Can Evangelical Chaplains Serve God and Country?

Can chaplains committed to historic biblical Christianity serve in the United States military? That question, though inconceivable to our nation’s founders, is now front and center. And the answer to that question will answer another, even more important question: Can religious liberty survive under America’s new moral order?

The repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, coupled with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, set the stage for this crisis. The full normalization of same-sex relationships within the U.S. military is part of the unprecedented moral revolution that is now reshaping American culture at virtually every level.

The crisis in the chaplaincy arrived with these developments. The presenting issue is clear: Can a chaplain committed to historic biblical Christianity remain in military service? Does the normalization of homosexuality require that all members of the military, including chaplains, join the moral revolution, even if doing so requires them to abandon their biblical convictions?

The answer, at least from the advocates of the moral revolution, is that evangelical Christian chaplains must go—and Southern Baptist chaplains must go first. In recent weeks, the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the endorsing agency for SBC chaplains, formulated a set of policies on these issues. These policies are required of all SBC-endorsed chaplains, and the guidelines are clear. SBC chaplains are to minister in line with the biblical convictions of the SBC and its churches as made clear in our denomination’s confession of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message. Chaplains are to offer respect to all, respect for the religious liberty of all, and respect for the religious diversity represented within the armed forces. But evangelical chaplains cannot deny or compromise the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As the document states: ”Responsible pastoral care will seek to offer repentance and forgiveness, help and healing, and restoration through the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial gift of love on the cross.”

At the same time, SBC endorsed chaplains—the largest single group of non-Catholic chaplains—cannot violate their own convictions by conducting or attending a same-sex marriage ceremony, and they certainly cannot bless such a union. They cannot minister in any context that “would give the appearance of accepting the homosexual lifestyle or sexual wrongdoing.”

In accordance with established U.S. military policy and law, all chaplains are free to minister in accordance with the teachings and beliefs of their own churches, even as they minister to all and respect the religious liberty of others. And yet, the great moral revolution of our times now threatens the continued service of chaplains committed to the moral teachings of historic Christianity.

That point was made abundantly clear in an article published on Monday, September 16, by Associated Baptist Press. The author of the article is Tom Carpenter, identified as co-chair of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy and an elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Carpenter wastes no time in declaring his argument that Southern Baptist chaplains must immediately resign from military service. Given the guidelines set down by the Southern Baptist Convention’s endorsing agency, “the only honorable course is to resign from the military chaplaincy and return to civilian ministry.”

The North American Mission Board has turned the Army motto on its head. They have forced their endorsed chaplains into the untenable position of either serving God or country. Given that choice, as men (NAMB forbids women to serve as ordained chaplains) of God the only honorable course of action for most will be to resign their commissions and return to civilian ministry.

If these Southern Baptist chaplains were civilian pastors, there would be no problem. As civilians, they undisputedly have an absolute First Amendment right to believe, preach and counsel in accordance with their denominational tenets. But they are not civilians, and have a duty to not only God, but also country. It is instructive that they are not salaried by the NAMB but by the American taxpayer.

Yes, and they do not surrender their constitutional guarantee of religious liberty when they accept a commission as a military chaplain. Carpenter’s group was on the forefront of advocating for homosexual rights within the military, calling for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to be revoked and for the Defense of Marriage Act to be struck down. At the same time, his group assured the nation that this moral revolution would not lead to any major exodus of chaplains from the Armed Services. In fact, they accused evangelicals of “crying wolf” in warning of such a crisis. Now, Carpenter is openly calling for Southern Baptist chaplains to join the moral revolution or get out of the military.

Make no mistake, the moral revolution driven by those who demand the total normalization of homosexuality and same-sex relationships will not stop with the crisis over military chaplains. But at this moment, the chaplains are on the front lines of the great cultural and moral conflict of our times. This is a moment of crisis for the chaplains; but it is also a moment of crisis for the entire nation. If religious liberty is denied to evangelical Christian chaplains in the military, if they must surrender their convictions or their commissions, then religious liberty is lost in America, and the chaplains will be but the first casualties of this loss. Southern Baptist chaplains have been singled out in this call for mass resignation, but they will not be alone. Thousands of Roman Catholic chaplains are committed by their church to the same moral convictions. Chaplains representing other evangelical churches and denominations will find themselves facing the same moment of decision. Muslim and Jewish chaplains who cannot endorse homosexuality and same-sex marriage will face the same challenge.

In reality, it is the entire nation that now faces this crisis. Is America ready to demand that military chaplains choose between serving God and serving their country? We will soon know the answer to that question. We will also know the answer to another, even more urgent question: Where will every Christian church stand on this matter? The great theological divide between those churches and denominations committed to biblical Christianity and those who are given over to the spirit of the age has never been more clear. Indeed, the divide grows clearer day by day.

Also clear is this: Southern Baptist chaplains cannot surrender their commitment to Christ in order to maintain their commitment to ministry within the Armed Services. Furthermore, Southern Baptists will take their instruction from their own churches, not from those churches and denominations who are wearing out their knees bowing to Baal.

I agree with James Madison...chaplains are a violation of equal rights...

First, James Madison, writing in his later years, was writing about the chaplains serving congress. He was not writing about military chaplains. (The courts decided those chaplains were part of a long, cultural tradition.)

Second, this article is about military chaplains and not about the chaplains in congress.

Does it make a difference? The answer is yes.

Military chaplains accompany our sons and daughters in the military to our war zones.

First, as a commander you must provide for the needs of your troops. You must find bullets, food, protection from the elements, and a path to victory. You must also deal with their fears, their customs, their medical needs, and their death needs.

Like it or not, your troops WILL have their religion. Despite the numbskull commander in Alaska who got his shorts in a wad when his chaplain quoted the maxim about "no atheists in foxholes", that saying is a reflection of reality. When death is on the line, the vast majority of your troops are going to ponder the meaning of death, the afterlife, and the meaning of life.

They will practice their religion. They will. One way or another they will. Either a "chaplain" will rise, like a shamen, with no input from the command, from the ranks or from civilian camp followers, or those troops will have a chaplain provided by a nation that cares about providing chaplains who will be knowledgeable of and work with the command structure in the best interests of those troops.

Look through history. People in war become very religious. Why? Death is on the line.

And they will practice their religion. As Americans, they cannot be deprived of their right to free exercise of their religion. However, it is far more than some rule on a piece of paper. It is about their very nature as living beings. As much as ammo and food, they NEED their religion to prepare their souls for whatever comes.

The courts have acknowledged that chaplains are the most reasonable way to provide for that need.

It is unrealistic not to acknowledge the difference between military chaplains and civilian chaplains.

Chaplain Xzins is right.

Hardshell, you may not be aware that your position is to the left of even the ACLU, which takes the position that under combat conditions, the only realistic way to assure people's right to freedom of religion is to have trained military chaplains.

This is a particular problem for religious groups such as the Roman Catholic Church due to their view of the sacraments. In theory, many though not all of the functions of a evangelical Protestant chaplaincy could be performed by laymen trained and organized by groups such as the Navigators. (And no, I'm not in any way, shape or form disparaging the role of office and ordination, or the role of baptism and communion in Protestantism; my point is that certain things which are very important to most evangelical denominations are absolutely essential to Roman Catholics.)

When even the ACLU supports the military chaplaincy, it shows just how radical our liberals have become in undermining it.

Once it is granted that ordained clergy simply must be present to ensure servicemembers’ religious freedom, the question becomes who should pay for their salaries and their training.

Part of why the ACLU believes military chaplains should have their salaries and their training paid by the government is that common sense and the sad experiences of long-ago wars show that it is both foolish and dangerous to send untrained civilian pastors into combat conditions.

That's a good way to get pastors killed, and also to get servicemembers killed trying to save the lives of untrained civilian pastors who make foolish mistakes which even the most junior of enlisted servicemembers who have completed basic training and AIT would know not to make.

It is true that civilian pastors have at various times in American military history been attached to the military in unofficial roles paid by someone other than the government. During World War I, for example, Dr. J. Gresham Machen took a leave of absence from his role as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary to become a “YMCA secretary,” doing what was more or less the work of a behind-the-lines chaplain. It is also true that during major military mobilizations such as the Civil War and World War I, there have been times when the training given to chaplains was very weak at best, and chaplains often had to rely on their own combat experiences years earlier when wearing the uniform before being ordained, or had to learn things the hard way from frustrated sergeants. However, the modern military has greatly improved the military aspect of chaplaincy training, and there are reasons for that.

I'm focusing here exclusively on the constitutional question of why, in this very narrow case, even one of the most liberal organizations in the United States supports government-paid clergy. There are also numerous other religiously neutral roles which have developed over the years which are performed by the chaplaincy — counseling is probably the single biggest example of that.

To remove government-paid and government-trained chaplains from the military would have devastating consequences for Roman Catholic servicemembers. It would also cause problems for evangelical Protestants, and as a practical matter, would force the military to hire large numbers of psychologists and counselors to do the work now done by chaplains, many of whom would find themselves to be much less effective than chaplains.

I am painfully aware that what this PCUSA elder wants to do to the chaplaincy is already being done unofficially by too many senior chaplains at the O-5 and O-6 levels. Just as denominational bureaucrats tend to be those pastors with the greatest administrative and “political” abilities — often a synonym for knowing how to compromise and avoid offense — too many upper-level chaplains have gotten to their ranks by focusing on the counseling aspect of their chaplaincy role rather than teaching and preaching what they are supposed to believe.

But to eliminate the chaplaincy entirely, or to make it impossible for an evangelical or Roman Catholic chaplain to serve in the chaplaincy without compromise on homosexuality, would take a pre-existing problem and make it tremendously worse.

The troops have the right to free exercise of their RELIGION. Therefore, when they are taken to a far-flung land to lay their lives down, they MUST be provided with ALL that their RELIGION entails in order to protect that right. Their religion is FAR MORE than their worship, which is only a small portion of their RELIGION.

So, you have two constitutional requirements in conflict: free exercise and establishment of religion.

The reality is, though, that the chaplaincy is not an attempt to establish a state religion. Why? First, it provides for all forms of religion LIKELY to appear in the ranks of our troops, not just for Catholics, Baptists, or Methodists. The chaplaincy includes Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and even Buddhist chaplains. Oddly enough, I understand the atheists are trying to organize themselves as a religion, so they, too, can qualify for a chaplain.

So, this is NOT an establishment; it is an accommodation.

So, you have a CONSTITUTIONAL requirement to protect free exercise, you have taken them where there is no means to practice their religion, you have asked them to die, and you have said, “Though Sh_t” about their needs.

When a shamen appears in the ranks and tells them “The Horned One has appeared and decreed fighting in this war will send your soul immediately to Hell.”, and some listen, then you have injured your war effort by not accommodating their religion and not providing that as well as their bullets.

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