402. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 20 (Brinsfield, pt. 1)

This next article is:

Brinsfield, John W. (1995, Summer). The chaplaincy and moral leadership. The Army Chaplaincy, pp. 3- 27. [I couldn't find a volume number.]

This is taken from a speech "to the Chief of Chaplains' Unit Ministry Team Conference."

This text quotes AR 165-1 and FM 16-1 regarding the chaplain's moral leadership role.  The first statute was dealt with in one of my earlier posts on the chaplain handbook (Dept. of the Army).  For our purposes it just basically lays the groundwork for the chaplains' role as moral guide and watchman.

"Chaplain Kelly, who served as the 4th Infantry Division chaplain in Vietnam before becoming Chief of Chaplains, recalled that the Vietnam issues fed into much larger questions about whether chaplains could ever be effective prophets:

The movement into the ethical arena in the 1970s was slow and ponderous.  The Army was feeling its way back into ethis after Vietnam. Chaplains were considered by many of the clerical brethren in civilian life as not being prophetic enough which had many implications. The whole country was confused about who we were.


Three major denominational studies on the military chaplaincy, those of the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, and the United Presbyterian Church, share a concern for our fidelity, the authenticity of our witness, our pastoral effectiveness, and our total health as their representatives.


The Presbyterian report put it this way: 'The church and its chaplains must be keenly sensitive to the erosion, exploitation, or softening of its wirtness.' The Episcopal report voices its concern in this manner: 'Our commission strongly endorses the necessity for a ministry to the military community, but a ministry for which both priestly and prophetic roles are stressed.  The chaplain ministers to people wherever they are found, but the chaplain is also the public voice of conscience who introduces a self-critical dimension within all institutions.  His responsibility, therefore, is to ask the difficult moral question, whether this particular kind of institutional participation is allowable from a Christian moral perspective.  The dilemma is whether the military chaplaincy can ask these questions, given its dependence on the military structure.'"(p. 6-7)

Were there things going on in Vietnam that were any more horrific or more immoral than in other wars - than in other wars that the USA had been involved in?  What about how we had treated the native Americans on our soil?  Now that's really, truly something to be ashamed of, if you ask me.  Of course, it's famous that there was the media in Vietnam and television so that the public actually saw what was happening (not that they didn't see the brutality of the battles with the Indians, too, because it was right on their own soil, but that's just it, it was too close to home, I expect).  So the voice was raised in horror.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the soil was ready for the gospel of some sort of ethics or the other, at least among certain circles, if not in the military itself.  And even churches couldn't agree as to whether ethics were the order of the day or not...

And that's exactly what happened in the Vienna mission.  All those churches that dug their heels in against Communists in Vietnam and were willing to throw off any appearance of leniency and softness to meet the enemy head on and have them routed out and overturned once and for all would have no mercy on any of them.  War is war and even if you try to avoid unnecessary cruelty a certain amount of it is bound to happen and you just come to expect it and move on.  You can't afford to lose a step against these sneaky bastards anyway.

Right? Am I hitting a chord?  I've taught ESL (English as a Second Language) and played devil's advocate in that capacity more than a few times.  So the thing is that at the same time the Moral Majority, a very right wing (politically), conservative (theologically) Evangelical Christian group was sweeping the country (USA) about this time and through the 80s, after which is began to loose a bit of steam. 

So these Vienna missionaries, and the two reserve chaplains (who comprised the H.R. department) almost certainly had this kind of view of communism, especially because of the way it affected their work and the choice of security they had made.  I don't think that it is a given that everyone who worked in that part of the world automatically had to have that attitude about Communism, although it was the norm, I think.  It was the cloak and dagger sort of mentality of missions to Communist countries - which may explain why I thought the mission was like a spy agency.  Brother Andrew comes to mind, but Eastern European Bible Mission comes to mind, for example also. 

I never agreed to those ways, and the thing was that I found missionaries and pastors who had ministries that proved to me that it was possible to serve God in those parts of the world without compromising your principles.  You didn't have to use the world's tactics to do the Lord's work.  In the end I had a rough time of it and because of my going through the mission and then the trouble because of my dad I kept having political problems.  I did a lot better on my own though, than with the mission.  There's just no comparison there, even with the political problems and being in the middle of Siberia.

So the ethics issue, really, I think comes down to an old question.

Joshua 24:15

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
So whose ethics will you chose?  God's or someone else's

***

"Not only civilian clergy, but some Army chaplains also were critical of our prophetic presence.  Chaplains (COL) Tom Harris, a World War II veteran and staff chaplain to the Army Surgeon General, wrote in the Military Chaplains' Review, August, 1972:

["]One of the main pictures that the mind conjures up of the chaplain through the ages is that he is the property of the prince, the flunky of the lord, a part of the impedimenta of the Army.  He has existed to praise the prince and to urge him to pour it on the peasants.  He has been quick to find reason to reinforce the status quo and to add emotional intensification to the position of the powerful...["]

In response to Chaplain Harris' catalytic, even caustic remarks, Chaplain Kermit Johnson added:

["]... Harris has in mind a person who can be manipulated, like a dog, a mascot on a leash ... This wording may be a bit strong, but it means a chaplain who tenaciously clings to the view from on top ... because at all times he exists to bless what is, not to question it.


In contrast stands the prophet ... A few months ago I was reading in the Gospel of Luke for clues as to how the prophet was regarded.  I didn't have to get very far.  In the sixth chapter, these words leapt out at me: 'woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers dod to the false prophets.'


The question is put very plainly to us by Professor Harvey Cox when he asked, 'How does a chaplain proclaim a prophetic gospel when he is wearing the uniform of the military, is paid by the state, and furthermore is dependent on his superior officers for advancement?'


... I have reluctantly and tentatively concluded that, as chaplains, we are mainly interested in being pastors and priests to individuals persons and small groups.  Realistically, we are not prophets to the institutions, but at best, and only occasionally, do we engage in prophetc acts."" (p. 7-8)

According to this discussion, none of the theologians in the Vienna mission at the time I was there were prophetic and they all acted like Chaplain Harris described in regards to assimilation into the mission - like flunkies and property of the mission, never really questioning things, and certainly never being prophetic.  Maybe I should open this post for comments so that I can have some indication as to how prophetic I might be. 

***

"But as late as March 1994,... Chaplain Kelly thought perhaps we had assumed too great a burden of guilt in this old debate.  His problem was with a definition of prophetic ministry which was far too narrow:

"To be prophetic we must first be profoundly aware of what our principles are. .. In truly repressive environments, sometimes our most forceful prophetic message is simply to refuse to participate in evil.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn...wrote of his witness in the old Soviet Union, "One word of truth shall outweigh a world of lies.  At times the best I can do is to stand stubbornly dumb.  If lies be promulgated, let them -- but not through me.'" (p. 8-9)

 There may be a place for this in the army, but I think it's weak.  Perhaps it depends on the nature of the ethical issue, but I think the chaplain should be willing to take stands too.  It's hard to make generalities without having specific ethical issues to discuss, so I'll leave the army chaplains to do their thing and return to the Vienna mission.

I didn't exactly think in Solzhenitzyn's terms, but when I was with the Vienna mission I was thinking about doing the things I would agree with and then trying to avoid the things I had problems with, which sounds like what he was doing with the lies, where he wouldn't pass them on - he wasn't participating in them.  That's what I was doing too.  So it's ironic that I was using the same strategy to survive the Vienna mission that Solzhenitsyn used to survive the USSR!  Wow, now I really feel validated, especially in my comparison in between the mission treating me similar to how the USSR treated Christians (and dissidents!)  

***

Here Brinsfield goes into some history of the chaplaincy:

"After the Vietnam War, or more specifically, after the Peers Inquiry into the My Lai massacre was completed in 1970, the Army began questioning the 200-year-old assumption that officers had had sufficient ethical training.  By 1975, the Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain (MG) Orris Kelly, was calling all chaplains to greater and broader involvement in the moral leadership area, to include teaching ethics to officers:

[']As chaplains, let us understand our leadership role and how we impact on the system as a whole. We work systemically not just individually.  We are clergy leaders...[']

By 1980 the Chief of Chaplains [Kermit Johnson] was encourating chaplains to go further, to " boldly confront both the Army as an institution and individual within it with the consequences of their actions. Army chaplains demonstrate a prophetic presence." (p.11)

Wouldn't it have really been great if the two military chaplains/H.R. department staff had put this background to good use in the Vienna mission?  How truly exciting that could have been!  To have seen real biblical ethics in practice there would have been just fantastic. 

I'm trying to imagine them doing that thought and I just can't picture it.  It's so very foreign to my picture of them that I can't see it.  But they had to have had some background in this kind of thing even if they were always reserve chaplains because I think the moral issue was a significant enough part of their work (but behind character guidance, for sure). 

No, the Vienna H.R. staff/miitary chaplains were more like the "flunky of the lord" than a prophet at the mission.  It's probably because of all the other missions involved, but that's just an excuse.  It doesn't make all the compromises right.

So much for clergy leadership.

***

"But if chaplains have had difficulty with moral leadership in confronting command, during the Vietnam era for example, I would suggest that the historical record reveals at least four interesting reasons.

1. Chaplains have fequently been over-extended in trying to meet too many needs.  We priorotize our roles, especially in combat, usually with the pastoral ones first.
2. Chaplains sometimes have been "out of the loop" when it comes to command decision making.  Some commanders still are not clear what chaplains' staff and advisory functions include.  We need to educate them.
3. Even though chaplains have been morally and physically courageous in all sorts of difficult and dangerous situations, most are unwilling to oppose a command policy unless they have all the facts.  Too many times chaplains have been led into confronting commanders with inadequate information.  As Chaplain John Sitler told me in the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment 20 years ago, "Don't crucity yourself on a toothpick -- be sure it is a real cross." Get all the facts before you mobilize your own prophetic authority."
4. Chaplains sometimes have acted in isolation from other chaplains, as "lone rangers." Our most effective moral witness usually has resulted from several chaplains standing together as in the case of the 7th and 8th Army chaplains at the end of World War II." (p.26-27)

Alas, I had mega difficulty confronting the Vienna mission.  I was a nobody and there was no grievance process (that functioned reliably) and I knew that to even attempt to suggest any of these would be an opening that they pounce on.  I did that with acknowledging my stress and look where that got me!  That's the only thing I ever admitted or expressed concern about that I can remember.

All of these things were used to make me be ineffectual at trying to make it on my own or be a strong person without the mission.  They gave me demeaning things to do, disinformation was used with me at a certain point, I soon learned not to trust anyone so there wasn't anyone I could team up with, and you couldn't really get certain information until you submitted fully, and even then I don't know that it was guaranteed.  So whereas for the chaplains these things are just something to consider if they are thinking about raising an ethical issue, but for me with the Vienna mission the mission purposely caged me in.