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a. Acts as adviser and consultant to the commander and his staff in all matters which pertain to religion, morals, and morale as affected by religion of the command." (p. 1)
What kinds of things do you think the commander and his staff would need advising in? How many people got baptised that week? Hardly. I mean, I doubt it. Maybe problems could come up that involve religion, that the chaplain could help with, perhaps something like disagreements between different religious groups or individuals in the ranks. That kind of thing would seem pretty standard.
As to morals, it depends on what kinds of morals. If you're going to just be teaching the kind that the Army wants (their values) then that's pretty iffy as far as religion goes. They shouldn't be putting a religious gloss on something that the religion a chaplain stands for doesn't particularly advocate (although it might not necessarily deny them either).
And as for morale, well, you have to deal with the whole issue of war and the particular war at hand (if there is one) and then come back and ask yourself whether or not morale is warranted... I mean Scripturally. So, hello!, just maybe poor morale is warranted if the whole business of what the Army is about is not warranted.
Most people won't except that, though, so I'd better think of something else. Morale, of course can come from many sources (reasons), irregardless of the whether the Army is at war or whether the war is warranted or whether you think war is okay at all or not. So I guess that's what the chaplain deals with and if the other approach does not hold water with you, then I guess we're left with a myopic approach to morale, and that's what the chaplain deals with, although I have a difficult time swallowing that hook, line and sinker.
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"b. Provides opportunities for worship, public and private, consistent [sic], with the religious beliefs, customs, and practices of the military personnel, their dependants, and authorized civilians." (p. 1)Whoa, Nellie! You're kidding me? "Consistant with the religious beliefs.... of the military personnel....!" I thought it was supposed to be consistent with the chaplains denomination! What happened here. Did I miss something? That's what the earlier texts said, isn't it?
This paragraph sounds pretty all-inclusive, too; It includes "beliefs, customs, and practices." All these things have to be in sync with the practices of all these people, and nothing is mentioned of the chaplain's denomination. So what if these people's beliefs are Presbyterian Church (USA) (generally more liberal) and you get Southern Baptist chaplain (generally conservative). Does this mean that the Southern Baptist pastor has to now "provide opportunities for worship" consistant with the Pesbyterian Church (USA) personnel, who also, incidentally believe in infant baptism rather than believer baptism?
That's atrocious and that chaplain's denomination would have a thing or two to say about that I might think. Well, presumably military personnel aren't all uniform one denomination, but there could end out being a stronger chunk of one or another, just like there could of one race or another, which does happen, as I've read about.
This section b. is really a puzzle, and to me it puts the people above the chaplain's denomination. It looks like the Army wants most of all that the chaplain would be useful in corraling all these people so that the ones that do have religious backgrounds would continue in them practially at any cost, so that the chaplain's denomination becomes irrelevant in the equation. At least that's how it looks in this section.
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"c. Provide for the proper and appropriate administration of rites, sacraments, and/or ordinances." (p. 1)This harks back to what I just discussed. The chaplain couldn't be asked to perform rited for religions other than his own, though, so he would have to make arrangements for others to do those.
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"d. Provide religious education and instruction consonant with the desires of the individual concerned." (p. 1)
There's nothing much to say about this; I'm just including everything so you'd know what the Army includes in their job description.
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"e. Provides character guidance instruction." (p. 1)This is more where I think you get into the area where the Army might have a say in what the "character" is, as in what the end product should look like, and the chaplain is part of the values formation in the soldiers. Of course, this could also be taken in a very general sense, but I don't think the Army would have included it here as part of just the chaplains sermons or something. So it's a specific set apart objective for the chaplain to meet.
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"f. Provide pastoral care such as counseling, spiritual guidance, visitation of the sick and the incarcerated, and making pastoral visits to barracks, quarters, training, and recreational areas.
g. Cooperate with religious groups and welfare agencies in civilian communities.
h. Plans and provides a pgoram of cultural and social activities consistent with the religious need of the command.
i. Satisfies religious obligations established by ecclesiastical authorities to insure maintenance of denominational endorsement. " (p. 1-2)
I don't really have anything to say about f. through h. They're just there so you'll see the breadth of what the Army expected of its chaplains.
As to i. it's incredible that after all that it finally refers to the denomination! It seems to me that there might me hugs conflicts of interest between what might be required to perform i. and what might be required to perform some of the other job tasks as stated. The Army wants things done its way, for the interests of its people, in the manner its peole are used to, etc. and only now, mention is made that the chaplain should somehow ALSO maintain his denominational endorsement!! At this point the chaplain really had better believe in moving mountains (Mark 11:22-23) because he might need it, like big time.
It's like the college student who had 5 classes and studied arduously for 4, but sort of forgot that she also had a final exam in the 5th one too. So guess what? When she got to class that day she got a big surprise, didn't she! And she more than likely failed, too. Only in the case of the Army situation the results would be worse, because, as we learned in earlier texts, if the denominational endorsement was lost the chaplain lost his job in the Army too.
Well, I don't think the chaplain himself would have been so negligent as the Army's list of functions make him out to be, so it is the Army itself that would be trying to get as much out of the chaplain as it could by way of these functions while at the same time the chaplain did what he had to do for his denomination.
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I only have one more brief quote I'd like to make from Chapter 1 of the "Chaplain" handbook""5. ... In accordance with AR-165, chaplains may not be assigned secular duties." (p. 2)
I don't have much to say about this, except that it seems worthwhile noting that chaplains aren't supposed to be doing secular duties, which in my mind might include a whole array of things, such as:
1. Fighting
2. Office work/Administrative (except related to chaplaincy)
3. Medical
4. Disciplinary
So the thing is that the last two can include some "counseling" that I think we'll see later on (I think I have articles that mention these things). We'll discuss these more when they come up.
Also, the issue of "moral education" actuall treads on rather shaky ground as to whether it is "religious." The Army's (and probably the whole military establishment's) view of "moral education" is not really religious at all and is actually quite secular in nature. So it's rather a sham to make chaplains have to be the vehicles to indoctrinate the soldiers into the Army's values. Of course, the chaplains aren't left to their own devices in this effort, because others are also working toward this end. But, certainly, having a chaplain join the effort would add a credibility to a swath of recruits with a faith background, right? So faith becomes a useful tool in the pursuit of war, or at least the preparation for war, whether or not there is going to be one or not.
So the thing is that the chaplain, by teaching the Army's moral education (whether one-on-one, in large groups, or however) is saying that religion (my religion, your religion, all religions) backs these moral qualities and thinks that they are worth espousing. He doesn't have to say that because the very fact that he is the one doing the one teaching sends that message across, and the Army likes that. Whether or not that message is true is, I expect, unimportant, even irrelevant to the Army. In fact, whether or not there is an indirect message at all may or may not even be important - at least important enough that they'd like to discuss it or acknowledge it.
Meanwhile, chaplains, everywhere think that these traits are more or less okay so they teach them. Besides, they agree to them anyway or they wouldn't be in the Army in the first place, right? Still, they're not the Fruit of the Spirit.
It'll be interesting if we seen anything that smacks of "secular duties," in other texts. That'll have to wait, though, because we're going to be on this one for a while....
But for now, I'm done with this chapter and I'm going to end this post.
