Written by Don Byrd
NOTE: Some helpful questions have been raised about this post since its publication. An update has been added to this post below.
US News and World Report profiles a new religious liberty campaign involving thousands of military chaplains. Their target? Just the Christians.
The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty said Monday it planned to reach out to Christian members of the military in coming months to inform them of their “constitutionally guaranteed religious liberties.” The alliance will connect with those soldiers through its 2,400 member chaplains – which represent nearly half of the total number of chaplains in the military.
“They’ll receive a palm card… saying: here are your religious liberties and here is what to do if threatened,” said Ron Crews, the executive director of the alliance, at a press conference on Capitol Hill Monday. “They could receive counsel from chaplains, or legal representation.”
Chaplains minister to service men and women of all faiths, who all enjoy the same religious liberty protections under the First Amendment. Why not educate all with equal vigor, about not just their liberties but the responsibility to safeguard the liberties of others as well.
UPDATE: After this was originally posted, it was brought to my attention that my claim that this program only targets Christians is misleading and possibly inaccurate.
It is true that the Chaplain Alliance’s press release announcing the campaign doesn’t suggest it will reach out only to Christian military personnel. Likewise, the palm cards they plan to distribute are not Christian specific. To be clear: the content of the campaign seems geared toward all religious personnel, regardless of their faith. That is as it should and must be. Guidelines for chaplain activity, like those outlined in this U.S. Army manual, state clearly that chaplains are to facilitate the free exercise rights of all military personnel regardless of their faith.
So, why did I write that this campaign targets Christian service members?
For one, the U.S. News piece that alerted me to this campaign reported that the Alliance said just that in their press conference last Tuesday. So, I figured they did actually say that. And they may have. But maybe not. It wasn’t in a direct quote, and there could have been understandable miscommunication about “members of the military” versus “members of the Chaplain Alliance,” who are all Christians.
Regardless, I do think this program could do more to reach, and make sure it is protecting, non-Christian members of the military. The religious liberty palm cards fail to mention certain key religious liberty protections that are especially important to service members of minority faiths or of no faith. They provide no indication, for example, that personnel have the right to be free of a coercive environment, or that can’t be required to attend religious events. Nor is there a reminder of the duty not to exploit positions of authority for religious ends.
It seems fair, too, to note that the legal help site they advertise leads to lawyers of the Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF is a conservative Christian legal organization, which represents Christians almost exclusively as an expression of their Christian mission. In recent months, a flawed narrative has taken hold, one the ADF actively promotes. That narrative views Christian service members as unique victims of an organized effort to curtail their religious freedoms, their religious liberty rights threatened by new Pentagon rules (the Pentagon has thoroughly debunked this rumor) and attacked by those who have the nerve to evoke the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
In my opinion, that narrative seriously misunderstands the nature of religious freedom as guaranteed by the Constitution. As Revs. Welton Gaddy and Barry Lynn rightly suggested in an op-ed yesterday, removing religious content from military facilities is often an expression of religious freedom, not the loss of it.
So, it was probably too hasty to presume that this particular campaign will target Christian service members. The chaplains in the Chaplain Alliance are completely capable of ministering to personnel of all faiths. There is no reason to believe they won’t look out for the religious liberty of all personnel, as they are charged to do. I do believe, however, that this outreach program could do that better with a broader offering of education and legal assistance.
