US Army faces up to the challenge of providing chaplains for 101 faith groups

THE news this week that the US military has appointed its first-ever Buddhist chaplain – former Baptist pastor Thomas Dyer from Memphis, Tennessee – highlights attempts being made by the US army to provide for the “spiritual needs” of military personnel from a growing number of faith groups.

But critics, according to a US Today report, wonder if the whole enterprise is doomed to fail.

The US military chaplaincy is facing:

All the complications that have affected American religion over the past 40 years. The decline of mainline Protestants and their aging clergy. The ongoing Catholic priest shortage. The explosion of religious diversity. The emergence of people with no faith. The ease with which people move from one faith to another.

The military is trying to adapt to these changes, while trying to find ministers willing to serve in a war zone, and who can minister to American troops without offending Muslim allies.

A tacky reigious army poster

The first chaplains served a mostly Protestant military, but today they serve in a remarkably diverse environment. The latest report from the Defense Department tracks 101 faiths for active-duty personnel, from 285,763 Roman Catholics to the one member of the Tioga River Christian conference. In between are Baptists, Jews, Buddhists, Bahai’s, Mormons and Wiccans. About a half a million active personnel are evangelicals. Almost 281,710 claim no religion.

No military has ever tried to meet such diverse spiritual needs, says Doris Bergen, a history professor at the University of Toronto. In World War II, the British army had thousands of Hindus and Muslims in its ranks, but only Christian and Jewish chaplains.

Bergen adds:

To build a military chaplaincy that reflects the incredible religious diversity of Americans, and that supports that diversity in a meaningful way – it’s uncharted terrain, It’s completely brand new. You don’t really have any models to look to.

To help meet with the religious needs at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border, a new multi-faith chapel is under construction, to be used by smaller groups such as Jews and Wiccans. Funding is pending for another $15 million, 1,200-seat chapel also in the works. There are now seven chapels at the base — six at least 50 years old, the other built in 1990.

Chaplains and their assistants serve as a listening ear for soldiers, as they deal with stress. Sometimes soldiers’ concerns are spiritual; other times they are more mundane.

Those small concerns become heavier to bear when soldiers are in war zones. If they are distracted by worries about their family back home or by religious concerns, then they can’t keep focused on their mission,  Fort Campbell chaplain Darin Olson said.

A soldier’s soul in combat is important. A soldier who is not right with the Lord, or maybe the soldier is having marriage troubles back home, a soldier who feels that they are not able to talk to anyone  -  if they can talk to a chaplain, they are going to be a better soldier.

Dyer, who is off to Afghanistan this December, believes that being knowledgeable about Christianity and Buddhism will make him a better chaplain.

If I have a Church of Christ or more conservative soldier, he certainly does not need to know about dharma or things like that. But if he is in pain, or his child back home is sick, I need to be compassionate and help him through that moment. We both need to forget at that moment that I am a Buddhist.