Faith in the Military: Chaplains During the Cold War and the Current Wars

Army Chaplain with Armor Unit

In the Cold War Army of the 1970s, the Protestant Chaplains were very different men than most of the Chaplains I met in Iraq in this century.  For one thing, they were all men. In this century a few of the Chaplains were woman. 

Between the 70s and the 2000s a big gap opened between the kind of person who was a Protestant Chaplain and those who were Catholic Chaplains.  All of the Chaplains I knew in the 70s were from what are now called mainstream denominations.  They were men with advanced degrees: masters or doctorates of Divinity.  Catholic Chaplains then and now were graduates of Catholic seminaries, also with advanced degrees. The only Orthodox Chaplain I met was a college chaplain. All were educated men who were approved by their national denominations for service.

But somewhere between Cold War West Germany and Camp Adder, Iraq, the standards for the chaplaincy and the people who were Protestant chaplains changed.  Most of the Protestant chaplains I met in Iraq and in the Army in this century were Evangelicals. They had undergraduate degrees from Bible Colleges and other Christian Colleges.

The 21^st Century Catholic Chaplains were no different than the 1970s, or, I imagine, from the 1870s.  Chaplain Valentine, the Catholic Chaplain on Camp Adder, Iraq, was teaching Philosophy at Fordham University on September 11, 2001. He saw the attack from his office window and joined the Army as soon as he could.  His story is here.

How different were the Protestant Chaplains in 1977 and 2009?  In 1977, I was a sergeant in a tank unit in West Germany. I attended chapel services and had a lot of questions.  The chaplain gave me C.S. Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity.” I loved the book. I read it, re-read it and asked for a book about C.S. Lewis.  The Chaplain gave me Lewis’ autobiography “Surprised by Joy.” I stopped reading at page 13 and did not try to read it again until I was in graduate school five years later.  The book has 246 references to authors and books I had never heard of. I eventually made an index of the books and authors Lewis mentions.  At that time, I had only a high school education and Lewis’ autobiography was beyond me.  The chaplain gave me other books by Lewis when I told him how difficult the autobiography was.

Thirty years later, I re-enlisted was again a sergeant. But this time I was a sergeant with a master’s degree in literature that had read and re-read all of 39 books C.S. Lewis wrote.  I started a C.S. Lewis book group on Camp Adder.  We read several of Lewis’ most popular theology books.  

The core of my book group was three Chaplains and an Air Force Colonel.  A few enlisted soldiers came and went, but only one of them stayed. It was weird for them to be in a book group with mostly officers. The Chaplains had heard about C.S. Lewis but never read any of his works except the Narnia Chronicles.  I know that a 56-year-old sergeant with, as soldiers say, “more degrees than a thermometer” was not typical.  But the Chaplaincy had clearly changed.  Evangelical Chaplains better reflected what the soldiers in the Army believed, but they were much more spiritual guides than experts.  The Chaplains had not read C.S. Lewis, or any leading 20^th Century religious thinkers outside the Evangelical world.

Before Iraq, I was tempted to think this change made sense.  Mainline Protestant Denominations were in decline; Evangelical Churches were growing. Does a Chaplain really need an advanced degree? 

No. But the most popular services on Camp Adder, the only ones that filled the seats of the stone-floored chapel, were when the Chaplain Valentine, the Fordham Professor turned Catholic Chaplain, was leading the service.  Soldiers respect expertise.  More than once, I heard a soldier say, “Chaplain Valentine really knows his shit!”  He did. And he made me nostalgic for the Chaplain who introduced me to one of the leading Christian writers of the last century, not the Chaplains who had me introduce them to the same writer.  

Comments:

Vinnie Vinanti I had a good chaplain in Germany, he was a Methodist. A few years later they were all evangelical and pushy about their faith; I did not appreciate that. Throughout the rest of my career the chaplains were all evangelicals. I usually avoided them. I always fell I was being judged for having a difference in faith.

Another from Facebook: 
I found a difference in Chaplains over the years too. Back in the day, the unit Chaplain was the spiritual leader of the unit. He could easily transition between religious services for different faiths & denominations. If he was unfamiliar with the faith of soldier in his command, he was tell connected to other religious resources, both military & civilian. In Iraq in 2004, we had a National Guard evangelical chaplain. We all hated him. If you didn't follow his faith, you were going to Hell. He was also the racist & jealous type. Many of us gravitated towards a young Korean-American chaplain from the 1st Cav. He was Christian & that was about how much we knew about his own spiritual beliefs. He supported all of our needs. He even made sure the Rabbi chaplain came by to visit our Jewish unit members. The Guard chaplain viewed the Rabbi like Satan himself. I prefer the old school chaplains. They were there for the soldiers, not to spread their own beliefs.