411. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 29 ( Davidson (b), pt. 1)

This is the fist time I've commented on 2 articles by the same person in a file, but I think that chaplains are maybe a more limited finite number of specialists, especially when you figure the number of them who are prone to write articles, I suppose and the number who might wrote articles in areas I was interested in. 

This artield is:

Davidson, Donald L. (1986, Fall). Christian ethics and the military profession. Military Chaplains' Review, 8-25.

The tables in the back of the article comparing differences are interesting too and a great addition for this kind of thing.

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"What has military professional ethics to do with Christian ethics and philosophical ethics? Often, because of differences in language and structure, these disciplines seem to represent three distinct and unrelated fields.  The differences are real, but they are not as incompatible as at first they may appear." (p. 8)

 I'm not exactly sure what this means, but it sounds as if he thinks that the differences between Christians and these other ethics is at least small enough to be something one can work and live with.  I'm not sure why he includes philosophical ethics in here, because philosophical ethics has been a part of church ethics (for the good or bad) at least since the 3rd century A.D., which is why you have Christian traditions that tend to either follow more idealist (Augustinian) or realistic (Thomas Aquinas) and then there were others of different traditions as well, but those are the two biggies, and they follow down to today, for example in Kierkegaard and Niebuhr (at least more recently, if not exactly right now today).  And these Christian philosophers could have brought in philosophy via the idealist or realist lense, or at least secular idealists and realists might have had a hook to hand their hat on via these Christian apologists.  So it'll be interesting to see what he does with philosophical ethics. Military ethics is clear and that would be what we need to see the real comparison with.

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Figure 1

Ethics

A systematic reflection upon human actions, institutions, and [can't read one word] ...

• To determine how groups or individuals ought to act.
• To identify what things are right or wrong, good or bad.
• To evaluate more rasons and arguments given to justify actions.

Religious ethicists frequently will add a reference to the character and actions of God in relation to humanity.  Military ethics is "applied" ethics.  That is, the military generally adapts ethical definitions, values, and norms from its parent society to the special context of the military profession." (p. 9)

So the author uses the philosophical as the basis and the Christian and military as special cases?  I guess we'll see. 

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"Military ethics may modify society's ethics because of its war mission.  The Army, for example, is not a democratic institution.  However, if the military diverges too much in its ethics, it can become estranged from the society it is to protect." (p. 10)

I don't see how it can help but have some influence "on the society it is to protect."  Some examples: The lives of the soldiers and their families will forever be affected, and that might include some extended families too so that even when they go back into society they will be changed people and they will carry the military spirit with them wherever they go.  And if they are injured in combat or come home with post traumatic stress syndrome they will affece people in a new and different way again.

Then of course, the bases affect the communities in which they live, whether in the USA or abroad, and I lived about 1/2 a mile from a base in Seoul, S. Korea and it was not long after at another base in Korea a U.S. military vehicle hit and killed to 14-year old girls.  Of course, th bases have economic affects on local communities and when bases are closed it can be quite traumatic for the community left behind. 

Then there's the Military Industrial Complex, which my father was a part of, and which feeds the military with its advanced military.  Of course, there are a myriad other companies that provide supplies and services for the military, like Halliburton's KBR.  And don't forget the HUGE toy industry which absolutely (along with mass media) sets the embers, stokes the flame and then feeds it with toys and electronic games of all kinds of imaginable war configuration imaginable, some so realistic it could probably spawn another post traumatic stress syndrome attack in a World War II veteran if any are still alive.

Sure, thee are aspects of life and certain echelons of life where you might not be so touched by military ethics as you would be in other areas or segments of society, but overall, I have a hard time believing that we're at great risk for the military ethic, no matter how much it diverges, becoming estranged from the society it is to protect.  Even Guantanamo, with its extended keeping of people that didn't belong there and its use of torture didn't estrange it from "the society it is to protect."

Let's face it, not only is the society in humongous trouble of being dead ethics wise, but the church too!  Anybody reading this who went to Sunday School as a child, even if they don't go to church now will know that Christians are supposed to be salt to the earth and lights to the world (Matt. 5:13-16).  And this passage also says that we can't be salt to the earth if we lose our saltiness.  What good is salt without it's saltiness?  And we shouldn't hide our lights under a bushel (e.g. a barrel).  What good is a light if no one can see it? 

So the thing is that I don't think the church is primarily about politics; it's ministry is really about bringing people into the Church, the Body of Christ, and building them up as Christians and growing the local Church into a healthy functioning part of bigger body, the Church around the world.  But we can take moral and ethical stands too.  The thing is, though, that we should understand that Satan is the Prince of the Power of the air (Eph. 2:2), so we should know that it is not unusual that a worldly (not Christian) government system should act in a not Christian way.  It's not like we should necessarily expect them to live according to Christian principles and Scripture.  They don't have the Holy Spirit and a new nature (along with the old sinful one, coexisting), so we are not right, I think to expect them to act as Christians.

That being said, however, there probably are/were Christians among them and if they did anything against God or Scripture or another person they will have to face God for it one day and the church where they attended or where they were/are a member should have been more attentive to these things. (Churches don't like to rock the boat, especially, I think if the person is a strong financial supporter of the church.  If you find a Scripture support for that ethic let me know.)

Also, however, Romans 2:14-16 indicates that there are those who don't know the law, I think mainly commentators say it refers to heathen who really have never heard the gospel, such as tribal people, but maybe even in our cities.  And among these people are some who because of the conscience God created us with instinctively do the right things.  And verse 16 makes it sound like some of these people could be saved.  I've even read stories about missionaries coming into tribes and when they share the story of Jesus for the first time the people will tell them that that's who they've been waiting for or worshiping, but they didn't kow the name or were waiting for someone to tell them about Him. 

But there are people who have rejected Christ too and somehow it seems like they act better than Christians, although that's so not how it's supposed to be.  It's a shame on the church that this is so, that we have failed so much in our faith that others outshine us - I mean, they seem to live more Christlike than we do.  Of course, we don't know the heart, and God does, and the fact that the person has rejected Christ does count for something as relates to standing with God, but out light and salt before men might be all but nonexistent.

I guess I diverged a little there.

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 Figure 3 is of Structure of Ethics and has 3 branches: Metaethics, Normative Ethics, and Moral Policy.  I won't include the whole thing here, unless I end out decided I absolutely have to later on.

"Examples of fundamental values that have greatly influenced ethical systems in the past include pleasure (hedonism..), power (Nietzche), self (egosim), the state (nationalism), character or moral virtue (Aristotle), and God. Individuals or groups may hold more than one of these, but frequently one may become dominant and the source for evaluating the other values." (p. 11)

 I'm not really going to comment on this.  It's just here to follow his train of thought.

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Figure 4

Typical formalist

Ethical rules

Respect human life.
Prevent injury to others.
Help others in need.
Tell the truth.
Keep promises and commitments.
Treat others fairly (justice).
Respect property of others.

In the 1960s Joseph Fletcher and others, reacting to the "legalism" of some formalists, emphasized the importance of the connect to ethical decisions. Fletcher's approach, called "situationalism, recuded all rules to one, the rule of love.  Right action, is doing the loving thing in the situation.  The context is an important continuation in ethical decisions.  This method, however, is incomplete, but may be the primary motive, as in the Great Commandments child like Jesus; or it may serve as a summary (higher order) principle similar to Kant's categorical imperative or Jesus' Golden Rule.  Love, however, is a very general concept.  By eliminating lower order [unclear word] (as Fletcher does, situation ethics provides very little guidance in ethical relations.  To be consistent, the situationalist still must use other principles (e.g., 'ends' or 'obligations') for judging which actions are right or loving.

The fact that Davidson took so much time and space on this approach to ethics makes me think that this is one approach to ethics that, despite it's weaknesses, he thinks is a serious contender in the mix.  At least it's hard to argue that love contradicts Christianity. 

The problem with it that I have, and that he doesn't exactly mention (although perhaps it would fit in his catchall sort of caveat towards the end) is the situationalism nature of this brand of ethics.  To me situational is a close cousin to relative, although situational at least has a hook to hang our hat on.  Here's what I mean.

Situational ethics:  I'll do anything as long as it's loving.

Cultural relativity: All cultures are relative.  They're all just different; there's not right or wrong as far as cultures go. They have to judged by they're own yard sticks, not by some external extracultural ideal.

I'll reserve further judgement for now.  I don't want to get ahead of things.

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"Christian Metaethics

In summary, these three concepts form the methaethical fouhndations for Christian ethics: (1) God is the supreme value-center, the source of ethical knowledge, or rightness and godness; (2) Christian ethics always consists of a triadic relationship which includes God, self, and others; and (3) God's commandments provide required conditions for meaningful community existence.  These three features are evident in the covenantal nature and ethical content of the Ten Commandments.  They are also integral to that which Jesus, Paul and an unknown Jewish rabbi in the New Testament called the Greatest Commandments:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-39 (p. 16)

These are broad ethical guidelines that probably just about every Christian could rally around.

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Military Methaethics [sic]

The potential exists for great differences between military ethics and Christian ethics because of significant divergence in metaethical foundations.. The highest value for the Christian is God and to Him is due the believer's ultimate loyalty.  For the military, however, the highest 'official' value is the state, as established in the Constitution, administered by the President, and legislated by the Congress." (p. 16-17)

I already discussed recently in another post about how the miliary makes the chaplain take, as part of his oath of duty, promise to make service to the country primacy of place in his life. So now it'll be interesting to see how he might wheedle his way out of that one. You make that oath and then there have got to be times of conflict because the boss is going to want you to make good on your promise. You can't necessarily expect to try to just close your eyes and pretend it will go away or something. And the military has you a good part of 24/7. That's what I wasn't going give the mission when they looked too worldly and very potentially mixed up in things I didn't approve in and I wasn't going to stand by and pretend I did approve of them, so I would rather have not known about them and stay on the periphery, as much as it hurt. I came to be part of a mission, not a political establishment. If I wanted to be part of a political establishment, I would have accepted the offer to study at the Monterey Institute for International Studies instead of going to Bible school, which I instead opted for.

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"Fortunately for military personnel and our nation, there has been a coherence between development of the American character and the Christian tradition... As these developments reflect, there is a general compatibility between duties to God and duties to the nation; but this could change... It is important, therefore, for Christian military professionals to work for consistency between national ethics, military ethics, and Christian ethics despite these metaethical differences." (p. 17)

This doesn't really tell me anything at all. It's hard to know what do comment on because of the sweeping generalities here. 

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This next section is a watershed one.

"What approach does Christian ethics take [ineligible word] it use an 'ends' or 'obligations' procedure?

The majority of Christian ethicists would probably agree with the following observation by George Forell: Christianity assesses that in all important ethical decisions the motive is the significant feature... In this sense Christian ethics is formalistic rather than teleological.' Beach and Niebuhr consider Christian ethics a formalist system: 'It is more concerned with the question: What is right? whan with the question: What is man's chief good? It does not begin by setting ideals before men but by reminding them of their duties."...

... These teleological scriptures generally fall within what we described earlier as an ethic of virtue.  Also it is clear from these passages that the goal is not personal self-realization, but becoming what God wants, of being like Christ (Galatians 2:20; Romans 12:1-2).

Though teleological elements are present in Scripture, the Bible rejects egoism.  The central issue in Jesus' temptation (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13) was whether he should use his unique powers for personal gain and in the pursuit of self-interest.

Scripture also seems to reject a utilitarian approach to ethics.  I [illegible word] found no passages in which the ends justify the means; that is, when the rightness of an action was determined solely by the consequences of that action.  As Beach and Niebuhr suggest, the primary ethical approach reflected in Scripture is formalism." (p. 18-19)

So the real clincher here for me, especially, is that last paragraph, which supports what I've been saying about the Vienna mission and how what I've been calling pragmatism (a special form of pragmatism, but also called other things, like utilitarianism, I just have wanted to be consistent and call it the same thing all the time), has, accodrding to Davidson, no biblical support, which is exactly what I've been saying from day 1!  And there were like some 40 theologians there at the mission who either hadn't realized the utilitarian (pragmatic) aspect of the mission or didn't know ethics well enough or were so sucked into the mission that they were beyond being a "prophet" to the mission (or a whistleblower in a more dramatic form).  And I was "just" a secretary and I saw it with my eyes closed.  Even while I was there I knew it; this was one of the things I knew while I was there, that I was cognizant of in my second secretive self that I wouldn't let anyone see because they scared the bajeebers out of me.  So here you have it, and it didn't come from me: utilitarianism, pragmatism, whatever you want to call it, it's the ends justifies the means type of thinking is NOT biblical.  And the Vienna mission lived by that principle.  And that was part of their underworld of the security and maybe the compromise with working with groups they ought not to have worked with.  And by the way, I don't suppose the military chaplains/H.R. staff might have read this article; it came out about 6 months or so before I came to join the mission in Vienna.

As for the other stuff, I can't imagine the military being too excited about a bunch of their soldiers becoming Christ like.  The table of biblical norms in the back include the fruit of the spirit, which I've discussed before here as including such things as meekness and humility, which I'd be surprised if the military would fully appreciate.

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"Military Normative Ethics

Because of its nature and mission, the military is a rule-ordered society... These characteristics incline the military toward a formalist or 'duty' approach to ethics where right and wrong and good and bad are defined by governing documents and the hierarchy and then pushed down through the system.  The soldier's duty is to obey lawful and ethical orders and standards.  The military's need for unit teamwork, cohesion, and esprit requires common rules, like those of a covenant, which promote duties of the members to each other.  Military ethics shares  with Christian ethics disposition toward an 'obligation' or formalistic ethic.

The military, however, it also a mission or task oriented society...Thus, although by nature and structure the military is a formalist organization, its method of operating may promote utilitarian calculation which could lead to a disregard for important ethical principles and standards." (p. 20-21)

In this discussion the author is trying to look at these different ethical traditions and how they might work in the military context specifically.  The military normative ethics is specific to the military setting, so that comes with the bargain.  The others are brought in as possible contributions to the context, particularly for Christians trying to function in the military setting.  So these would be ethical traditions not indigenous per se to the military setting, but attempting to make some kind of a happy marriage there, or at least a reasonable co-existence. 

The chaplain is fortunate to be in a formal position of ethical counselor to his captain, and we've seen that this is in the chaplain handbook, for example, so it's a formal policy that this is so, although some captains might utilize it more than others.  So with this advantage it's possible that this could be an opening for Christian ethics in the military, but then you have the issue of Church and State separation and you have all kinds of religions and non-religions (atheists, agnostics, etc.) in the army, so this might not be something you'd want to exploit unfairly. 

So then you're left with the individual trying to make his way in the army figuring out how to be regarding ethical issues.  The average soldier, especially without higher education, probably will just go with the flow and not otherwise think about it.  So then it's the chaplain's job to introduce ethical issues to them, as appropriate. 

I think that it's possible to meld the two or find a way to walk a tight rope between them or pick and choose in a way that seems to work for everyone.  The thing is that we all pick up things from the world, only we don't realize it because we're blind to our own biases.  These biases from the civilian world could easily be just as bad if not worse than those of the soldier in the military.  So I'm inclined here to think that this is a case where we need to make sure there isn't a beam in our own eye before looking for the speck in the soldier's (Matt. 7:2-4)

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"Conclusion

As a result, at least in part, of their common heritage in Judeo-Christian ethics, American military ethics and Christian ethics are greatly compatible.  Both consider ethical principles and virtues to [ineligible word] the moral imperative, rather than simply preferences or customes...

The point where Christian ethics and military ethics have the greatest potential for conflict is in the metaethical category of fundamental values.  Indeed, profound divergence in this area could lead to very different principles and practices for Christians and soldiers. The value-center of Christians can only be the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ.  The highest 'official' value in the military professional ethics is the state.  If the demands of these to value-centers [ilegible word] the Christian soldier faces an ethical dilemma.  In the end, the Christian whether soldier or civilian, must choose to obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)" (p. 21)

Commenting on the first paragraph, I'd just like to say that the values are different and if individuals follow those different values will end out as quite different types of people ans so I think that to say that the military values don't conflict with Christianity's, in principle that might be so, but the fact that they're all different enough makes me hesitate.  You're not going to find a church with those values; a cult, maybe, but not a church.  To give you an idea of what I mean, the Military Ethical Values table includes such things as selfles service, courage (physical & moral), dedication, discipline, etc.) as well as the code of conduct, which includes, for example, this statement: "5. If captured, I will remain loyal to my country, not aid enemy."

The second paragraph refers to the fact that the military demands primacy of place from the soldier and officer.  This, as Davidson rightly acknowledges, is a likely place where problems could lie.  The thing is that if the military is the end all, then if there is a conflict between the miltary's ethics and Christian ethics, then the military's ethics will always win out and the soldier will always obey them, at least from an ethical standpoint.  (There could be other reasons than ethics for disobedience.)  So this is very sweet for the military, of course. 

But for the Christian it is problematic, to say the least.  In fact, to do this is to start on the slippery slope to becoming what we call a carnal Christian.  It doesn't really take much to become carnal and it's one step and then another step and then another and before you know it there you are, you've completely lost your saltiness and your light is under a bushel and if anyone looked at you they'd have no idea you were a Christian at all.  That's the way it goes.

So it's a problem for Christians.  But not all Christians see it that way.  But then, too, they might see a lot of other Christians around them, maybe in the military, maybe civilian, who also have taken little steps and they're not quote the saltiness and light maybe they should be, so he thinks after all that this is normal and that "everyone does it," so he agrees to let the Army have supremacy over God.  And if you're in the Vienna mission, you do the same thing, because ou see that all these other missionaries and theologians have done the same thing before you, so you see that it must be okay and they must know something you don't, so you trust them and let the mission have supremacy in your life, and God second place.  God has to have second place because you have to agree to reserve all judgements against the mission.  So they alone are above critique, sort of like God. 

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That's it for this article.