This week PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly reported on the bizarre case of a Navy chaplain who claimed - falsely says the government - that he was prohibited from praying to Jesus.
Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, a figure of near divine stature now among the Religious Right, was actually accused of using a funeral service to proclaim to Navy sailors they were doomed to hell if they didn't accept Jesus.
He also led a boycott of a service held at a United Church of Christ congregation - because of the church's support of gays and lesbians.
Military chaplains are commissioned to provide religious support to all people of faith serving in the Armed Forces and not there to be proselytizing.
The Klingenschmitt case points to a larger issue that should be on concern to all Americans: the large number of conservative evangelical Christians serving in the military as chaplains (a group that often confuses the Republican Party platform for the Gospel teachings of Jesus).
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reported on this issue last year in a piece by Rob Boston on their web site:
Recent allegations of religious bias at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs may be only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to religious pluralism in the military.
A recent front-page New York Times article paints a troubling portrait of the military chaplaincy generally, noting that evangelicals who insist on their right to engage in aggressive forms of proselytism are a "growing force" in the military chaplaincy.
In that report, the Times noted a recent "Spiritual Fitness Conference" hosted and paid for by the Academy at a cost of $300,000. The conference was open to U.S. military chaplains and their families, and, although military chaplains pledge to serve all soldiers' religious needs, the four-day conference was clearly intended to help evangelical chaplains hone their ministerial skills.
Attendees were treated to "workshops on 'The Purpose Driven Life,' the best seller by the megachurch pastor Rick Warren, and on how to improve their worship services." Strewn throughout the hotel's hallways, according to the Times, were vendors from Focus on the Family, James Dobson's evangelical self-help ministry, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs.
The spiritual fitness event was "just one indication of the extent to which evangelical Christians have become a growing force in the Air Force chaplain corps, a trend documented by military records and interviews with more than two dozen chaplains and other military officials," the newspaper reported.
Military statistics show a major spike in the number of evangelical denominations that are now represented in the chaplaincy and a continued dwindling of Catholic and mainline Protestant groups. Things have gotten so bad that some non-evangelicals in the military say they are finding it increasingly difficult to practice their own faiths.
Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the Air Force deputy chief of chaplains, told The Times, "We will not proselytize, but we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched." Richardson attempted to draw a distinction, arguing, as The Times put it, "that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel."
Horror stories abound. A Mormon in the Marine Corps told The Times that during his service his fellow marines and some of his commanders often denigrated his religion. He said several chaplains tried to convince him his faith was "wicked" or "Satanic." He is now looking to become a military chaplain, in part, to help turn the tide. He said he wants to become a chaplain to help those religious service men and women who are now "underrepresented" and to make the military "a more spiritually accepting environment."
In the Navy, Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, of the Evangelical Episcopal Church, complained that he was terminated after he used a funeral service for a Catholic sailor to warn attendees that for those who did not accept Jesus, "God's wrath remains upon him." Amazingly, Klingenschmitt insists he did nothing wrong, remarking, "The Navy wants to impose its religion on me. Religious pluralism is a religion. It's a theology all by itself."
A chaplain must be prepared to offer any religious service requested, or find someone who can. Clearly, some evangelicals are unwilling to do this and instead see their taxpayer-financed positions as launching pads for evangelism.
Members of the armed services stationed overseas where churches are few must have their religious view accommodated. At domestic bases, where houses of worship often abound in the surrounding community, the need seems less compelling.
Perhaps it is time to heed the words of James Madison, who in one essay warned that it might be "better to disarm...the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matter of Religion. The object of this establishment is seducing; the motive to it is laudable. But is it not safer to adhere to a right principle, and trust to its consequences, than confide in the reasoning, however specious, in favor of a wrong one?"
In a moment in history where the president of the United States believes that he was anointed by God and had divine sanction to wage unprovoked war - as we see in Iraq - the question of who provides spiritual guidance to the military is a troubling one.
What kind of message is being preached in the military when an increasing number of chaplains are conservative evangelicals?
What happens to democracy when soldiers are being taught by chaplains that pluralism - a hallmark of democracy - is evil and that war is always justifiable?
The message being preached by Klingenschmitt and his like-minded colleagues is not only a perversion of Christianity it is a threat to the separation of church and state - a core principle of our freedom.
