I received an e-mail from a conservative, Protestant religious group wanting me to donate to their military chaplain ministry. Here is something the group said in the e-mail:
U.S. military chaplains labor hard to bring the gospel to bear on the lives of the soldiers with whom they are stationed. On the battlefields of the Middle East, in the chapels on U.S. military bases, on board ships and submarines, and elsewhere, our chaplains work to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to minister to troops in desperate need of God’s Word.
Here is the appeal from the group’s website.
But all military chaplains do not proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. For example, here is a statement about chaplains from the Joint Base-Lewis-McChord (JBLM) Chaplain Home Page:
JBLM has one of the largest Religious Support Organizations (RSOs) in the US Army with almost 95 Unit Ministry Teams (UMTs) stationed at Lewis Main, Lewis North and McChord Field. The JBLM chaplain staff oversees and operates nine chapels, and performs or provides a variety of religious services for the Soldiers and Airmen at JBLM: Liturgical, Traditional, Gospel and Contemporary. We have a very active Roman Catholic religious program, as well as Jewish, Islam, Buddhist and Wiccan services.
Jewish, Buddhist, and Wiccan chaplains do not proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. Whether you think they are right in not doing so is beside the point. My point is that the military has chaplains for many faiths. Some bases even have a Muslim chaplain.
I say get rid of all taxpayer-funded chaplains, including the Christian ones, and let each religion appoint their own chaplains to minister to the military. I hope their first sermons are: “The Military Is an Immoral Institution, Get out As Soon As You Can.” That’s what mine would be.
1:38 pm on May 22, 2015