Military Wrestles With Disharmony Among Chaplains

Of the approximately 1.4 million people on active duty in the military, 21.5 percent list their religion as Roman Catholic. But of the 2,860 active-duty chaplains, 355 -- or 12.4 percent -- are Catholic priests.

By far the largest single provider of chaplains to the military is now the Southern Baptist Convention, with 451 chaplains, one for every 40 service members who list their denomination as Southern Baptist.

Although the military has had growing difficulty recruiting ministers from mainline Protestant seminaries, many evangelical denominations place a high priority on supplying chaplains to the military. The Church of God in Christ, for example, has 109 active-duty chaplains. The Full Gospel churches have 61, the Church of the Nazarene has 68, and the Cleveland, Tenn.-based Churches of God have 58.

The chief endorser of chaplains for the National Association of Evangelicals said he believes that the bias against evangelicals, though once real, is gone.

"When you look at the Navy today, you see evangelicals at the top of the hierarchy," said retired Col. Stephen W. Leonard, a former Army chaplain. He points to the deputy chief of Navy chaplains, Rear Adm. Robert F. Burt, who belongs to the Open Bible Standard Church, and to the previous chief of Navy chaplains, the Rev. Barry C. Black, a Seventh-day Adventist who became chaplain of the Senate after retiring from the Navy.

"There probably were chaplains that didn't get selected [for promotion] that probably should have been selected. But we're past that now. Let bygones be bygones," Leonard said.

How to Preach

With the growth in evangelicals, heated disputes are occurring over public prayers.

Iasiello said chaplains are free to preach however they wish in their base chapels or at sectarian worship services. But when they have a multi-faith audience at staff meetings, change-of-command ceremonies, ship commissionings and other public events, they are encouraged to offer more generic, inclusive prayers, he said.

"We train our people to be sensitive to the needs of all of God's people. We don't direct how a person's going to pray. Because everyone's own denomination or faith group has certain directives or certain ways of doing things, and we would never -- it's that whole separation-of-church-and-state thing -- we would never want to direct institutionally that a person could or couldn't do something," Iasiello said.

But the model of chaplaincy advocated by older chaplains such as Iasiello, which hinges on self-restraint, is increasingly under challenge by younger ones, such as Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, 37.

Three years ago, Klingenschmitt left the Air Force, where he had been a missile officer for 11 years, and joined the Navy as a chaplain. He took a demotion and a pay cut to make the switch. But he was joyful.

"I had been serving my country," he said. "I wanted to serve God."