A Seductive Confusion of Authority: Military Chaplains and the Wearing of Rank

Extract

“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

     – Mark 10:42-44

World War I marked a turning point in US Army chaplaincy.¹ During and after the war, steps were taken to further the “militarization” of chaplains, including the addition of supervisory senior chaplains across all command levels, the opening of a chaplain school, and the beginnings of a chaplain-led branch, the Chaplain Corps. Each of these developments carried with it far-reaching implications through the last one hundred years and into the future. One such development from that period is the wearing of grade insignia or rank. The question of whether to wear or not wear rank was highly contested among chaplains before, during, and after the Great War. In this paper, I want to trace this one thread (the wearing of rank) of a thickly entwined cable of chaplain “militarization.” I argue that the wearing of rank by chaplains represents a profound confusion of religious and military authority. Indeed, I contend that the use of military authority (rank) for the exercise of religious authority ultimately undercuts the credibility of the very religious authority the military authority was intended to help establish. To make this case, I first examine the history of the World War I–era debate among chaplains over the wearing of rank. I do this in the context of the contested nature of religious authority of clergy among the soldiers, particularly in light of the “Muscular Christianity” movement of the day. I argue that the wearing of rank is a symptom and a symbol of these larger debates about chaplain religious authority. Next, I turn to Hannah Arendt’s incisive analysis of the nature of authority and its decline in the West. I argue that the wearing of rank by chaplains is a symptom of this wider decline in authority and lends itself to uncritical service of American civil religion. Finally, I look to the Barmen Declaration as a clarifying window into a uniquely Christian theological understanding of authority.² I conclude that for the sake of chaplain fidelity to religious authority and the credible exercise thereof, it is time to remove chaplain rank and return chaplain branch insignia to its proper place of prominence.³