I mentioned in an earlier post Navy Chaplain James Gordon Klingenschmitt's hunger strike in hopes that President Bush will sign an executive order allowing chaplains to pray sectarian prayers at public military events. Last week, Klingenschmitt started getting attention: he was interviewed on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson show:
I want to stay in the Navy and I want to pray publicly in Jesus' name, but on Friday, admirals in the Pentagon, claiming to speak for the president of the United States, stripped me of my uniform for all public appearances. They said, "You can't pray in Jesus' name in public, unless you're wearing civilian clothes."
And so that's when I had enough. I began this hunger fast, and I'm asking the president of the United States to sign an executive order, protecting all of our military chaplains' right to pray according to their diverse faiths.
And The Washington Monthly's popular blog Political Animal highlighted the case in a guest post by Stephen Benen, who believes the issue "isn't complicated":
The Navy has public ceremonies — where attendance is mandatory for sailors and officers — in which chaplains are asked to use inclusive language that reflects the diversity of the armed forces. Klingenschmitt doesn't care for that approach and wants to use his post to promote Christianity. His superiors said no, so Klingenschmitt started a hunger strike and wants the White House to support him.
What's more, 70 members of Congress, nearly all of whom are Republicans, are using Klingenschmitt's fight to argue that Christian chaplains should be able to proselytize on the job. In other words, we'd have official government ministers, whose salary is paid with tax dollars, preaching Christianity to American troops. Suggesting that, at a minimum, official military prayers should be "non-sectarian" is, in the minds of these congressional critics, "censorship of Christian beliefs." (One wonders if they'd feel the same if a Muslim military chaplain wanted faith-specific religious expressions at mandatory Navy ceremonies.)
But it is in fact complicated. And Chaplain Klingenschmitt has been clear about his hopes that muslim chaplains would be able to pray according to their faith as well. His is not a majoritarian appeal. It represents a deeply emotional issue for many ministers. Being a government-sponsored religious figure can be a profoundly different role than that of a private minister to one's own congregation. It may not be a desirable one for a person of faith; and it is a precarious position for a government bent on tolerant religious exercise to have created.
Benen was right to link to a statement of James Madison's in which he considered public chaplains to be a questionable idea. It's a questionable role, I believe, both for the public/military and for the religious leader. But if we are going to have public chaplains at all, it is a necessary complication.
