Out of Line on Chaplain Regulations

The latest Air Force chaplain guidelines have completely lost their way. The concern is all about the rights of chaplains, when the regulations ought to recognize that the purpose of chaplains is to meet the needs of the personnel with whom they minister. Military chaplains help make available the freedom of religion that is the right of all U.S. citizens.

But the revision to the interim Air Force chaplaincy regulation compels people who are in involuntary situations to be confronted with religious speech they may disagree with or be uninterested in ["Chaplains Group Opposes Prayer Order; Guarantee on Using Jesus's Name Not Needed, It Says," news story, March 30].

If chaplains whose religion requires aggressive evangelization cannot respect the nature of religiously ambiguous events such as command funerals, they should reconsider whether they can officiate at those events. The military is not a captive population on which to foist religious views.

Senior officers ought to be cautious, too. They have the right to express their views on religion, but they must be circumspect in this expression, because any discussion across ranks -- especially between officers and enlisted personnel -- contains a measure of compulsion.

Some evangelical chaplains say that they have been prevented from praying in the name of Jesus at chapel services, but no commander worth his command would tell a priest what he can say at Mass or a Protestant chaplain how to pray at a Protestant service. If such evidence exists, it ought to be made public, because it violates military regulations.

CHRISTINE MILLER

Waldorf

The writer, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was a U.S. Navy chaplain from 1974 to 1982.