443. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 50 (G'Segner (b), pt. 1)

After my father passed away my brothers tried to lower mom's image of me.  I think one brother worked harder at it than the other - the one that was with her day in and day out - but when I was living with the other brother for a while he had opportunity to try his hand at it too.  It's generally a matter of perspective and blowing things way out of perspective. 

For one thing, there was the incident when I was living with the one brother after I lost my job after my surgery (eventually I was awarded disability insurance).  When my mom and other brother came out I had this rather over-done plan - in hindsight I should have toned it down some.  But that wasn't the whole issue, either though.

I told my brother that I wanted to host a dessert evening.  That's what I called it and that's what it was supposed to be.  I think that is very clear and I don't know how it can be misunderstood, but somehow it was, and they came over wanting dinner. 

I wanted it to be a kind of magical evening, but it ended out being a mess because they wanted dinner and then I wasn't ready because I'd actually planned too much.  Actually, I was ready enough that we could go with what I had done close to when I'd planned it, and just not have everything I planned.  And they boys could help decorate, which was part of it, too.

But then I wanted to send a lot home with my one brother and mom and I ended out cooking till the last minute when I should have dropped it and just spent time with mom I guess. 

She wanted me to help her with her medications list.  She knew I used to help dad with his.  But the thing was that all I did for dad was set up his Excel spreadsheet and teach him how to use it and then I think I helped him tweak it a couple times, but he kept it updated.

I couldn't really do that with mom because 1) she was a classic technophobe and wouldn't go anywhere near a computer, let alone an Excel spreadsheet, and 2) even if she had a paper worksheet she wasn't reliable enough to keep it up to date like dad did with the electronic version.  I'd tried to get updated information with her over the phone before and it wasn't reliable.  So then my brother out there would end out having to be the one having to take charge anyway.  Since I wasn't there and I didn't have direct access to her doctors or medical information there wasn't anything I could do.  But she didn't understand that.  So all she knew was that I used to help dad and I wasn't helping her.  That sounds terrible, like I didn't love her or something, but in reality, I didn't know how I could help her.  I mean other than calling her and encouraging her and things like that. 

This wasn't like in Vienna where I could just easily take down mom's meds as if it was going to make a difference in anything, knowing full well it wasn't it wasn't because how on earth was I ever going to find out if there were changes to the meds or doses. (That is, I couldn't I couldn't live a lie with my mom, as I did in Vienna, although I tried as much as possible to minimize the dissonance there.)  My brother out there never told me anything or talked to me about anything, so it's not like I was going to find out from him.  So it was going to have to come from mom, and I'm not sure I would have wanted to tell mom directly to her face, but she was not very reliable, and there were a lot of reasons for that, not all of which were really in her control. 

***

Back to the texts.  This next one is:

G'Segner, Ford F. (1986, Fall). A chaplain's perspective on the application of values.  Military Chaplains' Review, 55-60.

Ah, those pesky little things called values.  It seems it's hard to run away from them, hard as we may try.  We just saw into my family a bit how ethics has come to play.  And if you're a chaplain it seems that it may be even extra hard.  Let's take a look.

***

The Chief of Staff, Army "Values" White Paper uses these concepts and expands their application.

Our Oath of Commission, Oath of Enlistment, or Oath of Office requires that we live by the tenets of the professional Army ethic and those personal values that strengthen and enable us to execute the missions entrusted to us.  Values are what we, as a profession, judge to be right.  They are more than words - they are the moral, ethical, and professional attributes of character....

This is familiar language to chaplains.  We are charged by our churches and religious groups to represent these values to soldiers.  In addition, we are expected to apply the professional Army ethic with its individual values to our lives and to the lives of the soldiers we serve." (p. 55-56)

The main part of that that I wanted to discuss is the last paragraph, but it didn't make sense without bringing in some of the preceding text as well, even though understanding what the "familiar language" is might not be that crucial to my discussion.

 So, if I understand it correctly, churches charge chaplains to teach Army values.  At least that's how I understand the crux of this text.  I mean, I realize that churches don't ONLY charge chaplains to do this; that this isn't the only thing that chaplains are charged by their churches to do, but the thing here is that one of the things that churches charge chaplains to do is teach Army values.  Right?  Isn't that what this says? 

And it's written by a chaplain in the rank of Major who, according to the biographical blurb on the first page, "is a Personnel Staff Officer assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Human Resources Directorate, Leader Policy Division, Washington, D.C.  That sounds pretty impressive to me, like he probably knows what he is talking about and has some clout behind hime too, so that other chaplains might respect him.

So this was written in 1986, the year before I arrived in Vienna.  So I was doing deputation at the time this was published.  That means I was speaking at churches raising faith support so I could go to the mission field.  Interdenominational missions are generally faith missions, which means their missionaries aren't sent out from money from the denomination, but instead each missionary has to raise his own pledged support from churches and individuals.  So that's what I was doing when this article was published.

I don't know if either of the H.R. staff at the Vienna mission read this article, but they certainly could have.  Or maybe they were familiar with the concept before it even went to print, so that this concept is only news to me. 

However that may be, I find it very strange that churches should church chaplains to Army values.  The church would know that the chaplain has to fulfill certain Army tasks, but Army values could be oppositional to the church's and I don't think that churches should charge chaplains to teach Army values.  The church's job is spiritual and it needs to charge the chaplain to do the spiritual work.

***

I'm going to discuss this section.  It's unusual, because I didn't have it marked up from when I first read the text in the mid 1990s in Minneapolis.  But this section is just a horrible throwback on the way the H.R. director and maybe some other leaders even too used Scripture to mold people's thinking, for counseling, if you will.  In my opinion, it was a great misuse of Scripture.  I actually saw it among certain Protestants in Russia that had had a lot of Western contact too.

The section is titled "The Challenge"

Chaplains must understand the role expected by our individual supervisors and commanders.  Are we good luck charms who ride in helicopters to keep them from crashing?  Are we the conveyors of good and bad weather wishers?  Are we staff officers who advise on religion, morals, and morale? Once we perceive our role, we can determine whether or not it promotes the ideals of the professional Army ethic.  We like to say ours is a sacred trust from God to promote the principles, commandments, and truths revealed in the Scriptures.  I believe we act naively and with benign ignorance when we do not heed such Scripture passages as: "The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted also in great; and the man who is dishonest in little things is dishonest also in great things.  If, then, you have not proved trustworthy with the wealth of this world, who will trust you with the wealth what is real? And if you have proved untrustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" (p. 57)

 The part here that I'm going to take issue with is when the author starts trying to apply Scripture.  For one thing I've had to read and reread it to make sure I understand what he's trying to say with this passage of Scripture.  At first reading it's easy to think it's a non sequitor as to why on earth he would be putting it there and what it might have to do with what he just said.  But I think he's trying to get chaplains to just sort of getting real and making sure they have their feet on the ground and can do the basic things that are given them and then after that they can think about other and maybe bigger or harder things. 

But the thing is that it's almost a syndrome or something to just throw these verses out like that as if that was the magic answer, with no thought about context of Scripture.  And incidently the context of this passage happens to be very interesting, by the way: (Luke 16)

¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

And while we're expanding applications, some people expand the "no man can serve two masters" to go beyond just the God / mammon problem.  So there you come back to the being unequally yoked issue again.  And so we see why that author maybe didn't want to discuss the context of verse he was citing.  Serving in the military comes up as an unequally yoked issue.

But getting back to the verses in the text... It's these particular verses that they pull out of the hat (so to speak, I mean) that show the qualities they want, the single verses are just thrown at you, like here, where it seems out of place, like it was just pasted there last minute or something.  There's no lead-up to it to speak of and no discussion of it or break down of it.  It's just there.  And it describes what you're supposed to be like in that sphere of existence, just like at the mission.  This verse is the kind of thing the H.R. chaplain would say in Vienna.
  

***

 [This is a very brief little Canadian interlude.  I got a huge container of Bird's custard on Amazon.com some time ago and I just made some and I'm enjoying it.  I'm not feeling well, so that's the extent of my gourmet cooking of late.  It was very nice though.]

"Martin Luther's words are relevant

A man who would venture to govern an entire country of the world with Gospel would be like a shepherd who should place in one fold wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep together and let them freely mingle with one another and say, "help yourselves, and be good and peaceful among yourselves; the fold is open, there is plenty of good; have no fear of dogs and clubs." The sheep, forsooth, would keep the peace and would allow themselves to be fed and governed in peace, but they would no live long; nor would any beast keep from molesting another... For this reason these two kingdoms must be sharply distinguished, and both be permitted to remain; the one to produce piety, the other to bring external peace and prevent evil deeds; neither is sufficient in the world without the other." (p. 57)

I had the good fortune to be studying German in West Berling in the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth.  My friends at the Paulinum Seminar in E. Berlin took me to a history museum where there was a special Martin Luther exhibit.  Of course, they interpreted him as being an early radical, but the thing was that Luther didn't want to be associated with political upheavals.  I also bought a historical atlas of the world in East Germany, and there is a page where Luther is prominent on it too. 

But the thing is that, and I agree, that church and state should be separate.  Luther has a different logic here than I've used, but I think there is something to it too.  The thing is that how things are now is that we rely on law to make sure that everyone can mingle together without eating each other up, but then your trust, I guess has to be in the laws to work, and then, is that the way it is supposed to be anyway?  Is this the optimum way the church can work?  Is this the way the light can shine the brighest and the salt is saltiest?  I'm skeptical, because you have to make so many comprimises. 

So if the two kingdoms are together, then where is the church?  How can we distinguish the church?  Where is it? 

***

This section is "The Piety Perspective"

In a recent newspaper interview Chaplain Patrick J. Hessian, former Army Chief of Chaplains, put the piety and ethic relationship in this perspective.

... It's important to understand that we don't start with values.  We start with beliefs, and we build values on top of that.  It begins with primary beliefs, those you learned at your mother's knee.  Then you acquire beliefs just in the process of living.  It's on this belief structure that your values rest.  Once values are entrenched in your being, your attitudes and motivations in life flow from them, and from those attitutdes and motivations come behavior changes...

Contrary to a popular view, values can be changed -- if Chaplain Hessian is correct about values stemming from beliefs. (p. 58)

This sounds pretty formulaic, and I think it is in actuality, because I think they research these things to find out what really works and psychological probability and things like that.  I mean the Army is interested in soldiers that come out well-adjusted, etc. 

If you go into the military, and here it's the Army in particular, you've got to know you're going to be in for this kind of thing, especially starting in boot camp where you know they'll put you through the wringer until you don't know which end's up.  Right?  I mean, they won't torture you, but it's going to be rough.

But when I went to Vienna, and I've said this before, so it's not new, I did not expect this kind of thing.  I had never gotten a hint from anyone in the ministry that this kind of thing ought to be expected.  I had short term experience with missions and had never experienced anything like it before.  And I had had some experience on my own in Eastern Europe. 

Nevertheless, it did appear that the mission in Vienna had a similar desire as the Army did.  So basically, if they were like the Army here, they wanted to change my values, attitudes, motivations, and behaviors.  According to this quote, I don't think that the Army wanted to change beliefs; however, I'm not sure whether or not I would say the same about the Vienna mission.

The thing is that the Vienna mission never found out about the areas in which I disagreed with them.  If they had discovered them, besides probably trying to arranged to confuse me and do damage control, they would have given me the boot post haste and sent me back home - really home, for good.

They did get me to change some behaviors, such as at the end when I gave in and started attending the English speaking church.  I never had an attitude problem, that I remember.  That was the thing, that I was always gracious no matter what they threw my way, and I never complained or anything.  So that wasn't an issue, except I really did have attitude issues; I was just hiding them, so they didn't know. 

As to motivations... I'm not sure.  They might have wanted to change my motivations because I didn't fit in the position they had for me if they were going to insist I hobnob with the secretaries.  I had nothing against the secretaries, as I've said before, but I wanted more people ministries, so I was going to be involved in the Austrian church.  I really couldn't relate to the secretaries that much.  So they would have had to really work on my motivation to get me to fit in well, and I don't know how they'd do it without doing like they did, just crushing my spirit to bits. 

I'm not even sure where they would best have begun if there was a chance to make it work.  The thing was that, with their parameters, as I found it, there really wasn't a way.  If they felt that I absolutely had to meld with the secretaries to the exclusion of everything else, then it wouldn't work and they should have told me that from the very beginning.  I wouldn't have accepted it, I know I wouldn't have, because I spefically said then that I'd want to be doing external ministry with Austrians and I was given the go ahead with that.  And so I went ahead with my deputation based on that.  Otherwise I would not have, I'm positive of that.  And the whole time I was there my going to the Austrian church was a point of contention until I finally gave in and started going to the English speaking church the last 6 months.

***

That's all.  I've got to get dinner and do my evening stimulator session.

439. Military Chaplaincy, pt. 46 (Seidel (b), pt. 1)

I'm sorry, in the shuffle of things, I forgot that I hadn't finished going through the military chaplaincy file.  It's so hard to keep up with things and it's doubly frustrating when I want to do things but half the time I don't feel up to doing most of the things I want or half to do.  So right now at least I can do some things at the computer (some of the time - I have to lay down some too).  There's all this stuff at home to do, too, and, of course, that says nothing about what I would do if I were healthy and could get around like a healthy person. 

But we all have our limitations, and I've always been able to somehow make the best within the limitations I have.  But that doesn't mean there isn't an adjustment period.  So every time there is a change there might be a bit of adjustment, depending on the situation.  Maybe you can relate to what I'm saying.  It's just that I've been through it in some pretty extreme situations, from Vienna isolated where I had to figure things out on my own (as I thought, anyway), to Siberia, to dealing with family where I thought my father was part of my problems but would never admit it and I couldn't trust him completely. To employment problems that have left some family members to this day as pegging me as lazy or just dealing with living alone in a strange city with all these health issues and trying to rise above it. 

It's really hard, I admit.  I don't really want people to feel sorry for me, but sometimes it would be nice for mom or a good friend, for example, to put their arms around me and let me have a good cry.  I'm only human after all!  But I'm the epitome of the strong person that just forges ahead in the face of all sorts of adversity.  And by the way, I don't need anyone, especially if I sense at all that there might be any ulterior motives or hidden agenda in a potential assistant.  Or sometimes it's just that they naively try to associate me with a position, for example, such as, "I'm so glad you finally made it to the land of Capitalism and came to your senses about the wickedness of Communism." 

Whoa, Nellie!  This is referring, of course to my rescuing from Russia (I originally moved there when it was the USSR still) in 1997, in which my father played a part.  The thing is that 1) I never did like Communism.  and 2) I never did like Capitalism.  So please do not ever try to associate me with either one of these.  (Without going into reams of boringly repetitive materials from earlier posts, I think Communism errantly assumes humans are fundamently good and will of their own free will share everything.  Balderdash.  On the other hand Capitalism is sheer greed and anyone who has any understanding of sin knows that the love of money is the root of all evil.  So how can Capitalism be good, especially from a Christian standpoint? 

Just don't try to ask me, then what kind of economic system I do believe in, because I do not claim to be an economist.  I'll leave it up to the economists to try to come up with something that more closely resembles scriptural Christianity.  Of course, some might say that the early church practiced early socialism or comunism or something of that nature.  If they had the new nature and the Holy Spirit living in them, then that deals with the issue of humans not willingly sharing prossessions with each others.  The problem is, however, that, unfortunately, Christians still can sin, so even this is going to be problematic.

The other issue was that the missions I went to Vienna with were more or less openly right wing.  While I was in Russia I joined Americans United for the Separation for Church and State which seems to be represented more by liberal than conservative churches (as well as other religions), although they deal with issues across the board.  But Conservative and Fundamental Christian churches tend not to like them and the very concept of separation of church and state.  For example, conservative churches tend to want prayer - Evangelical prayer, to be specific, or the Evangelical version of the Lord's Prayer - in schools.   I think I would have been persona non gratis at the Vienna mission on the basis of my membership in this organization alone, had they known.  I would have been the enemy or at the very least not someone they would chose to divulge anything more than the route to the W.C. to, which in Austria, was usually right near the entryway, anyway.

What am I trying to say?  I guess it's just that one of the things I've had to deal with in my transitions is that when people have helped me it seems they inevitibly have preconceived ideas about me when they do help me.  But those ideas often misrepresent me.  In the USSR they were not in my best interests no matter how you look at it, although I was able to turn some things around and make some good come of it eventually.  Other times when people helped me I didn't understand; it seemed like I was being set up for something that missed the mark of where I was and what I'd become.  It's like people were thinking of me as I was years prior and not in the then and now.  I inevitably ended out tearing myself free of these shackles, as I ended out feeling them as, and I was very much misunderstood and not a lot of good came of it.  It smelled to me like it was related to dad because there were themes like there had been themes for years since the whole debacle leading up to my move to Russia.  But no one believed me any more. 

This was way after Vienna, so I'm getting ahead of myself.  When I left Russia, I knew I had to change my profession.  I changed profession after I left Vienna, so that I got a Master's degree in Adult Education and teaching certification in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.  I tried to get into a doctoral program in sociology with a focus in peace studies, but I wasn't accepted (presumably because I didn't have a sociology background). 

Then I was accepted into a doctorate program in Adult Education, but I was interested in social justice issues, and I didn't realize that adult education in the US was so business and corporate-oriented and even ESL and literacy is so top-down focused and concerned only with making learners conform to society rather than create and have an impact, be a force for good in society, etc.  So I couldn't stand it.  That's not what I'm about.  And I got stuck with a professor that I had a feeling he might make me look bad with sexual inuendos.  A couple other doctoral students told me about rumors going around.  The thing was that I put out a post on the list serve that I wanted adult education for community development and there wasn't a program.  He'd been brought on staff the year before I came as a student, but nothing had been done yet.  So I didn't want my reputation ruined by him either, and I was being told by these two professors that I would be a professor and I was looking around at the schools and I was gagging, thinking, where do I want to be a professor?  and I jumped ship.  I wanted to direct a community program and/or do applied research (participatory, community-based, evaluation, needs assessment, etc.)

After that I had to take time out to get treated for Hepatits C which I most likely contracted in Russia in 1992 in a blood transfusion.  (Ironically, I'd gotten tested for AIDS on a trip to the USA after the operation in which the transfusion was administered, but I hadn't heard of Hepatitus C to get tested for it.]

Then I was accepted at another doctoral program I felt very excited about, but it was in Canada, and I didn't get a grant of fellowship there and I couldn't work there, because I was not Canadian.   I mapped out a nearby U.S. city and I thought I did pretty thorough study of the districts, current nonprofits and activities, the demographics, etc., etc.  I put together a plan and whatnot, but I just couldn't get funding for it.  I even found a building and had professionals come out and run estimates as to how much it would cost to fix it up, make it handicap excessible, etc.   I was really excited about it.  I know I could do it.  If my health were up, it would have been a fantastic thing to get started with inheritance monies and just prove to people, because people never believe what I can do, until I go out and prove it to the world.  So that's why I'm a loner and I like to do things on my own, because no one seems to believe in me, I guess.  And if people believe in  me, they ignore my conscience.  But my conscience, is who I am.  How can you just ignore a person's conscience?  In Vienna they did it?  They did it without a care in the world.  My dad even did it.   The Komsomols did it, but that's a no brainer.  The professors at my doctoral staff even seemed to do it.

Conscience.  Is it something that you can just take and try to make over to your image?  (like the Vienna mission) Is it something you can try to humiliate? (like the Komsols) Or is it something to just ignore and deny exists? (as dad seems to have done, not wanting to admit I changed)

All I wanted was ministry to a people I felt called to reach with the gospel.  That was my initial conscience. 

***

I wasn't going to do that... it just evolved.  That's one way to look at my life from 1987-2000.

Returning to the discussion of our texts... in my haste to just jump back in, I overlooked the fact that I hadn't finished with the Military Chaplaincy file yet.  So I'd better finish that one and then we'll go back to the Discipline & Justice File.

This article is:

Seidel, Andrew B. (1981, Summer). Developing a healthy self-image. Military Chaplains' Review, 49-59.
 

***

"Given the biblical antagonism against selfishness in all its forms, it is not surprising that christian [sic] psychologists and theologians began to react to the unfortunate equation of a good self-image with self-love.  Paul C. Vitz in his book Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, writes:

... Certainly Jesus Christ neither lived nor advocated a life that would qualify by today's standards as 'self-actualized.' For the Christian the self is the problem, not the potential paradise." (p. 49)

So the issue, remember is not just the teaching and what I think of it, but how it relates to my experience in Vienna.  In my experience and memory of them, the leadership - my boss, the secretaries who were mentoring me (my boss', boss' secretary in particular) and the infamous H.R. director who was the reserve U.S. military chaplain - could sort of pull these kinds of things out of a had and tweak them or focus on particular aspects according to the situation at hand and as they thought, it seemed to me at least, in their best interests. 

And when they went in counseling mode it was hardest for me to trust them because I was always certain it was a lure.  The emotional aspect of things was a lure, because they were not going to deal with things point blank.  I mean, they weren't going to deal with the kinds of things that were bothering me, at least, in a direct manner.  I think I I broached my issues directly to them they'd somehow come up with a cannon that would shoot me straight back home, and believe me, I would NOT pass go or collect $200.    I'd be out of there so fast I wouldn't know what hit me. 

The mission leaders, H.R. director included, would probably have agreed with this quote, although I knew that while I was with the mission there was one woman staffer that wasn't full time on the woman's ministry team, but did a lot of trips with them and she didn't agree with some of the staff that had nice homes in the suburbs.  Some of them, and I only saw a few, actually, were pretty well appointed I must say for missionaries.  So she really thought that missionaries shouldn't live so high on the hog, and she was somewhat disgruntled about that. 

That's not exactly the same thing, but I think it might be related to what this passage is saying.  So there may have been some variance of conviction regarding how exactly this passage might be applied in daily life.

As for myself, well, it's no great secret that my "self-actualization" was at level "0" by the time I left Vienna, so maybe I was at the perfect place for God to work in me.  Maybe that's a good way to look at it, that I hadn't seen before, and maybe I need to actually thank the mission for breaking me to make me more vulnerable for God's work.

I'm not sure if what transpired after I left Vienna, though, might be understood as God's leading necessarily.  But that is getting ahead of myself, isn't it?

At any rate, I don't think that at time in my stay in Vienna can you say I had self love.  I never really was caught up in myself, I don't think.  Even outside the mission, when I was going to the Austrian church, I worked under the auspices of the church's leadership.  But in the Austrian mission I just met nonsense after nonsense so there wasn't much for me to follow.  I'm not into a lot of games.  So I don't put up with that kind of stuff.  You either want me or you don't. 

***

"It is self-acceptance, not self-exaltation of self-depreciation (nor indeed self-love) that is commanded in scripture. Self-acceptance is taught in scripture because an adequate self-concept is necessary to function successfully in life.  Any pastor or chaplain who has been involved in counseling has noted that those who struggle with strong feelings of inferiority have a difficult time living a satisfying life.  The same may be said for those who are conceited.  Both have a very difficult time relating to other people.  Speaking of the need for an adequate self-concept, Lawrence J. Crabb has said, ".. people must accept themselves as adequate in a truly significant role if they are to honestly  regard themselves as worthwhile and so to enjoy the fullfillment of being a real person, he must be able to help him develop a realistic, accurate, and adequate self-image." (p. 51)

This passage follows a paragraph discussing Romans 12:3 " For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you."  So the context specifically is not to consider our role or position in the church as greater than you should.  The journal article is taking the liberties to expand the application of this verse beyond the original intentions.  I don't want to completely preclude that use of the verse, but I must admit that it is wanton use of it without any mention of the original limitations.  Things like that tend to put my guard up.  You really can say anything with Scripture if you want to.

Now let me show it in context so you can really see what the verse is saying:

Romans
³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

So the author is making it to be anthropology (the theology of man) whereas I think it's really eccleseology (the theology of the church).  Romans 3:3-8 is a microcosm, one of several places in Scripture, showing us what the church should be like.  And the church just happens to be made up of people, so of course it has to describe the people that make up the church. 

But the author of this text takes out one verse and chooses to make that one verse be anthropological - actually, not even that, he makes it psychological, so it's not even a religious study, but a secular study.  So he uses a religuous basis, a weak one only tangentially drawn out of context and uses it to support his secular thesis. 

At least the vast majority of the Vienna missionaries didn't do that, except for.... you guessed it... the U.S. military reserve chaplains.  My contention is it's because they were raised on drivel like this.  They had spent too much time in the military and instead of being salt and light they themselves had been affected by the military and came away less salty and shiny than when they went in.

Consistent with everything I just said, the author ignores why Paul admonished the Romans to not think of themselves more highly than they ought, etc., by ignoring the very next verse, which says that we all have different gifts and members and we need each other.  We're not an island!  Now this is what I'm talking about.  It's simple, and get past all the psycho babble and gobbledy-gook and if you're going to use Scripture, get down and roll up your sleeves and really do it, not to just pull out one verse and take it out of context!!

***

"What is Our Self-Image?

The self-image is a collage of images, feelings, and value judgments pertaining to oneself. (p. 51)

I guess I just put this reference sake.  I know my self-image is all over the place and that's why I feel like it's hard for people to relate to me; because I've had too many unusual experiences between Vienna and Russia and a few others thrown in and it really feels lonely, believe me.  I miss Grandmother, because she was the one that I really could talk to, but I think dad was going to sway her about my problems in the USA because she wasn't going to believe me about those for long in opposition to what he would tell her.  It's very lonely.  If it weren't for the health care I might well be better off in Russia.  I might have friends, at least teacher friends, if not among Christians.  The Orthodox might accept me; same with the Quakers.   One of these days I should try to make it down to the Quaker meeting here.  It's close to where I used to live though, at my old condo, so it's like 20 miles (42 km) away.

***

A person's self-concept is also the product of his own evaluation of his experiences.  All of us react to our experiences by making value judgments about them.  When we succeed in accomplishing something something we desired to do, we feel good about ourselves.  When we do not succeed, we place a negative value judgment on ourselves for failing and feel bad about ourselves.  If we usually accomplish what we desire, we tend to have a positive self-image.  A number of failures to meet our own goals would tend to produce a negative self-image. It is, however, extremely difficult to talk about value judgments as being strictly individual because our goals and values are so heavily influenced by other people. (p. 52)

The part about being influenced by other people has been a real stickler with me.  I've tended to chose the people I might let influence me and if I think people are way off and don't understand something, such as family back home not understanding what's happened in Vienna, then I sort of cardone off a part of me, or I might become silent or just drift off or look for work where I might be able to reach my goals, and the like.  So my family has on one hand been through the most of anyone with me, but on the other hand, they misunderstand me up the wazoo.  If I felt like they wanted to understand I might be willing to open up, but I feel like they'd just deride me, especially since the only ones left now are my brothers. 

I think the way other people's judgments influence me the most now is by the fact that now I have ended out at a time in my life alone.  I can't contribute that completely to these judgments, because my moving around had a very large amount to do with it too, but I think friends sort of lost faith in me and began to misunderstand me more and more as I moved around more and  more so that it became harder and harder to keep friends.  So that was a kind of judgment perhaps.

Otherwise, I have tended to have been a person of strong conviction and I've often run against the crowd in difficult situations or poked my head into difficult situations and being sure of my values haven't necessarily wanted to change with the values of the new group or setting.  Sometimes I've ended out tweaking my values a bit as I've thought through things.

So, in the end, I think that I'm not the type that's directly very vulnerable to direct influence in the area of values.

The author is probably thinking of things like being influenced by parental upbringing and at church and the like.  Well certainly as a child I was influenced by my parents and also at church and then in my formal schooling.  So those things I would say did have affect on my values. 

***

Even later in life a person's self-image is significantly affected by others' responses to him.  Particularly in a highly competitive professions such as the military... A low efficiency report or missed promotion can be devastating to the self-image." (p. 53)

Of course, no matter what I thought about whether I could work with the mission or not, by the time the end of my two year commitment had come my self-image was on the floor.  Missed promotion?  I had been demoted and sent back to the US and tossed around like a hot potato and you'd think I was spy or something.  Even though I didn't show it on the outside, I was a shambles on the inside and it all came to light once I returned home to the USA after my term with the mission was up. 

***

"Physical attractiveness is a major source of human worth.  After describing the powerful influences of physical attractiveness on children, Dobson states: "Most of the major choises made by adults are influenced one way or another by the attribute of beauty."

Intelligence is another quality highly values by our society... For most people it does not matter whether these values are right or wrong.  What does matter is that the majority of people hold these values.  One therefore can feel worthy and significant only if he conforms to these values." (p. 54)

In these realms I pretty much had it going for me.  Well, I wasn't a genius, but I'm relatively intelligent, and I'm pretty good looking.  I don't think I ever got overly caught up in the physical attractiveness, because, for example, when I learned many European women don't shave their legs I was all for it, and no or minimalist makeup was fine with me.  So I was an easy care person and not one to spend hours in the mirror gawking trying to get everything perfect or trying to run down the boys or anything.  But on the other hand, I was naive, when I should have been a little more cautious.  I didn't really think about the psychology of men and what they might be thinking or how I need to deal with them even if I hadn't been otherwise thinking about men until the issue came up.  So my problem was naivety mostly, I think, and maybe not being able to stand up for myself; being timid against men. 

I think that's partly because men in my family all had the upper hand.  So even if someone taught me to "just say no" (well for sex or something I did manage to say no, but before that I mean), I had no close precedent for that.  In fact just a couple years ago I asked mom if she ever disagreed with dad and she couldn't think of one time even!!  So how on earth was I ever going to learn to stand up to men based on the examples of the men in my family.  Well, as an teenager it was mom and dad, because I was the oldest, so my brothers were still just learning from dad and they were 2 and 4 years younger than me. 

As to intelligence, well I have 2 master's degrees now, a couple graduate certificates and I've presented at several professional conferences and published articles, so I must have some intelligence.  I need some intelligence to get my points across in this blog, and I couldn't do it without intelligence.  But I don't think intelligence alone is enough, either.  I think there also needs to be a certain insight, maybe wisdom, hopefully spirit-led perception and ability to communicate it. 

I must tell you though, lest you think I risk thinking of myself more highly than I ought, that I feel like this is sort of my last harrah.  I feel like I have to do this, but I don't know what else I can do.  You have to understand that my health isn't good, so I'm at home too much of the time and I'm unreliable for much of anything.  I'm just telling you as it is, really. 

***

The weaknesses that cannot be changed are best acknowledged for what they are without excess significance being allowed to transform them into fatal flaws.  Most people seem to want to work and worry about correcting their weaknesses.  A much better solution is to concentrate upon the development of strengths.  James Dobson calls this 'compensation' and says; 'compensation is your child's best weapon against inferiority.' compensation works for adults too." (p. 56)

I don't like the psychological lingo here and I'm not prone to particularly like the approach but there is some similarity, I think, to my approach, that I have used just through natural (I think) reflexes or how my personality works or something.

Basically the issue is that there is a weakness that is hindering you from doing something.  I think the weakness can be within the individual/a part of the individual or contextual  or otherwise external to the individual, but the effect is basically the same, right?

My approach is to try to figure out how to make lemonade or how to rethink the situation to make the best of it, maybe come up with a better solution, etc. 

Even now with my health limitations it works because I revise my interests and activities around what I am able to do.  So you have to take a creative, problem-solving perspective.  You have to be somewhat flexible and willing to accept a certain amount of change, which might be difficult for some people, I think.

It's been easier for me, though, because it's just me.  It's lonely, though, so I'm not sure I'd recommend that.  But if you have supportive family and/or friends they should be willing to work with you in that. 

***

Because a person's self-image is constructed primarily from interpersonal relationships (particularly with his parents), his self-image may be modified through the same process. (p. 57)

Well, there's no doubt my parents had an incredible impact on my self-image growing up.  Not only did we just have the usual family times, but our family did more than the usual family together, including a lot of camping and the like.   But the adult years are where we hit rocky roads and it's just because of the problem between my interests and dad's work.  And then my brother who lived there near them gets all hot under the collar about how dad was so upset trying to get me out of Russia and everything, but he doesn't understand everything else and how I had troubles getting jobs here and it wasn't until I became a librarian that I could get a job and all those problems were still fall out related to dad.  I'm not sure exactly how it works, though, so don't ask me to explain it, but all I know was I knew when I left Russia that I had to change professions and in fact I didn't start getting good career jobs until I changed professions. 

Dad loved me and maybe he was conflicted over me.  It hurt when he said he didn't believe me any more.  (After I dropped out of my doctoral studies, when I was being treated for hepatitis C and was in the hospital having had a very bad reaction to the Interferon.) Then that was it.  Then I couldn't talk to him for sure about anything.  I'd lost him.  I think when I dropped out of my doctoral studies he was off the hook, whereas before that things could still point back to him as my problems stemming from him.  But once I dropped out of my doctorate that was the point he felt he could free himself of this burden and he said he didn't believe me anymore.  That's how I understand it.

(I'm not sure if that last paragraph is clear so I'll try restating part of it.  Maybe Dad didn't like it  that my problems in Russia were pointing to him, meaning that it was because of him that I was invited over there and the problem was bad enough that I still had problems leaving in 1997, over 6 years later.  When I was making the appeal to try to get out of Russia it was to try to make it to a study program.  So when I dropped out of the doctoral program, which actually was not the original one even, dad decided to drop this bomb that he didn't believe me, which would sort of clear him of any responsibility.)

***

I can't quote this whole paragraph, because one line is cut off in the copy I made, but the author discusses how interpersonal relationships that become facilitative are characterized by feedback and feedback loops the evaluation and re-evaluation going on.

"The desired end result is a more accurate, balanced, healthy, self-concept." (p. 58)

This may be what my parents wanted to inculcate into me, and did a reasonably good job, I think.  But I have absolutely no reason to believe that the H.R. director at the Vienna mission desired this for me.  What exactly he wanted, I'm not sure, but the things I would hazzard guesses on are far from this description. 

What he was practicing was pseudo psychology in the service of security. 

***

I guess that's all for now.  This has really taken a long time.

423. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 41 (Smith, pt. 1)

I got up early this morning (without an alarm!), maybe because I got to bed early last night (11:30!) because I was feeling crummy.  I want to go to my primary care doctor as a walk-in today.  She might not be able to do anything, but maybe she can say if she thinks its related to one of my conditions.  I think it might be my migraine, but I'm not really sure. 

More things like this, though, and any hopes I might have of visiting family out west seems less and less advisable.

***

This next article is:

Smith, Wilford E. (1977, Summer). Church and state in America in the twenty-first century A.D. Military Chaplaincy Review, 28-40. 

***

This next quote falls in the context of Milton Konvitz's arguments (from the book Religious Liberty and Conscience, Viking Press, 1969) demonstrating how conscience trumps everything else, including all kinds of external institutions, in moral force, and to disregard conscience in favor of an external force is to "forfeit dignity."

"The Nuremberg trials establish the principle in international law that the defense acted pursuant to orders of the government or a superior officer does not absolve a defendant from responsibility." (p. 31)

Now you can hardly deny that that, at least in many cases, those who participated in Nazi war crimes might have faced more difficult consequences for lack of cooperation with the Nazi Wehrmacht than the Vienna missionaries would have experienced for not cooperating with the mission leadership, although when the threat of making you go crazy was a very real possibility that might have been approaching Nazi terror.  But there had to even have been leaders who were willing to make such (usually tacit) threats.  And, I submit, that just like in the Nuremburg trials, and just like in a million other places where human rights is an issue, the enactors still bear responsibility for their actions, and you cannot put all the blame on the decreers and the planners.  Those who "simply obey orders" like so many stooges (as if they could just set aside any personal responsibility and conscience), are not really stooges. 

Who told them they were stooges?  Did God say they were stooges?  Did God say that they would be absolved of all responsibility for their actions in such a situation?  I don't think so.  Whatever gave them that idea?  Somehow to me, personally, it sounds rather suspiciously like something that Satan would say: 

Genesis 3:4-5

King James Version (KJV)

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

I don't agree with Konvitz, though.  I guess I see his point that the formal church can be wrong, although our church leaders should be there as guides for us.  They aren't infallible though, and also need to be held accountable.  And we all, as Christians, need to be accountable to Scripture and to God, as well as to one another.  God did create in us a conscience and we can educate it to be in tune with His will, and we as Christians have the Holy Spirit within us, so on these bases, to a certain extent we can look inward to make moral decisions, but that's not and shouldn't be, the only resource we have.  I'm talking as Christians here.  Missionaries working in the Vienna mission learned to rely on this a lot, though, because working in East Bloc countries meant you couldn't talk to a lot of people about your moral concerns.

And as to how I was treated and possibly how others might have been treated, even if it wasn't quite on the scale of my treatment, the individuals at the mission are all going to be held responsible for their part in it.  And if they remained silent when they could have spoken up or if they were just "an innocent bystander" but could have done something, they might even still be held responsible.  My life was really ruined because of how they treated me, although other things happened later, but I was broken in spirit from them and really a changed person because of them.

And the socialization process that makes people sort of take a blind leap of faith trusting all to the mission (i.e., not holding back) without it being reciprocal, you're going to be answerable fot that at some point too.  That is, is God going to agree with the Vienna mission administration that you should leave your free thinking and freedom of conscience at the door?  Might Good hold you responsible for things you participated in with the mission, even if you didn't understand them (because you agreed to check your free judgment in at the door and let the administration do all the heavy thinking for you)?

***

"If the time comes when the government takes over religion, it will be because churches have invited it into the tent, so to speak, by accepting piecemeal grants and subsities (and their inevitable controls)." (p. 40)

Can I paraphrase this? (The author is talking about the USA.)

If the time comes when the government takes over Christian missions, it will be because missions have invited it into the tent, so to speak, by accepting piecemeal grants and subsities (and their inevitable controls).

Now did I get your attention?  One of the member mission, arguably the most powerful mission in then East European missions was taking money from the CIA, although I don't know that my sending mission or the Vienna mission was.  But how about having military reserve chaplains staff your human resources department?  (That is, the whole department being consisted solely of chaplains.)  And relatedly, having our annual conference at a U.S. military conference center (Hitler's Crow's Nest)?  


I don't care how prestigious the mission was, that is wrong.  They can call me crazy till the cows come home, but I kept my values the whole time I was there and they couldn't get me to say what was wrong is right.  

 ***

 That's it for this article.

413. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 31 (Darr, Pt. 1)

I had the idea of tacking on my autobiographical texts to the ends of these posts retroactively.  I'm tempted to do that, but I'll have to think about it.  I want to start writing it up on the side while I'm writing these textual comments.

***

The next text is:

Darr, Gregory J. (1992, Winter). For God & country: the constitutional question of the U.S. Army chaplaincy. Military Chaplaincy Review, 95-101.

I suspect this should be a quick one, but we'll see.

***

"Comprehensive religious support includes pastoral acts, rites, worship, religious education, counseling, battle fatique interventions and advice to the command. Its three broad functions are to nurture the living, to care for the wounded and to honor the dead.

Chaplains are usually paired with enlisted chaplain's assistants.  Together, they make up the Unit Ministry Team (UMT). Chaplain's assistants provide operational and logistical support to the team.  Because chaplains are considered non-combatants under the Geneva Convention, chaplain's assistants are also tasked to provide security." (p. 96)

This is just a different take on a summary of the chaplain's religious duties.  I was trying to get in the head, so to speak of the military chaplain/H.R. director at the Vienna mission and wanted to understand how his military-related background might have influenced or affected him.  Sort of a what made him tick project.

***

"Most active duty chaplains are given an initial commission of three years.  They undergo a type of chaplain "basic training" at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. They are also required to attend additional training through out [sic] their careers.  Many make the Army a career, though recent cuts in Army troop levels will inevitibly make this more difficult." (p. 97)

I don't remember if he ever was a full-time military chaplain or was always a reserve chaplain, or if it is possible to enter the Army even as a reserve chaplain (i.e., without first having been a full-time chaplain).

***

"Many religious leaders see chaplain rank and uniform as 'obstacles to ministry, concessions to militarism, and evidence that clergy [are] reversing their role priorities.'

A few chaplains concede that it may be difficult to speak out on controversial moral issues or challenge the system." (p. 97)

That's what happens once you become part of a system.  But sometimes it's not necessarily just being part of a system that holds someone back.  For example, I'm single so I might have less inhibition than someone who was the sole breadwinner with small children at home and didn't want to risk losing his/her sourse of income.  I may have the same risk of losing my job, but at least it's just me involved and not other dependents. 

***

"Katcoff v. Marsh

Since the ratification of the First Amendment, courts have been busy sorting out the messy divorce of church and state. Despite Thomas Jefferson's admonition that the Establishment clause is intended to act as a 'wall of separation' between the two, few courts have adequately determined how high or solid that wall should be...

...[I]n 1979, two Harvard Law School students, Joel Katcoff and Allen M. Wieder, brought suit against the Secretary  of the Army alleging the unconstitutionality of the Army Chaplain Program.
...
The Army replied that the Chaplaincy is necessary for the maintenance of good morale and thus serves a secular purpose.  More importantly, the Free Exercise Clause requires the government  to provide opportunities for worship and religious expression to all military personnel.  The current program makes this possible in remote and overseas assignments as well as during combat when civilian clergy may be unavailable.

While plaintiffs did not dispute the need for military ministry, they proposed that a voluntary civilian chaplaincy, funded and supported by various denominations, would meet the Army's Free Exercise needs without raising constitutional hackles.  They used as their example the Wisconsin Synod of the Lutheran church, which conducts its own military ministry outside the Army bureaucracy.

Military considerations, the Army responded, made such a program unfeasible.  According to one brief, the Wisconsin Synod could not adequately meet the religious needs of its own military members.  Such a program, Army-wide, would risk constitutional challenge on the basis of the Free Exercise Clause.  Thus, the Army summed up, the uniqueness of military life required the Government to actively fund and provide for Chaplaincy in order to meet the Free Exercise needs of soldiers and their families." (p. 98-99)

In a lot of ways, the Vienna mission acted like this too, and this is why it wanted me to attend the English speaking church - where it had so much influence and pretty much, then would have me totally under their control, which is what a total institution wants, right? 

So it may actually be a breach of separation of church and state (1st amendment), but it's a permissable one on the grounds that the army is unique and in order for the soldiers to have any worship offered that is appropriate for military context and needs, a military-based chaplaincy is required.  Any other option is less than satisfactory (i.e., won't meet spiritual needs).

***

"While the Appeals Court decision affirmed the constitutionality of he Army Chaplaincy, the case left its mark on the Chaplain Corps.  In the years since Katcoff, the Chaplaincy has shored up its defenses with regard to both the Establishment and the Free Exercise clauses.  In doing so, it has redefined its ministry making it, in essence, more military and more pleuralistic." (p. 99)

Wow!  So the chaplaincy has become more military?  This was written in 1992, but the Katcoff case looks like it happened in about 1984, a couple years before I arrived in Vienna to work with the mission.  To presumably the chaplaincy hadn't yet become more military.  Still, that's not good, at least in my book it's not.  I wonder if any of thes affected the mission's military chaplains/H.R. staff?


***

That's it for this article.

410. Military Chaplaincy, 28 (Vickers, pt. 1)

Okay, I'll at least get one more done today and hope that it won't be another long one!

This article is:

Vickers, Robert. (1986, Spring). The military chaplaincy: a study in role conflict. Military Chaplains' Review 15(2), 76-90.

***

"From 1775 to the Mexican War of 1846-1847, the single greatest hurdle for the chaplaincy was the question of its constitutionality in the light of the First Amendment.  The fourth president of the United States, James Madison (1908 [sic]-1817), was heavily involved in the constitutionality question.  He strongly opposed any arrangement which would pose a danger to the religious freedom of all people.  It was over his powerful objection that Congress finally determined that the government has a responsibility to provide opportunities for worship and faith practices for service personnel.  Consequently the chaplaincy was permitted was permitted to continue and was not considered a violation of church-state separation.  This governmental position has been challenged even in the past decades."

I personally agree with Madison.  Even now the trend is toward a very high percent of the chaplains being conservative Evangelicals, a full 33% being Southern Baptist, according to an article on the Americans United for the Separation for Church and State web site. Then there are problems with chaplains proselytizing in Iraq and there being Christian festival concerts (with a bunch of bands - "Rock Beyond Belief") on the bases.  And now that homosexuals can also enlist some of the Evangelical chaplains are refusing to serve them.  So the thing is, and this is true with social services outside the military too, but the wide diversity of people in the Army aren't really getting served.  And, in my opinion, when churches mix with government they make compromises that only hurt the church.  They can't fully serve God and rely on Him and get full council from Him, because they really serve two masters, which is what we're going to see in this article. 

***

"The Chaplain's Dilemma

The chaplain faces philosophical and functional role conflicts.  The dilemma is so powerful because each role is consuming.  Perhaps there is no other role so closely identified with a person's being as the clergy role...

The same is true of the military officers.  The governmenta has challenged the commissioned officer to 'uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America,' whether it be morning, non, or midnight...

What we encounter, therefore, is a very difficult and often untenable conflict of roles. Each role constitutes a life-style, a total commitment of loyalties.  The problem would not be quite so serious if the twin callings were synchronous.  However, such is not the case." (p. 77)

I'm having a difficult time feeling sorry for the chaplain, but I'll at least try to understand his situation.  It's hard to feel sorry for him because I don't agree with the institution and he chose it, after all.  The church I grew up in had a few members from local bases and I think that in a lot of situations I'd rather have local churches and other religious groups available for servicemen at bases.  Sometimes there are even coffeehouses in neighborhoods, although  those can be not very supportive of the military.

***

Now were in the section of the article on "Specific Areas of Conflict for the Chaplain."

"Church Versus State

"Clarence Abercrombie, III, writing in his 1977 book, The Military Chaplain, identified the serious problem of mainstream Christianity moving more and more toward accepting United States Military policy as "the will of God."... Abercrombie held that [...] the mainstream American churches have come [sic] clergy who have not had to be 'resocialized' by the military or who themselves did not have to change their values in any significant way in order to move into and become very comfortable with military life and values.  The incipient danger in this development, according to Abercrombie, is that God's will and the national will may seem as synonymous.

In the eyes of some observers, the church in the military disappear to be a 'shate-church.' Although, perhaps not in the same way as Judaism in Israel or the Church of England in Great Britain, the military 'church' carries the protection of the state, receives financial support from the state, has officials who are officers of the state, and espouses a common body of doctrine and practices.  These are the criteria of a state-church according to Burchard. If the military chaplaincy is a 'state-church,' where are the chaplains [sic] loyalties, and what if those loyalties are in conflict?" (p. 78-79)

It was difficult to not quote all of that text, but I did leave out a couple paragraphs.

This is awful really.  You mean that there are churches that are so in sync with the military that they don't even need to be socialized into their way of thinking?  That's outrageous.  This country is way to militarized anyway, but I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that churches could be that militaristic.  That's horrible.  I'm sure glad that the writer, Abercrombie, III, had the good sense to recognize this as a disaster.  It's horrible and I just hope that these churches also get a clue and listen to this man - he makes good sense and he's right!

We're so messed up.

Then to also recognize the military chaplaincy as a state church, Burchard sounds like someone to take account of too.

I'd be the last person on earth to want to deny someone ministry, but I keep saying that the ends doesn't justify the means.  This is another case of it, just like in the Vienna mission.  Just because you want to minister to the soldiers, which is a terrific idea and they probably could do some ministering themselves too, that doesn't necessarily follow that the only way to minister to them is through a chaplaincy program.  Why does it have to be through a chaplaincy program?  Are we so bereft of brains and clever ideas that we can't think of anything else that might not involve perhaps less "areas of conflict"? And perhaps more pure allegiance to God and less dividedness of service?  

"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23.  If you have all these doubts, you're ministering in sin.

***

 "Religious Values Versus Military Values

 ...The moral contradition comesfor the chaplain when he ... participates in organized killing in the face of the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill'.

Forty five percent of the chaplain's interviewed in Buchard's study, while not alluding to a scriptural base, stated that killing an enemy soldier was a riteous act, while 55% said it was only justifiable.  Their stated rationale was that the primary duty and moral obligation of the soldier during wartime was to serve the country and this might be interpreted to mean killing the enemy when necessary.

On the other hand, Burchard firmly announces Jesus to have been a pacifist through and through, and states that Jesus implored his disciples and the early church to refuse to submit to the emperor or to march in his armies." (p. 79)

So who are you going to believe? Heck, and it's even a covenant of sorts (see my last post for what that means).  Well, even covenants are all relative, I guess.  A covenant with the Army makes it right, right?  The thing is that it's a mess being unequally yoked, but I stand on the pacifist side.

The thing is that a lot more is preventable than we admit to.  By the time we do anything about a problem it's too late usually.  For example, I knew about the Balkans issue at least a decade before it exploded, it was a hotbed, mostly around the Kosovo region early on.  But even just starting there a lot of blood loss could have been prevented.  But you have to be proactive. 

And even our (USA) humanitarian aid is so lopsided towards our national interests instead of being where the real needs are and so it can be really manipulative and end out doing more harm than good.  And half the time we do stupid things like train future terrorists, like Noriega and Bin Laden. 

So you'd have to do a major overhaul of our whole way of thinking about international affairs and where we put our money and personnel.  And just for the record I believe that human nature, since the fall (theology) is basically sinful, so I'm not a pie in the sky ideolist that everything is going to be easy.  I'm just saying 1) don't wait until the last minute, 2) don't be stupid and train future terrorists - understand who you're working with and just don't get involved with that kind of thing; 3) don't be manipulative with the money and goods you give out and 4) try for once to really get to know the difference cultures and not act like the ugly American, okay? 

As for the soldier, does the soldier suspend his/her duty and obligation to go during wartime?  I have a problem with this, because it's not really biblicatl to put anything more primary than God.  That includes family, girl/boyfriend, church, new car, anything.  God is primary and then comes whatever else.  For the Christian the military can not be primary, even during wartime.  See this is one of the main problems I had with the Vienna mission, that they wanted to be primary - or at least that's how it felt to me, and I don't let anyone take that place, which I already said here umpteen times.  So any soldier who's a committed Christian has got to put Christ first.  If the soldier can figure out a way to do that and still kill people than I guess he and the army can get along okay, otherwise there will be a problem.  So he'd better not figure out that Jesus was a pacifist and get too hung up on that.

***

I'm skipping a couple secctions, one of which does have a few interesting comments about how chaplains' commanders view them.

"Prophet versis Military Officer

...
...The chaplain is the conscience of the Army; his job is to provide the moral framework for the military community...

A large number of writers have claimed that the chaplain either should not be prophetic, cannot be prophetic, or will not be prophetic due to circumstances beyond his control.  They say that since the state is morally autonomous and not subject to moral absolutes, it is inappropriate for anyone to attempt to be prophetic with regard to the state or its officials.  Secondly, they claim that the chaplain has become domesticated through military service, and is thus effectively silenced.  They further claim that the chaplain who is wearing the uniform of the government, paid by the sate, and dependent upon senior officers for advancement cannot possibly proclaim a prophetic gospel.  In their view, it would be impossible for the chaplain to be prophetic from within the system because his primary allegiance is to the system; 'faith must bow to the state.' The chaplaincy is seen to be too much a part of the system which it serves, and therefore blind to what goes on within the system.

One writer claims that the chaplain learns very easily that if he wishes to survive in the system he must not 'rock the boat.' He further claims that the chaplains who rise in the system are those who compromise.  How can one possibly be prophetic and compromise at the same time?  A warning is echoed by many that to become overly identified with the military officer role carries with it the danger of becoming socialized into the institution and of losing identity and salve as a clergyman.

...
In the life and work of the chaplain it appears likely that either the role of the military officer or the clergy role will become the dominant one.  If the clergy role is chosen, one can count on the risk of possible isolation and rejection, even dismissal; to choose the military officer role, one can perhaps achieve career success but it may take a heavy toll on one's ministerial effectiveness.  As Jesus said, each person should thereforce 'count the cost.' (Luke 14:28)

I must say that no matter how tainted I think the military chaplains / H.R. staff were at the Vienna mission, my sense of them was that they probably leaned towards the clergy role if a bent had to be chosen.  That doesn't mean that the military officer role influence wasn't there; it just means it wasn't as much as if they would have been sold out military officers.  That's just my impression of them taken out of context, because I didn't know them in the military setting.

That being said, and this time I just speak for the H.R. director, because I had more contact with him and so I knew him better, I can't imagine him really attempting anything akin to a prophetic action against the military.  No, I think he's the time to learn to co-exist rather than do anything prophetic.  I expect he would probably accept the military's logic as just the way things are and learn to get by in them.  I think he probably had a strong enough no-nonsense presence in the Army and that he was respected for his knowledge and skills and he had a good ministry with the soldiers. 

But he wouldn't "rock the boat."  I'd be surprised if he ever did.

***

Okay, that's all for this post.  

403. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 21 (Barstad, pt. 1; Christian Century)

I went out this afternoon and got my hair cut.  It was sort of a big deal for me since I've had so many ailments I never get out and it's hard enough for me just to keep up with my basic things (health, finances, housework, etc.), so I hadn't had my hair done in quite a while.  The place I was going before was sort of far, although they were good enough, but I decided to find a place closer.  So I went to the mall near me.  The mall is upscale so the place I went was on the expensive side but she did a good job, so that was nice.  It's hard for me to walk much though with my legs so bad from the lumbar problems and I had to tell them to not have the water too hot because of the migraine.  I'm fortunate that using the brush and scrubbing don't bother the migraine because they didn't seem very sensitive to that, whereas the other place I went to were a lot more sensitive to my health issues as needed.  I think most people with migraine are sensitive to tactile things.

Now I just have to find time to have the car air conditioner fixed... again.  About a year ago when I had a major tune up they fixed the air conditioner and now it's not working again.  I think it's a lemon that way and the people who sold the car to me probably had had problems with it too, I think.  Since I live in a hot climate and with my health I have to have the air conditioner working. 

It's really hard for me to figure out how to fit these things into my schedule though.  It's such a major issue because I'm just not well and can't do much in a day.

***

 This next text is:

Barstad, Stuart E. (1986, Spring). The church and the ideology of national security. Military Chaplains' Review. 15(2), 12-30.

"Out of this tension between the Church and the state, three types of relationships have emerged.  In the first, the Church is dominated by the state; in the second, the state is dominated by the Church; and in the third, therre is an accepted and legal separation of the Church and state.  As an American Lutheran, the tradition out of which I come is that of the separation of the Church and state.  However,, in 1787 when the United States Constitution was framed, the prevailing arrangement in Europe was the domination of the Church by the state.  Nowhere had the principle of mutual independence of religion and government been adoped as the basis of the church-state relationship.  The ideals of the 18th century enlightenment, and the heterogenous religious situation in the emerging sate, combined to produce the first amendment to our Constitution which declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereov.  It is in this context that the Church's relationship to American national security must be discussed." (p. 13-14)

I'm not sure where to begin with this, so I'll start by discussing where I'm coming from on this subject, although I've already hinted elsewhere a bit at about this.  Other than wanting to understand the context of Europe and Eastern Europe in particular, I wasn't political before arriving in Vienna.  I wasn't motivated by the red scare and I didn't have a lot of respect for those who seemed especially drawn by that.  (My particular interest in that part of the world started because part of my ethnic heritage is Ukrainian.)

I wasn't particularly comfortable with a lot of church and politics mixing, but a class in Bible school on current issues in Protestantism had a unit on the Moral Majority and the professor was against the church and state mixing like that.  So I think that had an influence on me later on.  When I was living in Russia I actually joined Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and I was a member for several years of that organization and I still think they're a good organization, but I just can't keep up with everything so I couldn't keep the membership.  But I still agree with their work, at least what I knew of it when I was a member and reading everything festiduously.  My opinion, basically, is that the state waters down the Church and the Church doesn't let the state do it's work (serve everyone equally in a heterogeneous society).

Back to the text.  It was clear that the Vienna mission did NOT believe in the separation of church and state because it had the two chaplains there and also we had our annual retreat at Hitler's Crow's Nest, which was - at that time - owned by the US military as a conference center.  It was one of the chaplains that had gotten us in there.  It seems that if the mission had believed in the separation of church and state they would not have agreed to that location.  Also, if they had believed in the separation of church and state then I don't think my father's position would have been such an issue because they wouldn't have had the ties with government to have known about my father in the first place, but also they would have been more interested in God's work anyway and would have seen to it that there would have been a way for me to serve if they thought I was truly called of God to the ministry.

I'm not sure I want to go into this any more because I do have a file on this subject too.

***

Okay, that's all I want to take from that article, because the rest is just a treatise in support of having a military and security system and I don't really want to go into that.  So the next article, a shorty, is:

Air Force chaplain loses case. (1994, Dec. 7). Christian Century, 111(35), 1153-1154

***

"Garland Robertson, a Southern Baptist chaplain with the U.S. Air Force who publicly criticized the morality of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, has been forced to retire from the armed services. Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall rejected Robertson's appeal of a reprimand handed down by a military tribunal that found that the chaplain improperly took part in political activities and flouted the authority of the U.S. president.  The chaplain's retirement is effective next month.

Robertson. a lieutenant colonel and decorated Vietnam War combat pilot, left the Air Force in 1976 to pursue theological studies and returned to the military as a chaplain... wrote a letter to the editor in which he questioned the necessity of using force against the Iraqis.

Robertson's public dissent from the war policy prompted numerous clashes with his superiors and his being forces to undergo a series of psychological evaluations.  In September 1993 an Air Force Board of Inquiry recommended that the chaplain be honorably discharged from the service but denied his pension and other benefits.  It was that ruling that Robertson appealed from Widnall.

"I thought we [chaplains] were here to represent the faith traditions," Robertson told Ecumentical News International, "and I thought we were contributing to that goal.  But the real issue that's brought out is that the chaplain is here to serve the [military] institution.  And that's sad." (p. 1153-1154)

It was hard not to quote the whole article (it wasn't all that long).  I'm sure glad I got enlightened about the Vienna mission quicker than this chaplain did about the militairy chaplaincy.  At least he got some medals and a pension out of it, I guess. 

But did you notice that they made him go through counseling just because he wrote an editorial?  Can you just believe that?  Is that something you'd think maybe the Soviet Union would be more likely to do?  Well, the Vienna mission did that kind of thing too, remember?  I've only mentioned it a million times, or close to it.  If it looks like you're not going to be socialized in the Vienna mission and you're a woman then they might send you for counseling to help you make it over the hump so you'll decide to get socialized a little quicker maybe.  And the other day I was thinking about it being women only, that it's women, the "weaker" sex, but I wasn't quite weak enough and I came out stronger from it and learned from it to hide my true feelings and thoughts.  Some men just don't really understand the weaker sex, I guess.  Or maybe we're not really weaker after all.  At least not all of us.  Or maybe it depends on the crieria you use.

Anyway, this chaplain was a guy, but it's the military and the vast majority in the military are men.  Among Southern Baptist chaplains I think the ratio of men to women is even greater in favor of men.

The way this chaplain was treated is the type of thing that the two military chaplains/H.R. staff might have learned from and taken with them to the Vienna mission.  I don't know for sure that that happened, but it's very possible that they could have known about these kinds of things from their military experience.

It's absolutely horrible to think that that chaplain was crazy just because he disagreed with something.  He may have used poor judgement in doing what he did though.  My first librarian job was with a federal library in Washington, D.C. but it was contract (like half the city is).  There is a law called the Hatch Act that limits political activities of federal employees.  So I wasn't supposed to go to protests or things like that.  Bummer.  I wasn't a federal employee, since I was contract but we went by the it anyway.

So what the army did by having the chaplain go to counseling is to discredit him, I think, so that none of the people in the Air Force would take his words seriously.  The Air Force felt it had to act decisively against him to quelch any possible following, and so that's what it did.  At least that's how I read it.  So counseling was used not for health reasons but for individual disciplinary and social control reasons.

That's not completely unlike what happened in my case.  However, in my case other steps had to be taken for the social control to try to tighten the noose in that area, and the counseling was intended to be disciplinary and instructional.

***

That's all for tonight.  I'm tired.

6. CIA Freedom of Information Act Request

Recently I was at a July 4 birthday party and the celebrant was all decked out in an Uncle Sam hat and necklace with U.S. flags on it. I asked her if she considered herself patriotic, and she almost offendedly answered very assertively that she was and said she had an uncle who died in World War II so she had to be.

I didn't say anything else, but my response to that question would be quite different. Of course there are very many conceptions about what it means to be patriotic, but I don't generally think of myself as very patriotic. I mean, I vote when I can and have also been known to write to officials about my views on this or that position, even lobby in person, sign petitions or on occasion participate in demonstrations. But what I mean is that I don't particularly feel an obligation to the USA as a nation. I rather consider myself a member of the human race and other political divisions don't really mean much to me.In the same vein, I consider myself an "equal opportunity" critiquer... for example, both Russia/the USSR and the USA end out being the brunt of my criticism for one thing or another. And today I'm going to focus on criticizing something about the U.S.

But before I do that, I also want to mention, without going into a whole lot of detail at this point, that I believe in the separation of church and state (here's one place where a lot of people will undoubtedly get mad at me). Just briefly, though, I believe that the Church's mission is not political (here I'm speaking about Christian churches in particular), but spiritual. The Church is supposed to be changing the world by bringing people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, not by fixing Washington (the other Washington... D.C.). So the Church meddling in politics is detrimental to the soul of the Church.

From the other side of things, I also believe that as the USA is supposed to be a democracy, and as such it should involve all peoples, and not favor one religion (or no religion) over another. In the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures) God - Yahweh - was supposed to be the head of the nation and that should happen when the Messiah returns (as a Christian, I believe Jesus Christ is their once-rejected Messiah who will return and set up His earthly kingdom). But the USA (or any other country for that matter) is NOT the new Israel, and at this time God is not even dealing with Israel that way.That said, since we do live in a democracy, I don't see anything wrong with individual Christians (or other types of believers or unbelievers) getting politically involved. I do think the Church needs to be very careful about any type of collective political activity though.

In other words having anything other than the separation of church and state leads to corruption of both the church and the state, so it's a lose-lose proposition.

That was all to lead up to my real topic today, although the above was an important discussion in its own right.The path to my above convictions didn't happen overnight, but through many experiences and things that I learned along the way, trying to make sense of my life.

For some years I had involvement with several Protestant missions to Eastern Europe/USSR and at one point the V.P. for Finance of the Slavic Gospel Association told me that they took money from the CIA for their short-wave radio work into Communist countries. At the time I didn't really think about the significance of this too much, although it was enough of a revelation to me that it stuck with me. It didn't really sink in, though, until years later after I'd experienced more with some of these missions. At that time in my life I was really trying to put things together and I decided to do a bunch of Freedom of Information Act requests, one of these being to the CIA regarding whether they gave money to SGA. You can read their response below. [Click on the images to get a larger, more legible view.]

I won't say anything else about this right now except to say that about the same time I was told that SGA got money from the CIA a lady I knew from church single-handedly ran a Christian day-care center and she told me she wouldn't take any government money because that would limit her Christian focus at her school. So just imagine, then, what possible impact CIA money might have on a major mission organization to Communist countries...

And maybe you can also begin to imagine how my fatal flaw (see my first posting) could lead to an unhappy end.

Until next time...

Meg