went to prison for molesting the young sons of sailors and Marines. A Seventh-day Adventist chaplain was court-martialed for an indecent assault during a counseling session. Three chaplains — a Baptist, a Catholic and a United Pentecostal Church International minister — were punished for downloading pornography onto Navy computers.
The regular military officers had a discipline rate of 2 per 1,000. The rate for chaplains was 45 per 1,000.
Remember, these are the folks the military relies on to offer spiritual and moral counseling to men and women in uniform.
I can appreciate the fact that courts have ruled that having federally-funded military chaplains in the Armed Forces does not conflict with the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. I can also recognize that the vast majority of these chaplains are not committing crimes.
Nevertheless, it appears that the military has an ongoing problem that needs serious attention. If we’re going to have chaplains offering spiritual guidance to troops stationed far from home, fine. If we’re going to have chaplains abusing the troops and their families, and smuggling classified information about suspected terrorists, then I have to wonder if perhaps the chaplaincy program is doing more harm than good.
I think it’s worth noting that James Madison, who drafted the First Amendment and is often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution” by historians, strongly opposed the appointment of any chaplains to military service almost 200 years ago.
Writing in his famed “Detached Memoranda,” Madison noted the motive behind providing troops with a chaplain is “laudable,” but he nevertheless concluded that it was better to “disarm…the precedent of chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of religion.”
Perhaps these recent scandals will revive discussion over whether this is a program worth keeping. Then again, I’m not holding my breath. Anyone who dared question why we should continue to provide federal funds for these ministers would immediately be labeled anti-religious.