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Yesterday was too much for me and I'm sort of wiped out and my delicate g.i. system also will have to recovered just because I had a regular full meal out and then the cheese cake I'd made, 3/4 of which I left with my friend and her son.
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This next article is:Ettershank, John P. (1983, Fall). The chaplains' allegiance to the military. Military Chaplains' Review, 12(4),41-.50)
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"None of us has ever sworn or affirmed allegiance to the military per se. As our oath of allegiance states, our promise is to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America... Suffice it to say, I firmly believe as commissioned chaplains owe allegiance to the military." (p. 41)
The thing is that, and I've already discussed this - you can see it in the posts in file by the author (Dept. of the Army, pt....), the chaplains' handbook provides all the rules that the chaplains have to work by (at least the Army chaplains, the chaplains in the military branches would have their own handbook). And we've already just seen one case where the military was the one to punish a chaplain. So the military is the one with the H.R. rules and clout, the brigs and all the related trappings that go with that military justice system. So whether you took the oath to the military or not, the military is like the surrogate constitution, or the constitution in flesh and blood. The only thing is, I guess that if the military really messed it up the chaplain would technically have the option of appealing to the constitution, but you can imagine how difficult that might be. I'm not very good at legal processes, but I'm sure that any lawyer worth his or her salt would bring constitutional issues to light in the defense before it got to the point of having to actually make a full-blown constitutional appeal, though.
So I'm not all that taken in by the "oath to the constitution but not to the military" argument. Where the rubber meats the road they're going to have to please their bosses, the people over them in the day-in-day out, their commanders, and, then, of course, report to the sending church body.
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"The U.S. Code prescribes that , "Each chaplain shall, when practicable, hold appropriate religious services at least on each Sunday for the Command to which he is assigned and shall perform appropriate religious burial service members of the Army who die while in the Command...In you're reading this, maybe from another country, and aren't aware of this, the U.S. Code are federal laws. I guess they would all be enacted by the U.S. Congress (Senate/House). However, the different departments of government can have their own internal rules of functioning, so "AR" would mean "Army Regulation". This only has internal juristiction and is not a las, only a regulation.
AR 165-20, Chapter 2, states that the chaplain's primary duty is the religious needs of the military community...
... All of our churches have adequately prepared us theologically to perform the religious services, rites, sacraments, and ordinances required by the U.S. Code. The Chaplains' School has assistenus in making the transition from a civilian to a military mnistry. But what is our obligation? I feel that we, because of our ce to the military, must become soldiers/clerics." (p. 42)
This last is interesting. Do you agree with it? Well, if you agree with war and killing, I guess you might not have a problem with it. How about this one.
A group opens a halfway for drug addicts and ego propter hoc (does it follow then) that to better reach their target audience to themselves become drug addicts?
A mission working in East Europe is very afraid of the communist leadership in those countries ego propter hoc (does it follow then) that it should use some of their tactics?
These aren't maybe exactly comparable cases, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at.
Principle one (in the spirit of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
==>Be salt and do not lose your saltiness<==
To do this you must NOT become like the rest of the world. Where in the Bible is your inspiration for doing otherwise? I am not convinced that you can become a "soldier/cleric" without learning more than just the skills.
Principle two (also in the spirit of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
==>Be a light and to night hide it under a bushel<==
By taking on the "soldier/cleric" role in addition to your clerical one, I think you are watering down your testimony and making the image of God less clear, more muddied. I'm sure the military probably expects this of you or at the very least appreciates it, but I don't think it's in the best interest of your ministry.
Those who think that the military is just like any other profession will not agree with me, I know and they will say I'm over-reacting. But I don't think so. I know first had what total institutions are like, and the military is clearly and unanimously accepted as , so automatically by that indicator alone puts it in a different league, for example, from being a nurse or manager or whatever.
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"The chaplain must not ony possess and apply theological teaching, but also be skilled in the military arts...This does absolutely nothing to convince me, in fact, the author, in this section describes a priest who got all this training and even took Infantry Brigade courses (to match his unit). So that made him more buddy buddy with his soldiers, but what did this do to his salt and light? (It doesn't really say in the article, only that the author was so enamored by his infantry coursework, and how he speculated it must have benefited his ministry.)
... We are thought of as sodiers and respected as treated as chaplains." (p. 42-43)
As to the "thought of as soldiers and respected as chaplains" line, I'd really like to see some concrete research on this kind of issue. For all those military chaplains-in-training (in seminary) out in the U.S. now, do they see themselves as wanting to be soldiers, too? Since information is so readily available any more they most know that that's inevitable.
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"Within the military, we sometimes find conflicts about our allegiance. Our immediate Commander is the focal point for our allegiance...From what we've read so far I understood that the Commander, of course, was the primary, boss. But I thought that the supervisory chaplains had some authority. We saw already how they go around reviewing and helping with the Character Guidance program especially, which is something the Army wanted, their program.
But what allegiance do we owe to supervisory chaplains who by law have no command authority?...
I feel it is incumbent upon all chaplains to educate Commanders about the necessity for area coverage... While primary allegiance, by law, is directed through the chain of command to the Commander, it is important for us to remember our relationship to supervisory chaplains. We have a moral if not a legal obligation to assist/cooprate with supervisory chaplains." (p. 43-44)
Now for my Master's Adult Education I did classroom observations analyses of various teaching objects and the classroom itself, as well as interviews and the usual literature review and it was to determine where on a spectrum of communicative language teaching to grammar-translation, and there are all these variables and different issues to consider. For example, if the teaching is largely communicative, but the final exam is grammar-translation, that tells you something.
So here you have that kind of on paper, yeah, it's all about the religious stuff of the chaplaincy, but then supervisory chaplains have no authority? You'd think at the very least they'd have a formal advisory capacity or something. So then it looks like they aren't really supervisory at all, and it's a misnomer, and they're actually just a resource or something.
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"Honesty in dealing with Commanders and supervisory chaplains is the only professional way in which to reduce the arise from differing and contrasting allegiances." (p. 45)This section describes some "office politicking" that I think would mak more sense to those more knowledgeable about the Army chaplaincy, because the author uses single sentences that chaplains might use in their politicking, without otherwise providing a lot of background. I guess this is the same everywhere, but it doesn't make it right. I don't know about you, but I can't stand working in such atmospheres. I'm sure not all bases would be equally bad, though in this, also just like anywhere.
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"I the system, especially the Initial Entry Training (IET), de-personalizes individuals...This section could, at least in part, be an apologetic for why the H.R. department of the Vienna mission was comprised solely of two US military chaplains. After all, personnel development, including socialization, does fall within the sphere of an H.R. department does. And in the unique situation of the Vienna mission, where the missionaries came through other member missions, most of the usual human resources responsibilities would be handled externally, so that left mainly personnel development, and maybe a few other things like scheduling (for vacations and deputation and the like).
Once the system, through t receptiontion, gets trainees to look alike, the training battalion begins its work to make them act alike. Conformity here becomes the norm-order drill, mar, movement in formati, perform-oriented sk with pucoach methodology. Closely inter-twi with act-alikesubtle approach towards thinking alike: unanimity, united in opinion.
And what is the trainees [sic] perception of this process?ear it said: "cares about me; only my attitude and my performance matter!"
This is a stressful time for train. They have no appreciation of what this de-personalization process seeks to accomplish. ts purpose is to surordinate personal interest for the wrlfar group the squad or the platoon, and to concern for the welfare of others. to create interdependence instead of independence." (p. 45-46)
As such, then, it appears that this text may well have the model they started with for socialization in the Vienna mission. They would have had to make some modifications, of course, to fit the new context, but I think it's fair to say that the end result may have been more or less what they were looking for They didn't have a big cohort, so they had to work with individuals, so those are the kinds of changes they had to make.
The thing with me is that they wanted to know if I could "runn with footmen" (Jer. 12:5, the verse the H.R. director gave me before sending me the States for counseling 5 months into my time with the mission), but in the end it became clear that that really was wrong question. I was able to do just fine "in the thicket of Jordan" (also Jer. 12:5; I did go on trips into East Europe with and I'd been in East Europe before and after that as well), but the real issue was whether could put up with their half-baked theological logic like the "symbolic" use Jer. 12:5 and their unbiblical practices and unethical ways and their use of worldly methods. THOSE, were the correct questions that needed to be asked. And the answer was NO, NO, and NO!
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"The chaplain must also set a watch, through personal relationships, intententional visitation programs, counseling programs, to insure that de-personalization does not become de-humanizing...I must admit that Neuhaus' comment is refreshing. Did Neuhaus go all in for the military training aspect of the chaplaincy? This is somewhat rhetorical, because I don't know the answer to that question. Looking at the quote I like to think he didn't. If you really have the vision that he speaks of there I don't think you have to all over in getting caught up in the military think. I guess the chaplain wouldn't want to be completely ignorant to not understand the concerns, including ethical concerns of his parishioners, but I think you can have a meaningful minstry soldiers with this attitude.
...Richard Neuhaus it this way "Our job is not to make them better soldier; our job is to help them save their souls." Our ministry, accomplished because of our allegiance to the military, must never be mistaken a combat multiplier." (p. 46)
The other thing is raising leaders from within the ranks. So then, actually, you can have some mature lay leaders in the chapel who could be trained to bring their faith or maybe even some light counseling to their colleagues, so they would be ones, not the chaplain, who is maybe on the front line line closer to the soldier end of things, because that's their work and that's where they are.
I agree with Neuhaus that the chaplain should stay as close as possible to his ecclessiastical call, but be able to understand enough of the military issues to be able to understand his parishioners' concerns and be able talk with them in counseling and the like.
There was a saying that we used to have that's not biblical but sort of expresses the idea, and that's that his head shouldn't be so much in heaven that his feet don't touch the ground. He has to be able to talk with his unit members, but I don't think that means actually becoming a soldier. Maybe I'm mincing my words, maybe it's a fine line, but I think the way I've presented it here is how prefer it. I think that if the soldiers see that he is raising up "church" leaders from in their ranks, then that's empowering and respectful of them too and they will respect him for that too. And these leaders will already know how to communicate with their fellow unit members. Meanwhile, the chaplain can relate to the unit members, and maybe visits them in their various activities and is approachable, etc, but he's more of a chaplain than a soldier and they're not confused as to his identity.
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That's all for this article, and I think it's to get the care shop today. Bummer. Oh, well. l'll have to get to it next week. This is why I don't have a social life. It really throws me off. If I had a social life I would have to give this up, most normal (!) people would do that, but I really am committed to seeing this through.