420. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 38 (Lifton, pt. 1)

This next article is:

 Lifton, Robert Jay. (1978, Winter). Advocacy and corruption in the healing professions. Military Chaplains' Review, 15-25.

***

This article is about a nationwide effort to meet in groups Vietnam veterans in the USA that were under some trauma, but an explicit psychological as avoided (as not being what the vets wanted).

"Guilt and rage were fundamental emotions explored in the groups. But the men had a special anger toward two types of professionals, chaplains and "shrinks." They talked about chaplains great anger and resentment as having blessed the troops, their mission, their guns, and their killing. Catholic veterans spoke of confessing meaningless transgressions while never being held accountable for the ultimate one (killing)." (p. 19)

So these vets saw the chaplains basically as stooges of the system and no better than it. So, that's exactly what I'm trying to say: that you have to retain your saltiness and not hide light under a bushel, but if you go compromising left and right with the military and getting all caught up in having to be a soldier and, well, assimilating, which is  how they'd say it in crosscultural terms.  You can't assimilate, because then you're not different, and you have to be different to be salt to the earth and light of the world.   We are to be in the world but not of it, and all the more the chaplain who is in a spiritual leadership position. 

So this is exactly what happened and these vets are not stupid they saw it was, and they were right.  chaplains had lost their saltiness and had put their light under a barrel because they thought it was more important to assimilate and become a soldier than it was to be a good chaplain.  And if he happened to be a Christian he is first and foremost an ambassador for Christ and his citizenship is in heaven

In this case, the chaplains were merely stooges of the military it sounds like.  Did they check their brains out at the door?  Did they not have an individual, independent ability to think?

***

"But in their resentment toward chaplains and psychiatrists the men were saying something more.  It was one thing to be ordered into a situation they came to perceive as absurd and evil, but it was quite another to have that process rationalized and justified by authorities of the spirit and mind. Chaplains and psychiatrists formed an unholy alliance not only with the command but also with the more corruptible elements in the psyche.

 We can thus speak of a "counterfeit universe" in which pervasive, spiritually reinforced inner corruption becomes the price of survival." (p. 20)

I think the Vienna mission had something like this and that was part of the socialization process and how I've been saying that it seemed like they wanted you to sort of come to them with your weaknesses so then they would help you along with the socialization process.  It was a kind of a breaking and then they would put you back together again - like Humpty Dumpty.  For the secretaries, it would mean sort of fatherly conversations with your boss who would guide you along.  But that didn't work for me, I guess, because I didn't do the breaking down, so they had to send me back to the USA to try to do it that way, maybe.

I really resented the "counterfeit universe" of the mission too, for several reasons, I think.  In the Vienna mission, I think it was manipulative.  Since it was manufactured, it could also easily be changed at a moment's notice for any or no reason.  I also didn't think it was necessary for the ministry, unless, of course, there was something else going on that probably shouldn't be.

The rationalization and justification mentioned here also happened in Vienna and H.R director was particularly adept at it, but seasoned and senior others could also do it.  They tended to use Scripture or stories in symbolical ways.  Of course, they could always say later that they never meant anything by it.  But that's just like saying moving someone from an office with a corner window to the basement 't mean anything.  I taught ESL/EFL and sociolinguistics and things like connotation were among the things I was most interested in (rather than syntax, which is just a necessary evil as far as language study and teaching is concerned in my opinion).  Connotation exists and it's every bit as real as other parts of language and if you want to get technical you can look at all the body language, tone of voice, the intonation, etc., etc., so I don't want to hear from them that "Oh, I didn't mean it that way."  I don't think they want to go there.

***

I think that's all I want to take from that article, which is nice for me because I'm tired.

419. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 37 (Wight, pt. 1)

This next article is:

Wight, Roger D. (1983, Fall). The chaplain's allegiance to military: a response. Military Chaplains' Review, 12(4), 48-50.

***

This first quote is from the section of the text concerned the dual  external and internal nature of allegiance to the military.

"f we cannot well and faithfully discharge the duties of our office because of a conflict arising from our denomination's stance, then well most likely hav to leave military service.  An example of this might be  a stance which a denomination would take on nuclear arms. Personal convictions involving nuclear arms could involve conflict which would not allow allegiance to the military. Separation is again indicated." (p. 49)

This is certainly what integrity would seem to demand.  I do not know how easy it is for chaplains to separate themselves from the service, but in principle this does make sense.

Now let's turn and apply this to my situation at the Vienna mission.  It does seem like it might apply, don't you think?  (I'm assuming you've read some of the other posts?)  After all, I had regular catalog of things I disagreed with them on.  But the issue was that if I had confronted them with any or all of they would have denied them each and every one by a variety of ways.  It could have been right across the board but they never have admitted to a one of them because they were a total institution and they were the only ones who had the right to make any such interpretations of right and wrong, or  going on or why or any such overarching interpretive acts.  None of us, supposedly, had enough information or knowledge to do that and that was a part of the division of labor for security's.  So if you're caught mosying around in someone else's area of specialty that's grounds for suspicion for breach of security.  But I never nosied around in anybody's business; I just happened to have the background from before I came to work at the mission that allowed me to think for myself and come to my own conclusions based on was seeing,hearing, experiencing and comparing it to what I knew. 

So it wasn't like everyone knows that the U.S. military has nuclear, right?  And the military isn't going to deny it (unlike the Israeli Defense Forces).  So, yeah, I had a whole slew of complaints against them, but to them they were non-complaints, phantoms - as if I was chasing windmills or something.  So, basically, I was just a little touched in the head. In this case, my separation from the mission would not have come out looking like separation due to a myriad complaints on my part and thus my ethics demanding a separation from the mission.  In fact, the mission would ever allow a separation of that nature for even one complaint. Do you see now how come no one ever raised a voice of dissent and how I was most likely as close as it came to that and if so that was very pitiful, but even so it took a took a lot of emotional strength the year after I left them to recover emotionally.  And my life was forever changed from what they did to me.

***

...[E]ffective ministry within the military requires our allegiance to the military." (p. 50)

This article is in response to the one I commented on in the last post, and this author would l a somewhat more pronounced focus on the military aspect of the chaplaincy than Chaplain Ettershank.  I've explained stand, but it's  more towards the spiritual while understanding enough of the lives of the soldiers to be able to related to them and understand them, but raise up lay leaders too, instead of the chaplain himself doing the bulk of the presence in that way and then his role won't get muddied, either and it will be clear that he is a chaplain, not a soldier (although I do understand he is an officer).  It's called delegating, but it's also empowering and I think that if you have a bunch of these guys really trained well as lay leaders they could fill in well in a war setting too.  They could get evangelism training, training in leading Bible studies, training in basic counseling, or whatever else is needed, etc.

***

This is the end of this article.  So I'm going to end here.

418. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 36 ( Ettershank, p.t 1)

I just went though my Military Chaplaincy file and moved a bunch of articles into the already-done side of the neon green divider sheet, but I still think we've just covered maybe 1/3 of the file.   This is one of the bigger ones.  There's at least one more big file like this; the others are smaller.

***

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.

***

This next article is:

Ettershank, John P. (1983, Fall). The chaplains' allegiance to the military. Military Chaplains' Review, 12(4),41-.50)

***

"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)

At first glance it sounds good (at least from the standpoint of possible conflicts of interest with the military) that they haven't taken an oath of allegiance with the military, but when you consider it more in context I don't think it's nearly so meaningful.  Here's what I mean.

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.

***

"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...

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)

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. 

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. 

***

"The chaplain must not ony possess and apply theological teaching, but also be skilled in  the military arts...

... We are thought of as sodiers and respected as treated as chaplains." (p. 42-43)

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.)

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.

***

"Within the military, we sometimes find conflicts about our allegiance.  Our immediate Commander is the focal point for our allegiance...

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)

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.

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.

***

"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.

***

"I the system, especially the Initial Entry Training (IET), de-personalizes individuals...

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)

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). 

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!

***

"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...

...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)

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.

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. 

***

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.

417. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 35 (Davies, pt. 1)

This next article is:

Davies, Richard E. (1978, Spring). Relations between the early church and the Roman military establishment. Miliary Chaplains' Review. 23-34.

***

"So there were Christian soldiers, in spite of the fact that the military was the strong supporter of Mithra, one of the serious contestants with Christianity in the Roman religious arena. But even through there were Christian soldiers, there was a great deal of ambivalence about whether or not a Christian had the moral right to serve in the Roman army." (p. 24)

***

"The flamboyant Tertullian (c. 130-c. 220) and the ascetic Origen (c. 185-c. 254) had more to say about the military than any of the other Christian writers before the time of Constantine.  Both of them argued that Christians should not serve in the military, while arguing at the same time that Christians should support the military with prayers.   But if a Christian should not be a soldier, why not?

Cadoux demonstrates clearly that Origen held the pacifist positioin, saying that Christians should not fight.  Other issues such as idolotry within the army and common immorality among soldiers were not  particularly important for Origen.  But Origen seems to stumble into ambivalence at the point of supporting the state.  He stressed the positive contributions made to the state through intercessory prayers and through the influence on society of Christian education and the superior moral example of Christians.

Origen May have taken the clearest and, to modern ears, the most defensible position against Christian involvement with the military establishment, but if he had such a horror of war as Cadoux would claim, how would he pray for the success of pagan (Roman) armies? Origen recognized that the legions were necessary to the life of the empire, and he was not whole-heartedly ready to exchange the civilized empire for a barbaric chaos, regardless of his opinion of the army." (p. 28)

***

I was out all afternoon and evening, so I just wanted to get one article in and this is an easier one.  These texts just show that there is some history for pacifism in the church.  Not that it's conclusive or that it's the last word on it; but that it does have a long history.  Just something to think about and not to out of hand completely disregard views of Christians who chose to not support violence and war, who chose to put more emphasis on finding peaceful resolutions - more emphasis than is currently done.

I have come to espouse such a position.

416. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 34 (Bickley & G'Segner, pt. 1)

This next article is going to be a less involved one.  Some of these in this file, when they get into a lot of theology or philosophy or emotionally-loaded (for me at least) subject area can take a lot of time and I can't deal with that today.  And I have to spread those out a bit because it does take a bit out of me to do those sometimes.  It's almost like reliving a bit of what happened when I was with the mission, especially when I hit upon someting that really validates my experience.

And then I realized this morning that I forgot that needed to portion out my meds and supplements for the week, so I'm scrambling to get that done now on top of the other things I had planned.  Yesterday got a bit messed up by unplanned things, which happens.

So this articles is:

Bickley, Hugh J. & G'Segner, Ford F. (1975, Fall). Games and values clarification: aids in human self-development. Military Chaplains' Review, 43-51.

 ***

"Throughout the last three decades chaplaincy has given serious attention to human self-development.  Though given different names -- Character Guidance, Our Moral Heritage, and the Human Self-De velopment Program -- the intent has been to involve soldiers in a process of moral and ethical self-development." (p. 43)

I just hope that it was a better program of self-development than what the Vienna mission had.  Since the Vienna mission was a total institutions and my experience of it, as explained elsewhere throughout this blog, was not totally unlike how Christians experienced their treatment at the hands of Communists, I'd like to suggest what it might have been like under the Vienna mission total institution:

"The lack of individual responsibility is a product of decades of living under limited freedom. People get used to oppression. This has always happened with totalitarian regimes. I remember, I was greatly surprised to meet people with a similar mentality in East Germany, a country that has always been very different from Russia. This happened during the unification of the East and West Germany. I saw fright in the eyes of the East Germans, the same reaction as I see here in Russia – people do not know what to do. There is a psychological term for this – the acquired helplessness syndrome. The syndrome is usually manifested in social pessimism and lack of self-confidence. The acquired helplessness syndrome is the main feature of Soviet mentality and unfortunately it is prevalent among senior citizens."

This describes the acquired helplessness syndrome of the "Soviet man".  And lest you think I'm over-exaggerating, just remember that the whole time I was with the mission they continually took away one by one a whole chunk of my external supports and relations until I was more and more cornered in and reliant on them... helpless, if you please.

Fortunately for me, however, I had an easier way out than the hapless Soviet citizens and my commitment to the mission was limited to 2 years of my life so that there remained a remnant of my former self that wasn't helpless and I did retain some external connections that helped me buoy above the tragedy and find a way to rise again.  But I could very easily have vanished only to have never been heard of again... a mere shell of my former self, broken by the mission and it's treatment of me.  And no one would have ever believed me that it was their fault at all; they would have assumed I was just emotionally weak.

Actually, though, I think the opposite is true and it was amazing that I was able to do what I did because no one ever was able to do what I did, and that alone is testament enough to the strength of my character.  Everyone else was to weak or scared or didn't have enough knowledge early on, which is when it would have been needed, to even attempt what I did.  So, yes, on one level I was weak, but on another level I was incredibly strong and clever and did what no one else was able to do.

***

"Educational journals, management magazines, adult education reports, continuing education briefs, sociological and psychological articls, and religious writings and books tell us that contemporary persons share the following characteristis.  They (we) are non-authoritarian, dialogical, interdependent, and participative. (p. 44)

Did I tell you that I have an M.A. in Adult Education and 60 credits towards a doctorate in the same and that I've published articles and given numerous conference presentations on adult education related subjects? So I'm sort of in my league here.

The thing is that the Vienna mission knew this stuff as far as how it taught its classes in Eastern Europe; it just sort of forgot it all it seems to me when it came to socialization of new members.  Oh sure, the mentoring process was on the surface like this, but in the end it was not because the mission was a total institution and it was not about dialogue with its members, at least not according to my experience.  Dialogue was not an option.  The only thing it wanted was obedience and childlike submission, like for the Soviet man above.  And better not to ask any questions, of course, because of the security issue.  Security could be an answer to everything, like a broken record.  Like, as soon as you raise your hand in class you don't even have to ask the question, the teacher will just automatically answer, "Security," and move on. So security quelched everything and trumped everything.

But at some point there has to be some accountability and the individual has to be treated like and adult and if there are unethical things going on behind the facade of "security" some members might like to know.

This is true with government, too, right?  Think of Washington, D.C. (my country's capital); there have been times when they classify documents that shouldn't be classified.  These are documents that pose absolutely no security risk to the country at all.  So some media outlet or nonprofit watchdog group gets a whiff of an incidence like this and exposes it and it turns out documents were classified only because they embarrassed the current administration - made them look bad and they didn't want people to know about it.  That's not why documents are supposed to be classified!  And when missionaries come to the Vienna mission and tacitly (or otherwise) agree to suspend judgement for the sake of security, they are most likely thinking of security issues involving logistics and the like.  But if the mission is hiding information like cooperation with a government, that's a whole other ball of wax and some missionaries might not feel so comfortable with that, especially if it's something like the military or CIA or something.  But then by the time they learn of such things they're already in the thick of things, so they really needed to know about this kind of thing up front or earlier on, but that's the psychology of the mission (the leadership) and they understand how that works.  They're not stupid.

So the mission leads a double life, where they know these truths, as given in this text, but they don't really live them internally inside the mission.  So this is a case of "Do as I say, not as I do."

***

"All persons -- young and old -- face some confusions about the important things in their lives.  They are surrounded by a glittering array of choices, like a child at a candy counter.  Youth feel this confusion intensely and reflect it readily.  Older people also tend to be confused; though their confusion is less noticeable, it is not less acute.

In almost every area of human endeavor and involvement one observes values and value conflicts operating:

... Within the milieu of modern living conflicts arise, problems emerbe, and values clash.  Chaplains -- as pastors, teachers, and leaders -- are aware of these conflicts." (p. 45)

Ever since my Vienna mission experience I have been very interested in the ethical issues for Christians in various fields.  Most professional level fields have ethical statements from their professional association they can turn to, but that isn't always adequate for the Christian.

Anyway, it's clear that Christians are going to experience these kinds of conflicts because the world's values don't mesh with the Bible's instructions for us.  So we should be masters of dealing with conflict and be able to readily recognize conflict, but we can't always, or for some reason we might be able to recognize it but we don't respond as we should.   It's not easy being the minority and standing out as being different.  I know because I feel like I've spend a lot of my life in that position, although it wasn't always that way.  The Vienna mission changed that, because after that I began taking stands that weren't even popular in Christian circles.  I've already paid a heavy price for taking stands for what I believe in, and while I didn't really necessarily want to, I felt I had to because there was no way I could give in in those situations.  So now I'm less willing to just go along with the flow if I really don't agree with something or think something is wrong enough to not be able to go along with it.

***

Next the author suggests 4 ways the chaplain can "provide guidance in values training:

1. MORALIZING: This direct approach assumes that the chaplain's experiences and resulting values system is right for those whom he teaches... moralizing usually influences only one's vocabulary and little else.

2. A LAISSEZ-FAIRE ATTITUDE: This approach says, "Think and do and be the way you want, and in the long run, everything will turn out okay."... In daily life... everything does not "turn out okay," regardless of the values one cherishes.

3. MODELING: ...The multiplication of models make it difficult, if not impossible, for one to know which is right for him or her.

4. VALUES CLARIFICATION: This is a process which allows persons to bild and to discover their own values systems... To use values clarification exercises, however, it is essential to recognize that process is far more important than content." (p. 45-46)

The thing here is that the values were taught especially during the socialization process at the Vienna mission, rather than in the seminary classes.  As I've said before, although it bears repeating here, socialization was a very individualistic affair in the mission for several reasons, I think.  For one thing, new missionaries came trickling in so you couldn't really have classes of cohorts training.  Also, the positions varied as did the personals and the issues they might have needed focusing on.  I think it may also have depending on who was doing the socializaing, because different socializers might have been more or less comfortable with different tactics of socilalization. So I'm going to go through these discussing them as things that might have been used with some people (or not).

Moralizing.  I think this was used some, but probably mostly in the guise of sharing one's testimony to the effect of "This worked for me, you should try it too."

Laissez-Faire.  I think this only would have been used if the mission wanted to watch the individual, but I think it would have been the rarest of them all, because the mission was basically more controlling.

Modeling.  They did use mentoring, probably pretty much across the board with most if not all new missionaries, so part of the mentoring process would have included modeling.  But I don't think that modeling would have been used as a stand alone method apart from mentoring.  However, the new missionary would have been watching to learn from others, but a lot of times the one they were watching might have been unaware that they were modeling.

Values Clarification.  I think this happened, but only by those who were well able to explain clearly what the mission's values were, so that would have been limited to just a select few members of the mission, very likely not the mentor of the mission.  If a person had to have a serious sit-down values clarification, I expect by that point that something seriously was wrong and the person might be in trouble, like I was.

***

"Values clarification exercises, whatever their form, are essentially connected to this process of valuing: choosing, prizing, and acting." (p. 47)

The Vienna mission uses a variety of means to try to make new missionaries choose their values, the values that don't show up on their annual report, in their brochures, etc.  The values that have to do with security and whatever else lies behind that veil of secrecy.  In fact, I learned that they'll pretty much do whatever they have to to get you to choose their values (and norms), such as:

1. trying to lure you in with their love and familial acceptance
2. threats of going crazy (backed by stressors, sending you for counseling, etc.), which I think is a kind of use of force
3. humiliation, such as demotions and shunning
4. cutting off outside relations 
5. etc.

I'm not sure what they'll do to make you prize it, because I never got that far.  Prizing it, I think might include actually internalizing it.  I think you can choose it, but not really internalize it, but I can't imagine prizing it and not at the same time also inernalizing it.  The mission wanted it's values and norms internalized, so it would have not been satisfied with just choosing.

***

So that's the end of that article. 

415. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 33 (Ellens, pt. 1)

Well, I have a lemon cheesecake with hazelnut crust in the oven.  The epidural got me feeling a bit better so I'm up to fixing something a bit more ambitious for visiting tomorrow, but I hope it doesn't melt in the car while I'm at physical therapy.  I'll put it in an ice chest, and hopefully that will work.  All my ice chests are in use, though, so I'll have to temporarily empty one out to use it for what it really was meant to be used for in the first place.

***

This next article is:

Ellens, Jay H. (1984, Spring). Preparation for combat: emotional and spiritual. Military Chaplains' Review, 13(2), 29-39.

***

"[T]he sick notion that has become common coinage in our society of late, namely, that independence is the ideal achievement of real humanness and healthy personhood, fails radically in understanding two crucial facts.  First, independence is as psychopathological as depencency is in personality development... Second, the alienated individualism of American society today is a product of the strong emphasis upon radical independence as the ideal destiny of real persons.  The most tragit result of that alienation is the loss of philosophical and ethical consensus in America." (p. 32)

There's a lot to respond to here, and I'll try to break it apart and take the individual bits separately.

First of all, I don't think it's so new in America.  I think it was part of the independent spirit that drove Americans to head out to look for new land, that drew people to leave their original countries (if they're not indigenous).  Of course, there was a lot of banding together, but there was a lot of needing to be self-reliant and that sort of thing. Then, of course, the sixties came with their rebelliousness and all.  But I did a study, in fact it's in my first refereed journal article where I cite that the USA rates so high on the scale for valuing independence in contrast to countries on the other end of the scale that value interdepence, like, say, Japan.  There are other scales, but that's the relevant one, and that one we rate particularly way off on one end on, extremely on one end.  So I don't think that something so new, really.

The other thing is that I agree that it's not necessarily ideal to be so independent, but this is one time where I hedge a bit because I don't think there's a one size fits all answer here.  As far as Scripturally, the Church should be somewhat more interedependent, but I don't know that it absolutely has to be a commune, that is, interdependent to that level.  Churches in America are weak in this I think, though, for the most part.  There are exceptions, of course.  I'm not going to go into all the Scripture passages, but all the "one another" verses are a good place to start (e.g., pray for one another, rebuke one another, kiss one another with a holy kiss, etc.)

Then to say that independence is psychopathological is wild.  Where did he get that idea? I suppose there may be specific situations where that is true or not, but to make such a blanket statement is, in my view, totally uncalled for.  I've lived in cultures that prefer individualism and been in situations where it was needed, but I've also lived in cultures where interdependence was the norm or situations where that was more called for.  The thing is that I don't think that either independence or interdependence in and of themselves are an end all.  The issue is: Who are you going to be interdependent on/with? or Who are you going to be independent from? If I'm a Christian and I say I'm going to be interdependent with people at the local bar because that's the only place I can make friends, how's that going to look?  Is that a good decision?  Do you see what I mean?  So to say being interdependent is so great is silly, because you have to say interdependent with whom or what.

***

"There are four areas in which thorough preparation of chaplains and soldiers is necessary to insure psycho-spiritual durability and pastoral effectiveness in combat.  They are spiritual, theological, ethical, and psychological preparedness." (p. 33)

"Secondly, spiritual preparedness... His preparation should include the development of theological worldview which affords meaning to human suffering, inhumaneness, and irrationality, in a way, that neither jeopardizes the integrity of God's grace nor blames the suffering humans by assigning a cause and effect relationship between their guilt and their pain." (p. 34)

"Ethical preparedness... This sense of ethical preparedness must include the conviction that, wherever there are people in suffering and need, chaplains are under ethical imperative to serve them, even if the general does not seem altogether ethical." (p. 34)

"In all of that, of course, the professional preparation of chaplains as well as of soldiers is crucial.  To maintain security, self-esteem, self-confidence, and profienciency in work or ministry under extreme conditions requires that professional skills become second nature." (p. 35)

So these are some of the areas that the military chaplains/H.R. staff at the Vienna mission might have had in their chaplain roles.  Again, you must remember that when I got these articles the military chaplain ones were especially regarding those two men.

I wonder if they had more ethics in their service in the military even than they did in their work in the Vienna mission?  It sounds like it more and more as I read these articles.  It's like maybe they did pick up some things from their military background but then they perverted it all when they came to the mission.  Well, maybe they didn't pervert everything, but a significant amount of it.

***

"Rationale

The Just War Theory is no longer as well received as it once was. Wars do not fit such neat philosophical categories as they once did.

... I hear the argument for the Just War Theory still promoted in military circles on occasion, but I doubt that anyone really sees this as an adequate source of spiritual, theological, ethical, and psychological grounding for pastors and soldiers to find or give meaning to war's brutishness and beastiality anymore.

War is always immoral, but it may be the lesser of two or more evils... Since there shall be wars and rumors of wars, what shall we do with them in godliness?

That is the pastoral question, the ultimate pastoral issue for chaplains caring for soldiers in the hell of war or potential war.  That is the question with which the chaplain must struggle in peaceful times so that he will be prepared to devote his energies wholeheartedly to ministry in a just war (if there ever be such a thing) or in an unjust war, so long as there are needy men and women down in the mud, wrestling with the beastiality and inhumanity war inevitably brings." (p. 36-37)

I don't think the Just War Theory is dead yet, and we have seen that it is alive and kicking still, but the author here does have a valid point, I think, that there certainly are limits to it any more.  Wherever war includes non-national terrorist groups (like war against the Taliban instead of war against a country) or where a country has and uses or might use or threatens to use biological or nuclear weapons, the Just War Theory really can't apply, because right there you're looking at breaking it.  Disregard for loss of civilian casualties and structures is another issue.  The U.S. if often guilty on that one, which is a major reason we don't want to join the World Court.  Heaven forbid anyone would hold us accountable for any of our reckless causing of loss of civilian lives.

As to the question chaplains must answer... Well, I guess that is the penultimate question for them.  I audited a college class taught by a Romanian pastor in exile and the class was on the theology of suffering.  They had developed a whole theology on suffering.  So I guess chaplains have to deal with that question.  I would rather be on the end of things trying to avoid wars and killing.  But that's our society; it's how we deal with medicine too.  Instead of getting preventive medicine we instead wait till we have to have an operation.  And that's when the insurance will be more likely to pay for it too. 

***

"Conclusion

Who is up to such a task? Let us leave off the old and tired rationale of Just War Theories and chaplains as rescuers, staff workers, or merely parish priests. Let us become Kingdom builders. Where beginnings have already been made, let us continue. Let us convert our soldiers to the method, motivation and meaning under which even war can be an act of constructing the spiritual and cultural edifice of God's Kingdom on earth, an act of civilization for preservation of justice, cultural idealism, spiritual decorum, and tenderness for fractured and war weary humanity." (p. 39)

He's talking about bringing spiritual life and values and ethics to soldier and to the battlefield when there is a war.  I have the full text here, otherwise I was thinking something else.  So it's a call to raise up mature Christians who will be prepared spiritually and morally if need be for the ravages of war.

I must admit that I can see the military chaplain/H.R. director of the Vienna mission doing this kind of thing.  I also think he was probably a good pastor.  It's hard to understand what happened to him though that he should do what he did to me, although I don't for a second believe he was in it alone.  I'm not even sure he is the main person.  He just happened to be the one who met with me and because he had the military connection he was suspicious as far as connections with my dad are concerned.

***

That's it for tonight.

414. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 32 (Karp, 1)

I lost Internet connectivity this morning, but I was working on my autobiography some, so I was glad to have that time and make some progress there. 

***

The next article is:

Karp, H.B. (1985, Fall). Working with Resistance. Military Chaplains' Review, 14(4), 75-80.

***

"Resistance is under fire today.  If cooperation is seen as universally good, its opposite resistance, isusually seen as bad or negative.  How many times have you heard these admonitions: "Don't be defensive," "You've got to learn to compromise," or, "You're only thinking of your own welfare"? One of the most difficult tasks for managers and trainers is knowing when resistance is appropriate -- and how to express it appropriately -- so that results are positive for all." (p. 75)

I don't know whether either of the military chaplains/H.R. department staff ever read this article or not but I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that if they ever had any inclination to humor any resistance for any reason the mission leadership or one or the other missions on the board would have quickly put a stop to it so that everyone pretty much just had it ingrained in them not to even bother risking any resistance and the leadership knew that letting any slip by their watch would also be asking for trouble and they maybe had to also watch their backside as well. 

And who was I?  What kind of resistance did I offer?  Basically refusing to bow down and worship them and put them in the place of God in my life; refusing to let them tell me what was right and what was wrong; and these things I retained to the end as not subject to their authority. I retained the right the whole way through to make my own decision, with God's help as to what is right and what is wrong.  That was my coup d'état.  Yes, I was standing up on the inside.  Yes, indeed, I was.  And the moral decision was that there was a lot wrong with the mission.

***

"Two definitions are essential for discussion: power and resistance.  Power is the ability to get all you want from the environment, given what's available.  It's a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and is solely a function of the individual.  Resistance is the ability to avoid what is not wanted from the environment.  It is an expression of power in that not getting what you don't want is as beneficial as getting what you do want." (p. 76)

It's interesting, because my middle brother is all about power.  I think he's manipulative and I've lost all respect for him; it's like he's just been trying to garner situations by power for years and years and so much of what he does seems so manipulative it's disgusting... all related to this power.  But people buy into it.  That's another story though.

While I was with the mission where was some talk among certain women that was competitive in nature, but I wasn't sure if it was something to take seriously or just something to confuse me.  So I'm not sure what to do with it.  The thing was that it seemed that report was pretty important, so I'm not sure how much competition and gamesmanship the leadership would have wanted to put up with if it were really a serious deal.  And some of the potential ministries they told me about anyway were bogus, so those could be too.  If they weren't bogus, though, then you'd have this kind of thing going on.

But if these are supposed to refer to resistance, that's an interesting possibility.  I didn't really want anything from the mission except to take me seriously and be able to sit down and be able to sit down and talk as equals.  Well, that wasn't going to happen because there's no way I was going to be treated as an equal and I was going to be the only one doing any adapting, period.  So then it become a matter of what I don't want from the mission, which is unbearable treatment, and as strong as I was (and I did come to Vienna somewhat stressed already) I did have my limits like anyone.  The only way you could avoid problems with the mission, however, was to do what they wanted.  So that was one of the things I had to figure out after the sent me back to the U.S.

***

"Regardless of the reasons of their legitimacy, most people will only reveal those things that are safe for them to disclose.  This suggests that it may take some time to develop the level of trust needed to get at the relevant issues." (p. 77)

This is exactly why I divulged exactly 0% of my concerns, because that's how safe I felt disclosing anything to anyone in the mission.  Now don't you think it's just a little unusual that a missionary should feel unsafe expressing ANY of his/her concerns AT ALL with any of her fellow missionaries or mission leaders (including my sending mission)?  But that's the truth.  That's why it wasn't until the end of my time with the mission, probably when it became clear that I had no plans to continue with the mission and I wasn't giving any explanation for why I was leaving or anything that they were understanding that there was something they didn't understand and "I was standing up on the inside."  All that time they didn't know because I never told them anything, not a word because I didn't trust them.  Sure I would have just loved to have ripped them up and down and told them some of the things I was thinking, but that would have been hell unimaginable for me.  I already had practically more than I could handle.

***

"Two varieties of resistance must be addressed: psudo-resistance and authentic resistance.  Pseudo-resistance has nothing to do with the issue at hand.  Usually it is a response to conditions and attitudes grounded in the resistors past.  A few examples are: general mistrust of people; cynical view towards life; bad interpersonal relationship; resentment of authority; hunger to make personal impact; fear of obligating oneself; or sometimes, being chronically unclear about what is wanted.  By contrast, authentic resistance is a statement of strength by the individual and is directed specifically to the situation at hand.  The first objective in exploring resistance is to determine if it is pseudo or authentic.  Once this is accomplished, pseudo-resistance can be set temporarily aside as irrelevant and authentic resistance addressed directly." (p. 79)

I clearly had authentic resistance to the Vienna mission.  It was uniquely against them, their ways of operating, their value system, their apparent connections with government, etc.

***

"Recheck

Resistance will remain if there has been no accommodation of the resistor's concerns." (p. 80)

The "Recheck" is part of a series of steps on dealing with resistance, which I didn't go through with the mission.  In any case, I did mention to a couple secretaries that I was experiencing stress and this got to the mission leadership (lesson: don't tell anybody anything of importance like this).  So the mission utilized this as a weakness to try to get me to succumb to them through sending me to the U.S. and what that entailed.  That really wasn't an accommodation, however, because they didn't identify it as stress (which was coming from the mission in the first place), but pointed the finger elsewhere at the surrounding culture, and they never even checked to see how I was doing if I really needed counseling.  Did my Austrian doctor recommend it?  So it was a pseudo-accommodation no matter how you look at it. 

***

"The need to resist is a powerful part of the human makeup.  It is neither good nor bad, but an attribute that can be used to strengthen individuals, families and organizations.  A person is never stronger or more creative than during the act of resisting something perceived as harmful." (p. 80)

The Vienna mission I don't think would ever, ever accept resistance as good.  Resistance was always bad in their books.  They just would't have anything to do with it.  I already mentioned a million times that they didn't have a grievance policy in place, even to go to sending missions.  That's because they didn't accept resistance.  So if you had a grievance your only choices were to just suck it up or leave.  That's it.  Like it or leave it.  Forget this mamby-pamby grievance stuff with its conflict resolution or working with resistance.  That's the mission how I knew it anyway.

This article came out about 6 months or so before I arrived in Vienna.  I wonder if either of the military chaplain/H.R. staff had had a chance to read it...