Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Co. · New York · December 1, 1898

Opposing Principles in the Office of Army Chaplain.

THE action of members of the Seventy-first New York Regiment taken in their armory recently, expressive of their opinion of the regimental chaplain, as mentioned in the SENTINEL of last week, has occasioned much discussion. The affair seems to be generally regarded as one of sufficient importance to call for investigation, to ascertain whether or not it was based on justifying grounds. Among many utterances that have been published on the subject, the following editorial from the New York Sun is worthy of note, because it points out the real root of the difficulty as arising from the nature of the office itself—from the difficulty of trying to harmonize the duties of two positions so opposite in nature as are those of military official and Christian servant. The Sun says:—

“It must be remembered, however, that the place of the chaplain in the military system is peculiarly difficult. In the community of the parish all must be equal in the eye of the pastor, except in moral and spiritual excellence. In the military system the line of division between the enlisted man and the commissioned officer is broad and impassable. The chaplain is a commissioned officer; he ranks with a captain, and the army regulations prescribe that ‘an appropriate set of quarters, equal to those of a captain, be set apart permanently for the chaplain’ at a military post, and ‘he shall not be displaced, except by a reduction when the quarters are insufficient for the garrison, and he will not then be entirely displaced nor allowed to choose others.’ Chaplains are ‘not required to turn out with troops on occasions of ceremony, but will be inspected at post chapels, schoolrooms, or libraries, as may be designated by post commanders.’”

“The chaplain, consequently, being a commissioned officer, messes with the officers, and is separated from the enlisted men by the broad gulf of distinction to which we have referred. He lives in a different atmosphere, and militia troops like those of the Seventy-first may resent the separation, made compulsory by the regulations, and attribute to the chaplain motives and indulgences because of it, with which he is not chargeable justly. He goes to them both as a commissioned officer and a spiritual guide, counsellor, and consoler. The functions are distinct radically. He must preserve the dignity and prerogatives of his military rank, yet he must minister to them as a servant of the Lord, as the servant of servants.”

“The chaplain’s duties too, are largely undefinable except by his own sense of obligation, and they impose on him in their exercise a delicacy of conduct which may render him peculiarly liable to misunderstanding and unjust criticism. He cannot throw down the barriers set up by his commission, yet as a minister of the Lord he must bear to the men an affectionate and confidential relation. It is a very trying place. Abstract Christianity and concrete war run counter to each other; and this opposition goes far to explain the accusations against Chaplain Vandewater as they are made by our correspondents. They seem to have expected impossibilities of him and to have misconceived conduct made compulsory on him because of his position as a commissioned officer.”

The simple truth is, as this statement of the facts makes clear, that the chaplain can be a success from a spiritual standpoint only by making himself a failure as a government official. No man can carry out principles which “run counter to each other” at one and the same time. And as he is bound to carry out the principles of Christianity, it is plain enough that he should refuse to be bound by the opposing principles of “concrete war,” made “compulsory on him because of his position as a commissioned officer;” and that any effort to make such conduct compulsory on him is both unjust and foolish. It is plain, in short, that the office of army chaplain is a logical absurdity and a practical failure, and ought to be abolished.

This is the lesson which ought to be learned from such events by the American people.