Thank you, Jim, for the ping. I certainly don’t speak for all chaplains, but, as a retired Army chaplain, I do have a career as a military chaplain to reference.
First, it might seem to civilians that this is a new issue. It really isn’t. It is the same issue as “praying in Jesus’ name.” The issue: “Shall chaplains adhering to biblical Christianity follow the dictates of their faith group or of the state?”
Some might not see this as the same issue. They will tell us that neutrality is easily attainable by saying “Dear Lord” instead of “In Jesus’ name”, and that God knows we actually mean “Jesus” by “Dear Lord.”
Could we not use a similar intellectual dodge with gay marriage? Could we not say, “By the laws of the state we declare you married?” instead of saying “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I now declare that you are husband and wife?” Wouldn’t God in that case also be able to sort through our mumbo-jumbo sophistry to the heart of what we really believed? Wouldn’t that, too, be neutral?
Here is the point: forced neutrality is always a violation of free exercise of religion. In fact, forced neutrality is an establishment of religion. It has its own tenets, its own liturgy, and its own doctrine. And it is enforced by the state every time a biblical chaplain is coerced by command influence or technical chain influence into saying “In God’s Name” instead of “In Jesus’ Name.” After all, one’s efficiency reports are being threatened, and even an average efficiency report amounts ultimately to a pink slip from your raters.
Next, does anyone really believe the Founders thought the public square should have neutrality police ensuring that Catholics didn’t hand out literature about Mary, and that Baptists didn’t hand out literature about immersion baptism? Do we believe that the Founders instructed these neutrality police in the public square to change their message to: “Oh thou Genderless One to whom we appeal!” or “You must have neutral rituals of your choice performed!” (Does anyone really think that was the cry of Gabriel or of John the Baptist?)
The Founders did not advocate for a state neutral religion, instead they advocated “free exercise of religion.” Note first that this does not say “free exercise of worship.” Worship suggests only the ritualistic side of religion that is generally considered to be held inside “houses of worship.”
Note second, that “religion” is all encompassing of the tenets of a particular faith group. This says the Founders thought it was far better to just live and let live, than to try to police every aspect of religious life. In other words, an American was expected to be an adult about religion. An adult knows that different religions have different requirements, and an adult knows he should expect to have religion intersect his pathway every now and then. His response? Keep walking or stop and converse. Above all, it’s a question of which is better: free thinking on these things or governmental religious police?
This gets us back to the military chaplains.
Apparently, someone is suggesting the military should have governmental religious police. Presbyterian Tom Carpenter thinks so. He even thinks the governmental religious police should conduct a pogrom of those who don’t follow some “US Neutral Religion” that he has elevated in his mind to a place of authority. Is this kind of idea a state religion, an establishment of religion?
Of course it is. It is even obvious that it is.
Enforced neutrality is not free expression. In fact, it is an establishment of religion. The Founders, on the other hand believed in “live and let live”, in being adults in an adult world, not in children triangulating in coalition with a greater parent against other siblings in order to enforce one’s own views on everyone else.
They believed that assembled groups or lone individuals could hear an “Amen”, a “Praise Jesus”, a “Hail Mary”, a “Shalom”, or even a “Hare Krishna” and put it in the context of an adult world.
I think they were right.
What an excellent piece of writing. Thank you! I will use this in the future when I express my opinion on this issue.
Excellent post.
And echoed by the Archbishop of the Military and several other chaplains that I heard speak at a Serra Club Conference.....note Serra....Father Junipero Serra...a few years ago.
You nailed it, xzins. Excellent.