Over
the years since Katcoff v. Marsh, a number
of incidents
have drawn
attention to some
of
the gray areas in
the law.32 In 2008,
two professors
from George Washington University Law
School noted that “constitutional issues
involving the
military
chaplaincy have
progressed from a low simmer to a
rolling boil.”33 In their article “Instruments of
Accommodation: The
Military Chaplaincy
and the Constitution,” Ira Lupu
and Robert Tuttle reviewed these challenges and concluded that when
viewed
“through the legal prism of permissive accommodation,” the military
chaplaincy‟s “basic features
appear to fit comfortably within
our constitutional tradition.”34 They did, however,
have some real concern about
certain specific practices
within the chaplaincy.
Like Drazin, Lupu and Tuttle were worried about chaplain insensitivity to soldiers‟ free
exercise rights,
especially pertaining to the act of proselytization.
They
noted that while
chaplains (or any officers, for that matter)
are forbidden to harass soldiers
about
their faith choices,
or use non-religious events
as an
opportunity to proselytize, “chaplains may argue
that
proselytizing is an essential part
of their ministry, and—as long as performed in a non-coercive manner—is fully consistent with service members‟ rights of free exercise.”35 The chaplaincy has resolved
this particular dilemma by defining proselytizing and evangelizing as
two
separate and distinct activities,
one which
is expressly forbidden (proselytizing)
and the other which is not
(evangelizing.) This
topic will be explored further at
another
point in this paper.
Beyond the issue of improper proselytizing, Lupu and Tuttle expressed concern
that
something as simple
as pastoral care, inappropriately provided by chaplains in combat zones, might tread on the rights of soldiers.
In a remote area, the service member who wishes to confide in a chaplain is
not likely to have a great deal of choice; unless he waits for the
occasional visit of clergy
of different faiths to provide formal worship, the
service member will have contact only with the unit‟s assigned
chaplain.…The temporal and spatial
likelihood of grave physical danger,
the absence of a service member‟s choice of particular
faith affiliation on
the part of the chaplain, and the lack of formal supervision cumulatively
present a significant
risk of unwanted religious persuasion in this
context.36
They suggested that
the best way to avoid this “unwanted
religious persuasion” is
to develop standards that “prohibit
pro-active,
chaplain-initiated religious persuasion by
chaplains in any context
in which service members might
be regarded as both
vulnerable and
deprived of adequate choice of religious
confidant.”37 This approach seems rather
heavy-handed and legalistic.
It would so tie the hands of chaplains
that they could hardly
speak to soldiers
without fear of a legal
complaint. There may be a more moderate approach
that both buffers
soldiers from unwanted
religious
counsel yet keeps the full range of skill
and talent offered by the
chaplain available
to them.
Pluralism Challenges in the
Chaplaincy
Following Katcoff v.
Marsh, the Army chaplaincy paid
more attention to the need
for pluralism. However, this emphasis on
pluralism does not change
the obligation for
chaplains to remain faithful to
the tenets of
their faith groups. There will always remain
a delicate balance between
the two. In her
book American Evangelicals
and
the U.S. Military, Loveland suggests
that the chaplaincy has
been fairly successful
in maintaining this balance by encouraging both loyalty to denomination and cooperative
pluralism.38 Army
field manuals stress that the
spiritual
authority for
chaplains is derived from
their religious organization, not from the military,
and they perform chaplain
duties within the principles
of their respective churches.39 But just
as chaplains are required to uphold the
principles of the religious
communities
they represent, they also
work within a government
institution with a
diversity of
faith groups. So the churches must ensure that
the clergypersons they endorsed for the
chaplaincy can manage
activities
in the pluralistic environment while remaining true to their denominations. To help establish standards and provide support for
this endorsement process,
an organization was formed in 1982 bringing together
official representatives
of
all the faith communities
who endorse clergypersons for service as chaplains in the
armed forces. Known as
the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (NCMAF),
they developed a code of ethics that
recognizes both the direction given by an
ecclesiastical endorser and the
need
to respect the beliefs and practices of
others.40
Unfortunately,
not
all chaplains have fully embraced the concept of
cooperative pluralism. This is not
surprising, considering the
emphasis some Christian religious bodies place on conversion of those
who
are not Christian. A fundamentalist chaplain
may
feel that his
or her personal responsibility to share
the Gospel of
Jesus Christ with non-Christians conflicts
with the concept of religious
tolerance and inter-religious
dialogue.41 Loveland described a situation
in the 1990s, when evangelical
chaplains felt tension between
their beliefs and the system of cooperative
pluralism. In an
article for Military Chaplains‟ Review, one chaplain recalled
witnessing
“handwringing sessions when our most orthodox brethren [sic] have lamented the possibility of Buddhist, Baha‟i, Hare Krishna, or even—Heaven forbid!—„Moonie‟
Chaplains entering our well-paid inner sanctum.”42 Another chaplain related experiences of interaction with
fundamentalist chaplains
who, despite the expectation of cooperative pluralism, treated him
as if he were subversive and
immoral because his beliefs did not match theirs.43
Chaplain Thomas Schreck, a Unitarian Universalist chaplain,
recounts conversations
in which he was
asked “How can you
wear a cross?” and, “How can
you be
a chaplain?”
and, “Don‟t you know you‟ll die in your sins?” “Based upon his experiences, Shreck questioned whether most
military personnel truly accepted
religious pluralism in the armed forces. „If many members of our community cannot deal with chaplains
who express their religious humanism, how shall they ever deal
with chaplains who worship
Buddha, Baha‟u‟llah, or the Guru Maharaji?‟ he asked.”44
Chaplain Shreck‟s prediction that many chaplains would have difficulty accepting
someone whose faith practices
are very different from the
Christian tradition was put
to the
test in 1994, when the Army accessioned the first
Muslim chaplain into the armed
forces.45 According to one observer,
when Chaplain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad came
to Ft. Bragg for his first
assignment, he
was not well received by
some
of the other chaplains. A female
Jewish Chaplain from that post stated that she was astonished to hear many of her
Christian peers saying this new Muslim chaplain was evil,
and that they would
have absolutely nothing to do
with him. She felt it
was rather ironic that she, a
Rabbi, might be the best advocate
for an Imam in this first assignment!46
As a junior chaplain on active
duty,
I had an eye-opening experience when I deployed
with 62nd Medical Group
to Somalia in 1993. Early in
the deployment an
officer who was
a member of
the
Latter Day Saints47 (LDS) made an appointment to see me and
asked, very hesitantly,
if arrangements
could be made for
an LDS service. I was
amazed at how wary this
company grade officer
was
in making this request, and asked
her why she was so reluctant
to speak with me.
She
explained that in
the past
when she or her LDS peers had approached a chaplain for help they had been strongly rebuffed.
They felt as
if they were persona non
grata, and could
expect no help from chaplains
who did not share
the
same faith practices. I
was appalled that their experience had been one of
such intolerance. Also, during the same deployment, I was
frustrated by
senior chaplains who were
unwilling to assist
her in finding
a space for
two Muslim soldiers to pray. I finally resorted to meeting with
the Pakistani Liaison Officer who
offered the
soldiers
the
opportunity to pray with
his troops.
The LDS or Muslim issues might
seem
rather tame today, considering some of
the
diversity challenges that have
arisen since
that
time. The first Wiccan48 Open
Circle49 rituals on
a military installation were
held
at Ft. Hood, Texas, in
1997. These
meetings created a firestorm of response in the press, and the
organization endured over “two years
of political attacks
from clergy, conservative
lobbying groups, and members of Congress.”50 In
the midst of this firestorm, the
chaplaincy acquitted itself quite well as
an institution, standing firm on the First
Amendment rights
of the
Fort Hood Wiccans to have
a designated location on post for their rituals.51 There
remain individual chaplains, however, who do not
willingly protect
the rights of Wiccan
soldiers to practice their faith. In 2006 a chaplain serving in
Balad, Iraq, considered changing his
endorsement from Christian
to
Wiccan. His efforts stalled because
his
proposed endorser (the Sacred Well Congregation,) did
not
meet all of the
DOD requirements
to endorse chaplains.52 Once
his intentions became public, many of his chaplain
peers refused to
interact with
him
and considered him a “traitor.”53
One of the greatest challenges faced by a fundamentalist chaplain may be
working with
female chaplains. A fundamentalist
Christian who
believes
the Bible is the inerrant authority on faith and
life will typically
find
it difficult to
accept a woman in a
church leadership position. Quoting passages from Paul‟s letters to the Corinthians54
and Timothy55,
even an organization
as
mainstream as the Southern Baptist
Convention teaches
that “women are
not in
public worship to assume a role
of authority over men
lest confusion reign
in the local church.” As
a result, they do not support
the
ordination of women to leadership
roles in the church.56 Conversely,
many
churches support
the ordination
of women and endorse female
clergy for the military chaplaincy. There are
currently 64 women serving on active duty
as Army chaplains.57 This
constitutes a dilemma for
those chaplains who believe
that
women should not serve in positions of
religious leadership. How can
they serve with women
who have been
given
this authority? As military
chaplains, they must accept that in the pluralistic military community they will encounter
and
must work with these women. Some chaplains have managed
to resolve the conflict and
work quite collegially with
their chaplain sisters. Others have
not. When I
was
in the Chaplain Basic course in 1984 I was told by some of my fundamentalist male colleagues that I should not be there. Twenty-five years
later,
women
in the current version
of the Chaplain Basic course are
still enduring harassment from fundamentalist peers
who tell these women they do not belong there
and should leave.58
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