Preaching behind closed doors

While Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and the Hillsong churches are making their impact in the community, the mainline churches and the ADF effectively ensure that none of their ministers will make chaplain. Such an arrangement is convenient for both parties.

Chaplaincy in the United States armed forces is currently in turmoil. Allegations of aggressive evangelism have seen Congress petitions, hunger strikes and the Air Force compelled to write and re-write their chaplaincy guidelines. Muslim chaplains are under threat. Keeping out the Imam and the evangelical pastor seems to be the answer in Australia.

Chaplains down through the ages have provided heroic pastoral care. One chaplain on the Western front in 1915 saw 1,300 casualties in one 24-hour period and buried another 900 bodies in the next 3 months. But there’s another side to their role as officer and priest.

Chaplains in Vietnam were aware of the massacre at My Lai, they knew of American troops tossing out Vietcong suspects from helicopters, and that female suspects were being literally raped to death, yet did nothing.

The chaplain at the Abu Ghraib torture centre was told to keep out of the way, and she did. The Muslim chaplain who protested the harassment, ill-treatment and torture in Guantanamo Bay was himself, arrested, held in solitary confinement and charged with treason.

A female Australian Navy officer, harassed and abused, “talked with a chaplain and was told she would get an apology if she took no further action”.

Over the past decade eight Australian government funded inquiries have “found glaring inadequacies in the way the ADF administers internal discipline, treats the injured, coordinates their transition to civilian life and compensates them for the scars inflicted” (Bulletin August 23, 2005).

It seems no chaplain advised their church of such injustice and denial of rights. No reports were made to church authorities. And the church made little effort to find out what was happening. Chaplains airbrush the reality and brutality of war.