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Funerals and memorial services present a special set of problems. They may not be technically legal problems, but they may become so, given particular circumstances. Smart clergypersons don’t use funerals and memorial services as occasions to proselytize. They recognize that the occasion that brings the audience together is not a particular religious faith, or curiosity about a particular religious faith, but is the death of someone that the audience cared about.
Given the special role or function of military chaplains, which is, as Marci Hamilton has correctly said, to comfort soldiers and not to advance the agenda of the chaplains, Chaplain Klingenschmitt clearly showed poor judgment, and he may well have overstepped the line in a legal sense. To say that the audience voluntarily attended the memorial is to exalt form over substance. They undoubtedly attended not for faith reasons but for reasons of friendship and caring. The chaplain’s job, under the circumstances, is to comfort ALL of the soldiers in the audience. This, by his own admission, he did not do. The correct answer may be punishment or sanction, or even loss of position as chaplain. The free exercise rights of a chaplain have to yield to the goals and objectives of the military. Or at least I think that they do. (I revisit this question at the end.)
There is a five-hundred pound gorilla in the room. Alan Brownstein hinted at it. The truth appears to be that only evangelical Protestant chaplains, and their allies in the officer corps, are causing the problem. Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and “Mainline” Protestant chaplains seem to know what the limits are and observe them. But the behavior at issue here is not limited to evangelical Protestant chaplains. Much of the stuff of church-state law is rooted in the claims of evangelical Protestants and the reaction of others to those claims.
To be an evangelical means preaching the Gospel of Him crucified (see, e.g., Paul’s Letter to the Romans) and that such preaching is the primary obligation or responsibility of the religiously observant and faithful. That preaching is aimed at both the believers and the non-believers, with as much emphasis on the latter as the former. Other Christians recognize the importance of preaching, but are not, not to put too fine a point on it, as aggressive about it. (I cannot speak to the theology of evangelizing or proselytizing in non-Christian traditions.)
Evangelical Protestantism sees the U.S. Military as a ripe source of new converts to their religion. Unfortunately, that view conflicts with another set of important principles about the U.S. Military, its role and function, and the role and function of chaplains But I fully expect that the Klingenschmitts of the world will continue to press and press, convinced as they are of the rightness of their cause. It will be interesting to see, in the final analysis whether, in this age of the Religious Right, evangelical Protestants will prevail.
The consequences are important. We already have a military that is overloaded with the “unprivileged.” We are slowly beginning to see that, thanks to Iraq, such a circumstance imposes high social and moral costs. What will it mean for the country if the military were to become a bastion of evangelical Protestantism? What will it mean if the military is seen as a religious institution as well as a socio-economic and cultural institution, differing, in significant ways, from the circumstances of large numbers of Americans? Would one be right to fear that the free exercise rights of evangelical Protestants, as they understand them, might compromise national security?
Of course if one believed in the hope and the promise of the Protestant Empire, these questions would vanish: for the triumph of evangelical Protestantism in the military and elsewhere is a necessary element of that Empire, put differently, national security and evangelization walk hand in hand for such believers. For those who do not believe in that hope and promise, different conclusions come to mind.
I may be, however, the only one on this listserv who believes (1) that the Protestant Empire still exists and (2) that it is a source of great peril. From: Andrew Koppelman
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If this is the distinction -- between responding to inquiries and
engaging on proselytization on his own initiative (and that distinction makes
sense to me) -- then Chaplain Klingenschmitt's problem is nicely framed.
Which side of the line would you put him on? Can't he reasonably say that
he didn't go out picking on an unwilling captive audience, but rather conducted
a memorial service within his own faith tradition, which was part of his job
description? Jim, of course, has taken my points out of context.
When a recruit seeks out a chaplain for information about the chaplain's
religion, that is entirely different from a chaplain engaging in
proselytization on his or her own initiative. As Doug so rightly pointed
out, the chaplain corps exists for the comfort of the soldiers, not as a new
opportunity for a member of the clergy to gain new recruits. Those
chaplains that cannot respect this distinction should not be military
chaplains. There are plenty of positions in the private sphere for that
kind of activity. In a message dated 10/8/2005 8:22:38 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: With respect to Brad's distinction between involuntarily convert, pressure, exhort, and persuade, it is one large linguistic stretch to argue that pressure, exhort, and persuade are voluntarily accepted. They are means by which one person is trying to alter another person's views. Chaplains have no business "informing" recruits that their religious faith is "wrong" from his perspective. The members of the military are a captive audience in these circumstances, which makes the involuntary element in these circumstances more involuntary than usual. Well, I would think that the First Amendment might give us briefest pause before categorical prohibitions are laid down.
To show why Marci cannot be right when she says, "Chaplains have no business 'informing' recruits that their religious faith is 'wrong' from his perspective," let's start with the following hypothetical:
Fr.. Morgan is credentialed by the Archdiocese of the Military to serve as a Roman Catholic chaplain and is commissioned as such in the U.S. Navy, and is detailed to serve as a chaplain to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in coastal North Carolina. He is one of several chaplains aboard the base, which hosts, depending on deployments, between thirty and fifty thousand Marines. He is one of three RC chaplains. As part of his pastoral duties with the Catholic Chapel, he conducts an inquirers class once a week at the base's Catholic Chapel. During his classes, he includes an open period for questions. As it turns out, a class for inquiring into the Catholic faith attracts, among others, those who are on spiritual journeys and who are actively thinking about matters of faith and religion, in other words, people with questions. Lance Corporal Jones, whose family is Baptist, has found himself attracted to the Catholic faith because of the rich intellectual tradition that it has developed, together with its orthodoxy regarding things he believes are essential to Christian doctrine. He has not decided to convert, though, but he is considering the consequences of such a decision, in part his considerations take place in the inquirers' class, where he learns more about RC and where, on a regular basis, he engages Fr. Morgan in dialogues related to unique difference between RC and Baptist doctrine.
When L.Cpl. Jones puts the questions directly to Fr. Morgan about RC distinctives (such as celibacy for priests, the seven sacraments, veneration of Mary and the Saints, the Papacy, transubstantiation), Fr. Morgan carefully explains the basis in the Magisterium of the Church, in Sacred Scripture, and in the traditions of the Church. These areas are the ones about which L.Cpl. Jones entertains greatest doubt and trepidation over conversion. In essence and, when pressed, in fact, Fr. Morgan tells L.Cpl. Jones that his faith tradition is wrong on these questions.
In this case, is it true that "Chaplains have no business 'informing' recruits that their religious faith is 'wrong' from his perspective?"
Other examples abound.
In a field hospital, a battle wounded evacuee asks to speak with a chaplain. The situation is grave, and so is the soldier's demeanor. "I'm afraid that I am going to die in sin," he whispers, his breathing catching as he pushes the words from his battered body. "But my dad always told me that foxhole conversions weren't real and that people that turn religious in moments of crisis are weak." Brief additional discussion confirms that the wounded soldier is an atheist experiencing doubts about his faith, and now asking how/whether he can turn to God in his time of need.
Is it true that "Chaplains have no business 'informing' recruits that their religious faith is 'wrong' from his perspective?"
Jim Henderson Senior Counsel ACLJ |
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