Secular Chaplain?

[krymsonkyng]

Chaplains are essentially government employed priests able to provide non-denominational and faith-specific spiritual service to religious and non-religious soldiers.

I'm curious to see if people think there is a need for a secular chaplain...

On moral grounds I respect and value the Chaplain service, but at the same time it seems to be a government endorsement of a faith, even though it is merely providing comfort to the troops.

I want there to be god for those who want him, but what about the soldiers out there without faith or who are unsure of their faith and would feel awkward with a counselor of the cloth? Are there combat Counselors who are secular?

I know there are chaplains for several different religions to accommodate the troops and that Chaplains are trained on how to accommodate faiths they may not specifically believe in, but why the distinction?

Is it possible for there to be a Chaplain without a specialized faith? Sort of an "all purpose Cleric".

[Rorshach69]

Chaplains are essentially government employed priests able to provide non-denominational and faith-specific spiritual service to religious and non-religious soldiers.

I'm curious to see if people think there is a need for a secular chaplain...

On moral grounds I respect and value the Chaplain service, but at the same time it seems to be a government endorsement of a faith, even though it is merely providing comfort to the troops.

I want there to be god for those who want him, but what about the soldiers out there without faith or who are unsure of their faith and would feel awkward with a counselor of the cloth? Are there combat Counselors who are secular?

I know there are chaplains for several different religions to accommodate the troops and that Chaplains are trained on how to accommodate faiths they may not specifically believe in, but why the distinction?

Is it possible for there to be a Chaplain without a specialized faith? Sort of an "all purpose Cleric".

He would have to be a huge hypocrite lol

[togre]

I agree with Rorshach69 to a certain extent and that is why the denomination to which I belong does not participate in government run chaplain programs but instead attempts to serve the spiritual needs of members through a chaplain program run by ourselves.

But this brings up interesting issues--What interest does the US government have in providing spiritual care to the members of it's military? Obviously the government does not claim to have an opinion on the matter of what spiritual truth is or have a state in promulgating any particular set of beliefs. Well, what then? The government recognizes that members of the military desire to have spiritual needs (real or perceived) met. It also recognizes that the contact of chaplains has a very real impact on metal health and on morale (the willingness of soldiers to face dangerous/deadly situations, etc). So the government finds the use of chaplains to provide real benefits regardless of what they teach or whether it is true/factual or not.

Would the government have a problem with "secular chaplains"? Probably not, but it does already provide non-religious metal health services to its soldiers and I personally think it unlikely that it would ever feel the need or the pressure to label these as "chaplains."

Would a secular person, in good conscience, be able to serve as a "secular chaplain"? The OP mentioned one "without a specialized faith" or an "all-purpose cleric." Sadly, this kinda exists already. The US military views the faiths of it members as falling into categories. (The chapel at the Air Force academy has a chaplain for generic Protestant, Catholics, Jews and a multi-purpose room for "other.") As such a Lutheran chaplain is required to minister to the needs of a Baptist soldier according to what the soldier believers and the same for the Methodist and the Presbyterian and so on. Well, these denominations hold mutually exclusive beliefs on any number of important matters. The only way to follow the chaplain rules is ignore these differences.

The truly sad things is that many, many clergy are willing to do so. In fact many have no problem with this in the least. What is more, this is stretching across denominational boundaries and beginning to cross religious boundaries as well. Have you heard of the priest out West who claims to be both a practicing Christian and a practicing Buddhists (if I recall correctly)? On this board we've had discussions about whether different sets of belief can be adopted concurrently. And many people (including those within the faiths) seem to think Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God, in spite of the incredibly different claims each make about who this God is.

I guess I'm going end kinda where I started. I don't see how you could serve members of any faith with the message they desired while at the same time believing anything was true. It would be like Marx deciding to become a priest. He'd be becoming (according to himself at least) an opium pusher.

[jakobmuller]

He would have to be a huge hypocrite lol

I agree. there's no way to be able to equally serve as a chaplain to all faiths without yourself having to be in some way hypocritical. There's a few issues in religion that are set one way or another, where there's no grey area lol

btw thumbs up on the thread, I find it pretty interesting

[krymsonkyng]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" -The establishment/free exercise clause, article 1 US Constitution.

Do military chaplains violate the constitution? If they do, is it justifiable?

[mono]

Interesting thread. :)
Chaplains have good use everywhere, and I would never feel reluctant to support them for the benefit of an individual needing spiritual counseling (I say this even as a person with no religion), but I would not support their advertisements (literally) and preaching of a sole religion, unless the counseled endorsed in that religion. Making this a realistic goal to have a secular chaplain, speaking only of religion where appropriate, seems a bit of a challenge, for not even a professional in spiritual counseling can avoid his/her own inevitable, subjective beliefs. Just as the physical body requires occasional "maintenance," so does the psyche, and if a chaplain can provide services to aide the health of the mind, without promoting a religion in a sales-pitch-like manner, then I strongly support it.
I work in a hospital, as a critical care nurse, and we have a few chaplains, having at least one always on-call, day and night; in critical care, the patient rarely asks for a chaplain (often due to inability from a critical health status), but the patient's loved one's occasionally will ask for some help. Different chaplains have different ways of "helping," even in the small hospital I work at, and some have open ears, allowing the speakers to present and express themselves, some carry Bibles under their arms, and one wears Hindu beads. I feel that my bias does not contribute to my judgment that I have noticed some chaplains seem to provide more therapeutic services than others.