By Ivonne Spinoza
When you hear the term chaplain, if you’re not in the military, what usually comes to mind? It could be a pop culture reference, like Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H*, or prison chaplains in a movie with a death row setting, or perhaps something from history, like the famed “Four Chaplains” from WWII. But what actually is a chaplain, and what are the different types of chaplains represented in the military?
Chaplains are usually attached to an otherwise secular institution, like a hospital, the U.S. Senate, or, say, the military. As Hans Zeiger wrote for Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy, “no office in America is so delicately balanced between church and state as that of the military chaplain.” A big part of a chaplain’s job is to be there to listen without judging, no matter who they are talking to, making them the de facto spiritual leaders inside the organization.
Active duty service members don’t only go to chaplains for religious reasons, but faith—any faith— is a way for those serving to endure the challenges of the military experience. Beyond performing religious rites and conducting worship services, chaplains provide confidential counseling.
“Soldiers and cadets of all faiths and some with no faith come and talk to me,” said Captain David Ruderman, Jewish chaplain at West Point. Echoing that experience, retired Lieutenant Colonel Chaplain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad says that “oftentimes, people who are not of our profession think that [miltary personnel] only come to us for religious reasons [but] people come to us with the things that normally burden their souls.”
Each squadron is supposed to have a chaplain who, regardless of their personal religious affiliation, serves the spiritual needs of all the members in that group. Per the official directive, the chaplain must “protect and promote the free exercise of religion for all faith groups [inside the military]”.
“Chaplaincy is not merely about religious instruction,” Chaplain Saleha Jabeen, pictured at top right, adds. “It is about being better at being human. In a military environment, such a presence serves as a moral compass that the senior-most members are in need of as much as the junior member needs it, to remain resilient, to serve the nation with integrity, and to care for their fellow service member with complete dignity and respect.”
Her experience with military members in crisis has led her to confirm that “[the] reality is people have the courage it takes to battle through negative force and stay alive regardless of the intensity of it. They just need someone to hold their pain while they try to catch a breath,” further cementing the importance of this position.
How religiously diverse is the military?
“Religion and culture outpace politics across all regions surveyed as the root cause of tension between Muslim and Western worlds,” according to the Gallup Center. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 U.S. military members practice Islam.
For Captain Chaplain Rafael Lantigua, there was never doubt about expecting some level of hostility for being a Muslim because, as he states in the documentary Three Chaplains: “Just because of the nature of what’s going on in the world, the news footage continues to propagate this idea that Muslims are terrorists…” Despite that expectation, a poll from 2022 showed an increased willingness of Muslim Americans to serve in the U.S. military.
While getting exact numbers is complicated because of differing practices in record-keeping, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF, a “community for atheists, humanists, and other nontheists in the military”), in a 2012 survey, found that “the modern military includes over 100 religious preferences both among the general population and the chaplaincy, with the majority being Christian.” This is in contrast to earlier eras, where “at the outset of the chaplaincy in the 18th century and even [up to] part of the 20th century, it is fair to say military…chaplains were almost uniformly Protestant.”
Seeing a hundred different preferences recorded may make it look like there’s thriving diversity, but in reality, the current lack of balance in religious demographics can threaten the interfaith nature of the chaplaincy.
This is a concern from the MAAF’s perspective, as some chaplains may put their evangelization or conversion duties above their military ones, thus subverting the spirit and responsibilities of the chaplain’s office. That’s why they also endorse Humanist candidates, and have cheered the (so far unsuccessful) attempts to address the need for non-religious chaplains in the military, a mission shared by the Secular Coalition for America.
Regardless of affiliation, military chaplain numbers are plummeting, to the extent that some religions even encourage joining the military. According to this WUNC American Homefront Project report, “The Catholic church now provides incentives for priests to join the military, such as paying for half their religious education,” adding that the Pentagon may decide to provide additional incentives of its own for chaplains of all faiths.”
“But the job carries unique responsibilities that don’t appeal to some faith leaders. Chaplains train with soldiers. They don’t carry weapons, but they do deploy to war zones.”
While there’s a chaplain shortage in general, the most startling numbers are those of Muslim chaplains.
There are approximately 3,000 chaplains currently serving in the military, but out of those, not even 20 are Muslim, for an estimated 6,000 Muslim American soldiers, or 0.3%. (Interestingly, there’s an even more striking shortage of Muslim chaplains in the U.S. prison system, according to an NPR report, with 13 chaplains representing 11,073 Muslims serving time.)
“We go wherever the troops are to provide religious support, to be a moral and ethical compass during dilemmas, and to serve as reminders of the sacred.”
While Muslim chaplain numbers are scant, on the surface it appears numbers for Jewish chaplains aren’t any stronger. As of a few years ago, Ruderman was one of 11 active-duty Jewish chaplains of about 1,455 chaplains of all faiths in the Army, about 0.7%, but U.S. Dept. of Defense data shows that number is more in line with the number of active personnel who declare themselves Jewish.
One way to incentivize more chaplains to join the military ranks is making religious accommodations, including cases of those who wish to change their appearance in accordance with their religion (one member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, also known as “Pastafarianism,” applied for a beard exemption as part of his strict devotion but was ultimately denied by the Army.)
It can also be complicated by those who, while religious, challenge the oldest traditions of their own faiths. Such is the case of Shareda Hosein and Saleha Jabeen, both featured in Three Chaplains, who each, during different times and with different outcomes, fought to become female Muslim chaplains, despite women being forbidden from leading prayer in Islam.
A home for the religiously unaffiliated
Perhaps surprisingly, when polling military members, recent numbers suggest “No Religious Preference” constitutes the largest single affiliation, at nearly 23%. While it includes those who identify as part of mainstream religions but nonpracticing, and those who self-define as “spiritual but not religious,” it also includes atheists. In fact, the Pew Research Center notes that “about three-in-ten U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated.”
MAAF affirms that while there is a clear upward trend for those who would rather not be directly associated with organized religion, the stigma makes many avoid openly identifying as atheists.
But ultimately, whatever a service member’s affiliation or belief, they share similar needs for support and comfort, and at the end of the day, during times of crisis, military personnel deserve all the support they can get, not only from chaplains, but also from mental health professionals.
As American Homefront Project’s Sarah Harris wrote, chaplains are “expected to minister to the needs of all service members, not just the ones who worship in the chaplain’s denomination.”
Finally, Chaplain Lantigua told me that he would like the public to understand that chaplains are “the primary advocates for religious accommodations for men and women in uniform, particularly as it pertains to grooming and attire, dietary restrictions, medical procedures and immunizations.” He adds that though military chaplains are noncombatants, “we go wherever the troops are to provide religious support, to be a moral and ethical compass during dilemmas, and to serve as reminders of the sacred.”
Hear More:
NPR Morning Edition on Three Chaplains:
Ivonne Spinoza is a South American trilingual Latina writer and illustrator. She writes both for TV and about it, and her work aims to contribute to better representation while advancing equality. She writes mostly genre fiction and cultural analysis, but quite often will branch out wherever curiosity takes her. Find her everywhere online as @IvonneSpinoza.