Posted on 08/24/2011 4:27:20 PM PDT by wmfights
WASHINGTON (BP) -- The attorney for 65 chaplains -- including 16 Southern Baptists -- who claim the U.S. Navy discriminates against evangelicals believes a new statistical analysis buttresses their legal efforts, which have been in court for 12 years.
Virginia attorney Arthur Schulcz says the statistical analysis shows that past promotion boards awarded favorable treatment to members from the Naval chief of chaplains' denomination, regardless of who holds the office.
His clients are objecting to the chief of chaplains or his deputy sitting as president of Chaplain Corps promotion boards, which select candidates for lieutenant commander, commander, captain and rear admiral.
"When you have 48 people who share the [chief's] denomination and 40 get promoted … that's evidence," said Schulcz, who has filed a motion for a temporary injunction to halt the next promotion board hearings.
(Excerpt) Read more at bpnews.net ...
Yeah, I can see the ‘count it all joy’ Scripture applying regardless of how often so many of us tend to walk on by that one without a proper response.
Will have to ponder the not suing in this situation.
I wonder if the issue of authentic Believer’s would be a factor. Then there are the civil government issues.
Logically, it would be safer to err on the side of Scripture.
If they were members of the same church I can see this application.
Allow me to suggest, dear brother in Christ, that it is FAR worse for Christian chaplains of differing denominations to sue one another.
These men must rely on each other on deadly battlefields. My best friend when both Haiti and Somalia was going on was a General Baptist. He was an absolutely dear brother, and we'd do anything for each other.
It would have been an absolutely, judas-type betrayal for me to violate the trust that he and I had.
When you've got a brother's back in a battlefield scenario, denomination SHOULD be one of the least of your concerns.
If he was promoting because of their denomination I would be opposed to that. I know we don't live in a perfect world, that is to come, but I believe we should always strive for it.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
I worked right under the watchful eye of the Chief of Chaplains for the 11th Naval District in San Diego at CREDO for 2 years in the Navy. Loved it. I was the gopher also for procurement . . . walked all the forms over to him routinely.
I’ve met many good chaplains and no few who seemed to have no idea that God even existed. It was merely a mostly cushy job for them.
See #37.
I will challenge the fact that the majority were liberals from liberal denominations. Most Chiefs of Chaplains will have been Catholic, due to their greater proportion of the force.
The only denomination I would describe as a liberal denomination that is over-represented in the chaplaincy for no good reason that I can see is ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
It is possible that the ELCA filters their candidates so well that they send forward only the smartest and most physically fit in the entire denomination. That would mean that the other prong of promotion is affected: how you get rated by your NON-RELIGIOUS, military commanders.
They rate you on work efficiency, ability, physical fitness, military knowledge, etc.
The military commander, and not a chaplain, is generally the rater and senior rater of any chaplain. If they can’t perform with distinction at the unit level, then any discussion of doctrinal distinctives is ABSOLUTELY MOOT. They would be failing at military skills in the eyes of people like Schwarzkopf, Thompson, etc. If you have bad paper in your file from your commanders, then hang it up. You are yesterday’s news.
We aren't disagreeing about the need for unity in the military especially in combat.
Let me throw it back to you a different way. If instead of the promotion being less likely for a chaplain of a different denomination than the chief's it was less likely because of the candidate's race what would your reaction be?
My point, of course, was that he was our highest ranking chaplain, and that he was an evangelical and a Southern Baptist.
We can get into semantics and spend 50 posts defining terms. I used the term because that is how they defined the different denominations in the article.
Also, from the article:
"The fact is this success rate … is statistically significantly higher [by two standard deviations using a simple binomial test] than the … success rate which was experienced by the candidates who differed from the chief of chaplains," said Leuba, who has performed statistical analysis for a dozen businesses and agencies, including the Navy and the plaintiffs.
I am not a statistician by trade, but from a layman's perspective it does seem that there has been discrimination.
If a chaplain is passed over for promotion how does that affect his career and benefits?
And my point was if he was promoting chaplains based on them being Southern Baptists I would say it's wrong.
I have no doubt I would love having him as my Pastor.
Wm, discrimination is wrong whether due to race or denomination.
However, what I’m saying to you is that with their requirement to promote and ALSO to keep a representative balance of denominations, that sometimes what might appear on surface to be discrimination is not, in fact, discrimination.
Let’s take Catholic chaplains, for example.
If you were the Catholic Chief of Chaplains at a promotion board, you would know that the service required 300 priests and had less than 100. You also know that instructions to the promotion board ALLOW you to take into consider under-strength denominations if those chaplains are FULLY QUALIFIED.
You have a board with 100 names on it. The congress of the US says you are permitted to promote 20.
You look at all the records with your other board memebers. The most important records are those called Officer Efficiency Reports from the past commanders of these chaplains. Each of them before the board has from 10-20 of these in their file. The chaplain can be rated a 1,2,3,4 with 4 the lowest.
Most of the chaplains have an average rating of 2. There are a very few, 5 of them with a rating of 1.5 to 1.
They are the BEST QUALIFIED. Therefore they are at the top of the list REGARDLESS OF DENOMINATION.
The bottom 10 are between 2.1 and 4: They are the least qualified and WILL NOT be promoted REGARDLESS OF DENOMINATION.
You are down to 85 candidates for the remaining 15 slots. The 85 candidates are all QUALIFIED. You rank order them from 6-85 based on a numerical score between 1.51 and and 2.0. In looking at other points in the record, besides just the OER averages, you see reasons to assign other +’s to the records of other candidates. Instead of the next 15 being merely numbers 6-21, you have a list that might stretch from 6-35. These are the FULLY QUALIFIED.
As you look at the 15 more promotions you are to consider denominational balance, race, gender, doctrinal practice so that the military can have a good spread of these attributes so that ministry can best take place.
You know that you are 200 Catholic Chaplains short in the military and that there are 2 Catholic chaplains in the FULLY QUALIFIED category who are NOT ranked numbers 6-21. Therefore, you don’t want to LOSE ground with Catholic coverage, so you move those chaplains to slots 20 and 21 and bump the former #21 down to #22.
How is this different than in the regular, non-chaplain officer ranks bumping up a fully qualified officer who also speaks FLUENT ARABIC to number 21 and bumping the former #21 down to 22?
It is not any different. It is taking care FIRST of the needs of the service.
If it’s a promotion to major it possibly will make getting his deferred pay as retirement much more difficult.
If it’s major to ltc, then it shouldn’t make a difference in almost all cases.
I KNEW we were in agreement on this point. I really doubt there are any Christians in this discussion that differ on this point.
However, what I’m saying to you is that with their requirement to promote and ALSO to keep a representative balance of denominations, that sometimes what might appear on surface to be discrimination is not, in fact, discrimination.
I agree with you about the need for representative balance. However, why does the denomination of the chief of chaplains correspond to the denomination with the highest % promoted?
And my point is that the statistical variation is an anomaly based on the low numbers of Catholics.
A Catholic Chief of Chaplain will happen roughly 1 out of 2 or 1 out of 3 times. This will because Catholics should have 300 of the chaplain slots.
When a Catholic is promotable, the board has to consider the fact that catholic priests are under-represented and that a fully qualified priest almost always will go forward.
As I’ve pointed out, the ELCA is one of the few mainlines that even bother to send chaplains: Methodists, presbyterians, UCC, and CofCDisciples each have a few chaplains. To my knowledge, though, ELCA and Presbys are the only denominations to have the Chief’s job recently.
ONLY looking at the Stateside situation, the Bible-believing Baptists of our general strain who serve in the military are rarely found in base chapels; rarely seeking the services of military chaplains. Most leave the base/post to attend independent Baptist churches, and join independent Baptist churches; and rely on the pastoral ministries of civilian Baptist pastors.
I cannot speak with authority about other conservative/fundamentalist denominations. But when I was stationed at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, I was invited to two different Assemblies of God churches; one in Knob Noster, one in Clinton, MO. At that time, both of those churches were very much old-fashioned fundamentalist.
I accepted those invitations and discovered that those two Assemblies of God churches were both full of airman, NCOs, and officers from Whiteman AFB. So I assume that military personnel who were raised in, or strongly influenced by, fundamentalist/conservative Assemblies of God are much more interested in being members of off-base local churches than participation in the base/post chapels.
While in the Air Force I was sent to the Baptist chaplain once by my instructors in an NCO leadership school. The Chaplain was tasked with trying to convince me that the social drinking of alcohol was an acceptable compromise I should make, and attendance at NCO Club functions was important for me if I wanted to advance very far in rank!
Right! They sent me to a CHAPLAIN for this purpose. That chaplain was "Baptist," but from a very liberal line of them, perhaps Northern Convention.
While overseas in Korea in 1975/76 I sought out Baptist missionaries and attended their mission churches (of course, off base).
While I was in Korea, a new Baptist chaplain came who had been sent to Korea after having exposed a wife-swapping ring among officers at a New England base (forgot which now). The other chaplains at Kunsan AB took this new chaplain to 'A'-Town to break him in right, and he found himself quickly abandoned in town. He told this account at a Tuesday evening Bible study he began, and when asked whether he had some idea of what happened to the chaplains that evening after having led him to 'A'-Town, he answered, "They found their girlfriends maybe?---I really wouldn't know. I just returned to the base."
So I have always considered chaplains to be of the very liberal sort, with rare exception, and I have never wanted to have much to do with them, generally. When I was in the Service, I and my wife were always members of off-base Bible-believing churches.
Most of the independent Baptist churches around the States with which we fellowship are heavily engaged in supporting and financing off-base missions to military personnel. These missions are often storefronts or other facilities very near the military installations, providing a place, 7 days per week, for Servicemen/women to go and study the Bible, get Scriptural counselling, and hear the Gospel.
Many of these Serviceman's centers are set up outside of our bases in Europe as well.
The directors of such missions are supported from the missionary budgets of independent Baptist churches all over America.
Obviously, independent Baptists have no confidence in the spiritual nature (whatever that might really be) of the military chaplaincy, and therefore are heavily invested in off-base missions to the military.
Very many independent Baptist churches near military bases run buses on Sunday mornings to bring soldiers, sailors, and/or airman to church. Although we never rode the bus, my wife and I both came to Christ instrumentally by the ministry of just one such church. After we were saved, we never recommended any of my military friends or their families to attend the base chapel, but always invited them to our church, 4 miles off-base.
YES, I REALIZE there are unique situations in war zones, as well as on naval ships.
I know some good men (not chaplains) who are in the army, who conduct Bible studies and even worship services with other personnel in Afghanistan, and pay absolutely no attention to chaplains. Historic Baptist distinctives include the individual priesthood of the believer.
I have one friend in the ministry who actually served as "pastor" of a "church" on an aircraft carrier during the late 1970s. He had graduated from a Bible college and had been ordained by his home church before he enlisted in the Navy. He was not a Navy chaplain; he worked in ordnance. But he preached and taught the Bible on board, baptized converts by the authority of his home/ordaining church, etc. A goodly number of members of that "church" on board a carrier are known to have gone into the Christian ministry later.
So, I'm not sure I would even care about how many chaplains there are of any given denominational level. What I mean is, if I were in the Air Force today and stationed in Afghanistan, and there were no Baptist chaplains who believed the Bible, and I were to know what I know now from the Scriptures. . . I wouldn't really feel a very strong need of a chaplain at all. In fact, I'd just as soon begin winning my own buddies to Jesus Christ by the Gospel and start a "church" in the war zone.
I think that an American service-member, to the greatest extent possible, should lose absolutely none of his/her rights while in the military. That includes the right to worship, as you have done, whenever and whereever they want. Obviously, there are military situations that will make it impossible. When you’re in the middle of a firefight, your commander can tell you to go take hill 971, and while you might have wanted to go the mess tent and have a prayer meeting, you just can’t...because you have to obey orders.
It the same with chaplains. They have to obey the orders of the commanders appointed over them. They tell us to go here, then we go here. They tell us to go there, and we go there.
The difference with chaplains is that we are the military’s effort to protect the right of soldiers to FULLY worship in the denomination of their choice in any setting anywhere in the world.
The military must PLAN to have us along. It doesn’t have to plan to have you, your independent preacher friends, or you missionary friends go along for the ride. By Law, to preserve the religious rights of soldiers to worship, it has to take us along.
I’m not saying that we are better than your independent preacher friends or worse than them. What we are is part of the system that deploys to war zones and remote areas to MAKE SURE that religious services take place.
We MAKE SURE that independent preachers get a place and a chance to preach in remote areas and on installations. We do a lot of the preaching ourselves. And, yes, there are independent chaplains, too. And there are other benefits, too: your chaplains are trained, degreed counselors, financial advisors, biblical scholars and much more.
We do not want to give up the legal requirement that the military MUST make allowance for the religious needs of the troops. It must preserve those basic religious rights.
Again, thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
What I mean is, if I were in the Air Force today and stationed in Afghanistan, and there were no Baptist chaplains who believed the Bible, and I were to know what I know now from the Scriptures. . . I wouldn't really feel a very strong need of a chaplain at all.
I understand your point, but you are much more in the Word now than when you first became Born Again. How about the soldier whose eyes are opening for the first time?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.