IL State Police Revoke 1st Muslim Chaplain

This story actually hits very close to home for me, since I live in central Illinois and know quite a few state troopers.

Here's a snippet from Faith in Public Life:

"The Illinois State Police has revoked the appointment of the agency's first Muslim chaplain, citing only information revealed during a background check. A national Muslim advocacy group Wednesday blamed the move on Islamophobia.

Kifah Mustapha, a Chicago-area imam, was appointed the agency's first Muslim chaplain in December. Community groups had praised Mustapha's appointment as a nod to the growing diversity among the agency's nearly 2,000 officers." (FPL, 6/24/10)

I'm certainly glad to see that the IL State Police are interested and seeking a greater diversity in their chaplaincy positions, since, no doubt, the religious diversity of state troopers and IL citizens is ever-increasing. However, I'm a bit disturbed that there are groups like the Washington-based think-tank, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, that seem to be dead-set on suppressing this burgeoning plurality and diversity, couching it in the guise of "terrorist threat."

Now, the details of Mustapha's background haven't been discussed because they're considered confidential by the IL State Police Department. Nonetheless, a thorough background check should be administered, but this shouldn't deter the Department from seeking other imams to serve if Mustapha's turns out to be detrimental. We need to encourage our police departments, fire squads, educational facilities, community centers, and other public services to celebrate and affirm religious diversity and see the positivity in it.

Read more of the story by the Associated Press's Sophia Tareen.

Independent Documentary on Military Chaplains

In recent years there has been an ongoing debate depicted in many media outlets about religion in the military. The question has become: Are U.S. laws preventing soldiers from praying according to their own religious convictions? Or are military officials abusing their power and authority and violating the Constitution by trying to convert soldiers?

This debate indelibly involves millitary chaplains who are providing spiritual service and pastoral care to other soldiers. The question for chaplains is basically are laws preventing them from praying with soldiers according to their own faith tradition, or are chaplains misusing their authority by proselytizing and subverting the Constitution?

These issues and more are addressed in the new independent documentary called "Chaplains Under Fire," which gets behind the media headlines right to the quick of what military chaplains do and the intense church-state/religion-government tensions they actually face on a day-to-day basis.

Check out a review and get more info about the documentary here.

Read more at RNS.

Military Chaplain Influenced By Unity Teachings

Lysa Allman-Baldwin on Unity.org has recently published a blurb about an Army Chaplain by the name of Michael Beach who, as a Baptist minister, discovered Unity teachings online and became an advocate of Unity principles. He reports that, as a military chaplain, he's called to uphold religious freedom and support those who are in need of spiritual and emotional help. He says that, after reading about Unity and listening regularly to Unity.FM, he's even more able to stay spiritually centered and actually perform his chaplaincy duties even better.

Check out Baldwin's profile of Chaplain Beach at Unity.org.

Chaplains at the 2010 Winter Olympics

The Salt Lake Tribune has published an article that speaks of the presence of chaplains serving at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The article chronicles the work and feelings of the chaplains for the '10 Games who represent five major religious traditions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

Many people, religious or otherwise, don't realize that there actually are chaplains for the Olympics and wouldn't think of such a need. However, in the wake of the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, it's quite apparent that chaplaincy at the Games is quite important. The head of the interfaith team of Olympic chaplains, Rev. David Wells, relates what happened after the accident when he had to confirm that Nodar was Eastern Orthodox and then arrange for an Orthodox priest who was accompanying the Russian luge team to compassionately fill in as the spiritual support.

All of this simply goes to show how important the spiritual and emotional support of chaplains is for many arenas of life, even the Olympics. Just being a listening, receptive presence can be the most encouraging, nourishing, and supportive activity that chaplains do. And the response of the Olympic chaplaincy team at Vancouver simply confirms the significance of the work of chaplains.

Read the entire story at Faith in Public Life.

Harvey Cox and Thomas Dyer on Interfaith Voices

This week's program of Interfaith Voices ("a public radio show promoting religious harmony and interfaith understanding") includes a feature of Harvard theologian, Harvey Cox, and Buddhist military chaplain, Thomas Dyer.

Harvey Cox, Hollis professor of Divinity at Harvard University, looks inside the idea of ‘spritual but not religious’, and discovers that modern believers are abandoning creeds and doctrine for practices that emphasize a direct experience with the divine in his new book The Future of Faith. He speaks of this current development as Christianity, and religion in general, entering the "age of the Spirit." This is an idea that would resonate significantly with Unity ministers, students, and churchgoers of all stripes. One of the central tenets within Unity circles is that creeds, dogmatic statements, and static belief are not the cornerstones of authentic faith. Rather, it is first-hand experience of the Divine or Sacred or Spirit that promotes faith and engenders spiritual growth.

And Thomas Dyer is the first Buddhist military chaplain. A former Southern Baptist minister, Dyer is now a practicing Buddhist that has entered the military as as spiritual guide and counselor for Buddhist and non-Buddhist soldiers alike. With the increasing number of Americans becoming interested in Buddhism it is completely understandable how eventually a representative of the growing American Buddhist traditions would be included in military chaplaincy. Interfaith Voices conducts an intriguing interview with chaplain Dyer.

Check out these features and more at Interfaith Voices.

Harvard's "Humanist" Chaplain on State of Belief

As a follow-up to my last post concerning Greg Epstein, Harvard University chaplain, and the notion of "humanistic" or "atheistic" chaplaincy as a viable mode of spiritual service, I'd like to bring to attention Epstein's presence as guest on this past weekend's program of State of Belief.

State of Belief is a radio program hosted by Rev. Welton Gaddy and sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance, an NGO dedicated to the upholding and maintaining of 1st Amendment religious rights and concerns.

Check out last week's program with Greg Epstein as guest here.

Humanist and Atheist Chaplaincy

"The nonreligious population is exploding, and somebody has to minister to them. Harvard’s humanist chaplain is on the road, sharing a vision of the common good, hoping his message will resonate with theists and atheists alike." (Religion Dispatches, Oct. 30, 2009)

With millions of people identifying as "non-religious" or "non-theist" in the U.S. there is a growing and often unrecognized need for spiritual or emotional counseling of those that fall into this group. Greg Epstein is one who has stepped up. He is a "humanist chaplain" at Harvard University who has recently published a book called Good Without God: What a Billion Non-religious People Do Believe (William Morrow, 2009) which discusses the reality of an atheistic spirituality.

I've been curious about this relatively new distinction people oftentimes make between 'religion' and 'spirituality.' When I ask people about the difference between the meaning of the two terms they usually retort that religion has something to do with institutions, social gathering, doctrine, dogma, etc. whereas spirituality has more to do with a personal, individual pursuit of meaning and truth. Thus, on this distinction, the notion of an atheistic spirituality would make sense, I suppose. Atheists can consider themselves spiritual but not religious; they have a personal quest for meaning and truth but not one that involves a particular institutional affiliation, doctrine, or belief about God, deity, divinity, or the like.

Since atheists do often consider themselves spiritual persons, then it is crucial that the spiritual service of chaplaincy address their particular needs as well. Thus, we must have chaplains that are trained and prepared to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of atheistic worldviews and lives, chaplains that can make that modern/post-modern distincition between religion and spirituality when working with atheist persons.

I like the idea of the work that Greg Epstein is doing. This kind of activity needs more public attention. This is an area of chaplaincy that is not much talked about but is crucial for servicing the spiritual needs of a now significant population of the U.S. and the world.

Read a review article of Epstein's new book at Religion Dispatches.

(Above image from Religion Dispatches.)

Buddhist chaplain is Army first

Thomas Dyer is the Army National Guard's first Buddhist-affiliated chaplain to be deployed. Though Dyer used to be a Baptist pastor, he has since been involved in Buddhism and Buddhist meditation techniques, which he feels will be useful during the trying months ahead when he will be deployed in December for Afghanistan.

Bob Smietana of the Nashville Tennessean has the full story at Faith in Public Life.

Chaplains work to prevent Army suicides

As of the end of June there have been 88 reported active duty suicides this year in the Army. And there have been similar numbers in the recent past, though the numbers keep getting higher. In response to this situation, the U.S. Army has heightened suicide prevention efforts by establishing a task-force, improving policies, protocol, and resources, and recruiting more psychological and spiritual counselors.

Thus, military chaplains have been seeing an increasing amount of soldiers coming to them for some kind of assistance. In times such as these, what with the U.S. military engaged in warfare and spread out so thin, there is bound to be repercussions on the well-being of the soldiers. And this is precisely what military chaplains are for -- attending to the needs of the soldiers as human individuals.

Read the story by Vicki Brown of the United Methodist Reporter at Faith in Public Life.

National Guard Units Strained By Chaplain Shortage

Some military units, especially the Army National Guard, are struggling to recruit for chaplains, which is a position seen as crucial to morale. Currently, there are about 200 positions are open in the Army National Guard and 45 in the Air National Guard.

Chaplains have a unique role to play in the military. They serve as more than ministers for soldiers in harm's way. They are confidants, counselors, and arbitrators. In many places, like Iraq and Afghanistan, unit commanders have used military chaplains to communicate with local secular and religious leaders. Many chaplains serve intimately with soldiers, oftentimes even within arm's reach of them in war zones.

The point here is that chaplains are integral to the lives of many soldiers, which makes the shortage in the Guard a cause for concern. Hopefully, more religious leaders and/or chaplains from other sectors of society will consider serving for the Army and Air Guard and help sustain our soldiers during their endeavors in serving the U.S.A. I especially urge Unity ministers who feel so called to do what they can to promote military chaplaincy in Unity circles.

Nomaan Merchant of the Associated Press has the story at Faith in Public Life.

Proselytizing Military Chaplains, Newsweek

My friend and colleague, Danny Fisher, has called my attention to a recent article in Newsweek about the controversy of evangelizing Christian military chaplains.

The nearly 3,000 chaplains in the U.S. military are sworn to treat every soldier with respect and dignity regardless of their religious affiliation, according to a pluralistic socio-cultural model. The problem that has arisen is that, since two thirds of military chaplains are associated with evangelical and/or pentecostal views that tend to prioritize conversion methods, there has been a growing trend of proselytization in the military -- many Christians are attempting to convert people of non-Christian (or even differing Christian) affiliations.

This is totally antithetical to the values and protocol of chaplaincy in the U.S. military and efforts need to be made to halt such trends. Ideally, there needs to be more non-evangelical Christian military chaplains. That is, as more mainline Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh ministers take a place alongside evangelicals in military chaplaincy, the less free reign evangelicals will have to attempt to convert others since there will likely be less pressure as the number of other religious traditions grows. Regardless, those who are outrightly proselytizing need to be identified and reprimanded for their breech of conduct.

Read the full article here.

Naval Chaplaincy Confronts Piracy Fears

John Dart of the Christian Century has written an article about naval chaplaincy and the recent issues with governmental and commercial ships being taken over by pirates.

This piece highlights the point of view of many of the U.S. Navy chaplains concerning the piracy problem and the kinds of crises they deal with regarding this kind of predicament. Chaplains must address the needs of many sailors who are directly affected by the turmoil brought on by piracy and other issues within the naval forces.

Read this revealing and thought-provoking article at the Christian Century.

UWest Chaplaincy Program Connections

University of the West's newly initiated Buddhist Chaplaincy Program is now on Twitter, Facebook, and has its own blogsite.

This program is currently coordinated by my friend and colleague, Danny Fisher, who writes about Buddhist chaplaincy on his blogsite and many other forums.

Chaplaincy is such an important vocation in supporting individuals in their personal well-being, so I'm so pleased that Buddhism, which is a growing influential religion in the U.S., is becoming increasingly present in chaplaincy contexts. I'm blessed to know leaders from other religious traditions who are actively using chaplaincy as a means to promote healthy living and spiritual growth.