There’s an interesting thread on WW2 German military chaplains here.
The information there says that German SS units didn’t have chaplains at all, so it seems unlikely that there were any pagan chaplains (since if anybody was going to have them, those would have been the units).
That’s not drummed out. It’s no longer qualified to be in the program.
Its not that simple, theres a policy on changing religious endorsements stated here is that the “The losing endorser will continue to offer pastoral support to the chaplain during this period of transition and will assist the chaplain to the extent possible in identifying a religious body whose theology and polity is in consonance with the chaplain’s current faith and practice.”
http://www.ncmaf.org/policies/Policy3_DenoCng.htm
and from here:
upon hearing of his conversion, his prior endorser, the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches, immediately revoked its endorsement.
The Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches was supposed to stay his endorser until he finds a qualified endorser that the army is happy with and it looks like that didn’t happen.
another summary here:
Ha, Temple of Set, That sounds like the interview I saw. I haven’t checked the link nor googled yet, but I remember a slightly pudgy guy with glasses as the priest dude.
And my personal take on religion [keeping in mind I was raised northern First Baptist] is that anything people believe is fair, and they have the right to practice it as long as it is not forced on anybody else - even the ‘darker’ ones like Church of Satan and suchlike. I also believe that a number of religions are false or incorrectly deriven but I do not have the right to make them stop believing in whatever they are practicing. I believe that there are many ways to ‘god’ and ‘heaven’ and just because their pathway isn’t mine does not mean that they are invalid. [though some do give me giggle and the occasional WTF moment when I read about them.]
OK. I admit that the heavily fundie christians like Westboro, and the muslims who are on the terrorism end of the stick do bother me because of the hate involved. The violence can just go the heck away. People should not be hurting others.
We need to actively recruit!
I have several friends who self-identify as Pagan. I have never seen such a mish-mosh of internally inconsistent touchy-feely pseudomysticism, fairy-fart feminism and tree hugging as they (collectively) represent. And I say this with all respect.
As there is no central authority to Paganism, and that is treated as a feature and not a bug, I doubt we will see Pagan chaplains anytime soon. Does one actually need specialized trainign or certification to officiate at most pagan ceremonies? (Being a recovering Catholic, I understand heirarchal ecclisastic authority, and I believe that is the model the US armed forces are designed to recognize.)
I always wanted to roll up a fighter/druid.
Depends on the group and the ceremony, but largely no. One must have a sense of enduring optimism and ability to herd cats along with an open pocketbook, generally (pagans are the stingiest lot I’ve ever met with actual cash; despite our cries for Community you can’t get 'em to throw in $2 to cover the cost of candles), but if you think you’re up for it, training wise, you’re welcome to give it a shot.
Many formal groups have some “closed” ceremonies which are only open to initiates with some level of prior training, and led by members with more training, but such training is particular to each group.
My general feeling is that we are as likely to see “pagan” chaplains as we are to see “patriarchal monotheist” chaplains. The label is just too broad to be very useful.
On would think that Satanists would make exceptionally good soldiers. Sort of Marines on steroids.
According to what you posted, it is that simple.
That’s pretty simple.
Now, I think it’s pretty cool that there’s that seminary. Aside: I’d be interested in taking some of their courses myself. Anyway, that seems to be a step on the way for Pagans, as a group, to get some kind of endorsement going and then getting military chaplains.
Do you honestly think the same result would have happened if Don Larsen tried to change to some obscure Christian group that didn’t get have endorsement signed off?
WTF are you talking about? There is a simple procedure. The man did not qualify any longer. And, yes, if it had been some obscure, or even some non-obscure, Christian group that did not provide the required endorsement which complies with law and regulation, yes, the result would have been the same.
By “someone like that” you mean a Lt Col with different religious beliefs than yours? (That seems to be the extent of your knowledge about him.)
Ah well, maybe you’ll get lucky and someone will actually do the research and turn up something negative about him to support the opinion you’ve already formed.
Interesting thread, certainly. Some comments:
The information here about Army chaplain qualifications is incomplete, because the Corps of Chaplains has active-duty spaces available based on the number/percentage of soldiers of that religious preference. The overwhelming quotas are of course Christian Protestant & Catholic, along with Jewish.
It is for this same reason that taxpayer money is spent on Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish facilities on military bases. Atheistic groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation have long argued that this violates the Constitutional “no establishment of religion” principle, but are small enough to be politically ignored.
While political pressure and demographics have expanded the COC to include Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, anything “pagan”, “New Age”, etc. remains out in the cold. The two exclusionary mechanisms are “qualified/recognized religious organization endorsement” and a graduate degree from a similarly-recognized divinity school. While a pagan might manage the second, the first would be a game-ender. See the mechanism here; scroll down to ¶2.11.
The earlier-in-thread-mentioned Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups booklet, first issued in 1978 and revised 1990, stopped short of being official Army policy. It was a reference document for the COC only, provided under contract by Dr. J. Gordon Melton’s very commendable Institute for the Study of American Religion (ISAR), then at U.C. Santa Barbara. It was later discontinued by the Army COC and is of historical interest only today.
The governing religious tolerance policy in the Armed Forces today boils down to DOD Directive 1300-17.
In effect this means that if you have a religion other than the officially government-paid/sponsored ones, you can find your own facilities for it and do it on your own free time. The expectation is off-post, or at least not conspicuous on-post.
There is also the interesting COC statement that its chaplains are expected to minister to the needs of soldiers of all faiths. This gets a little problematic the farther away from conventional Judæo-Christianity you get. Indeed there’s a bit of friction within the J-C mainstream on this issue.
From the other side of the fence, there’s the problem of just how a Wiccan, shamanic, Satanist, Setian, etc. priest/ess could “minister” to, say, a Catholic or fundamentalist Protestant soldier. This all starts to get a bit Monty Python.
If you read the various official COC statements, they’re very noble and good-hearted indeed. But what it all comes down to is that the COC has three actual missions:
(1) Prevent soldiers’ religious principles from getting in the way of the mission. For instance, if someone believes in one of the Ten Commandments that says “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, you have to assure him that it’s OK with God to ignore it if ordered by the government to kill. If a Christian brings up the Golden Rule, you have to get that out of the way too, etc.
(2) Remove or minimize soldiers’ fear of death and afterlife punishment for complying with mission #1 above. Personal combat involves high risk of one’s own life. Strong religious indoctrination is a key psychological device to get soldiers to take this risk; if you’re convinced that God is on your side, is watching over you, and won’t send you to Hell for violating the 10Cs or the GR, you’ll be that much more inclined to take the risk.
(3) Prevent soldiers’ families and loved ones from becoming a problem to accomplishment of the mission [by influencing the soldier not to do it]. This is done by religious programs for families which echo the same messages as #1 & #2 above, and which provide as much consolation as necessary to them to keep them appeased in the event of the soldier’s death.
Spelling out #1/#2/#3 this bluntly may sound cold and Machiavellian, but actually there is nothing here that you can’t conclude for yourself if you reflect on it. The armed forces are “mission”-institutions, and the “mission” determines, drives, and trumps everything else.
So another, and perhaps the most difficult problem that non-mainstream religious individuals and groups face is that they cannot accept this expectation of rationalization or outright hypocrisy in their beliefs or conduct. You may find it impossible to kill someone who has done nothing to harm you or otherwise deserve it. You may have your own ideas about your posthumous immortality or lack of same. And the System isn’t blind: It knows this, and it doesn’t want loose cannons that may jeopardize missions.
So trying to force “nontraditional chaplains” into existence would be just as much a disaster as encouraging “nontraditionalists” to become soldiers.
P.S. In answer to a previous question above, I myself was never an Army chaplain. During my Army career I was a member of the Church of Satan 1969-75 and of the Temple of Set 1975-2006 retirement. My personal coming-to-grips with #1 was the principal reason for my career-specializing in PSYOP, in which you fight battles and win wars without shooting or blowing up anyone. And I am quite secure in the knowledge of the immortality of most of my eight souls. 
Given the utter drivel you just posted, I’d have to say that’s quite obvious. You’re completely mistaken on what the military chaplain’s mission is. Had you checked the links provided by other posters, you’d’ve been able to make an informed post instead.
Well thankfully you’ll be off to a head start as far as moral qualifications go since LE and CE are right out.
Your anger is understandable, but my motivation was not to alarm or offend you.
There is a significant difference between what the military chaplaincy says it is here to do, and what it is actually expected to do; and the latter is obviously not politically permissible to openly acknowledge. Yet every chaplain who wants to keep his job understands it full well; I have discussed it with a great many of them over the years. They rationalize it in a variety of ways. In this they are not intentionally evil or deceptive; they are simply grappling with an unsolvable dilemma: the ethical primacy of their religious principles vs. the combat functionality of the military.
I was not an Army chaplain; I’ve been a PSYOP officer for 38 years. My professional specialty has to do with human perception, imagination, and motivation, both conscious and subconscious. The entire field of human religion is simply a subset of this, albeit a highly unstable and volatile one. This is easily evidenced by the religiously-motivated, otherwise quite senseless hatreds and conflicts throughout history and of course continuing today.
Religion is also a sacred cow within its host culture, the more so since it is taken for granted therein as “axiomatic of reality”. It deals with the greatest of human fears and uncertainties, such as the soul, death, and the existence and interest of supernatural entities in human affairs. All of this is nonrational: a function of tradition, belief, and faith in that belief. Hence it is beyond rational argument, or what in the architecture of thought is defined as liminal algorithmic thinking. This is what makes it at once so entrenched and so brittle.
So, for example, you will never hear a U.S. PSYOP officer describing the military chaplaincy as a PSYOP device. That would be a sentimental outrage. Also, of course, the Defense Department is prohibited from PSYOP targeting of Americans by the federal Smith-Mundt Act. So if you wish this door to remain securely and reassuringly closed and locked, you indeed have the full weight of American national and cultural history on your side. So be at peace and don’t worry about it any further.
I mentioned it here only because it has very much to do with why individual initiatory religions don’t mesh well with the COC institution. They are more antidogmatic concerning questions of personal morality and behavior towards others, and this tends towards empathy with and compassion for other living beings. It doesn’t take much to see the impasse here.
In my 2013 book MindWar I go into extensive detail concerning the construction and operation of human thought, which is far less discretionary than most people realize. 95% of your thoughts are a function of subliminal pattern-association, and it is entirely possible to adjust this process through SLIPC (subliminal involuntary PSYCON) mechanisms. That’s the simple part. The difficult but essential part is to do it ethically and constructively.
Michael A. Aquino
Lt. Colonel, PSYOP, USA-Ret
I think this thread is moving into Great Debates territory, so let’s send it over there.
Please note that the thread was started in June of 2012.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It seems to me that you have pretty much proven that you are wrong. Well, part of the way. Pagans are not necessarily church of Satan, and V/V, so, I’m not sure what you are attempting to disprove. Your searching has led you to see how the a pagan representation in the US Military is gaining ground, and you want info to show that they are not??
Although, doesn’t induction mean “drafting”? If that is the case, you can certainly disprove that.