Taking Religion Seriously in the U.S. Military: The Chaplaincy as a National Strategic Asset

The U.S. military makes chaplaincies an integral part of its effort to maintain global, "full-spectrum dominance." The purpose of this article is to analyze the military's design and use of its chaplaincies. I take a textual rather than ethnographic approach. I examine not the subjective views of individual chaplains, but the military's institutional literature and public statements by its chaplains. I argue that the military constructs mission-specific meanings for religion by combining, arranging, and re-framing choices made elsewhere, by other branches of government and various civilian religious communities. The Pentagon optimizes religious diversity for military priorities, puts into uniform and sociologically re-certifies religious leaders, re-conceives pastoral tasks as mission-helps, subsumes religious practices to martial discourse, and calibrates moral sensibilities. Through these publicly authorized acts, the U.S. military wields religion as a multiplier of military force, for the security of the world. © The Author 2014.