Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America

by Ronit Y. Stahl

Overview

A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, and evangelicals among its ranks. Enlisting Faith traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century.

Moving from the battlefields of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam and between the forests of Civilian Conservation Corps camps and meetings in government offices, Ronit Y. Stahl reveals how the military borrowed from and battled religion. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition as American faiths. At times the state used religion to advance imperial goals. But religious citizens pushed back, challenging the state to uphold constitutional promises and moral standards.

Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, the federal government authorized and managed religion in the military. The chaplaincy demonstrates how state leaders scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexities. While officials debated which clergy could serve, what insignia they would wear, and what religions appeared on dog tags, chaplains led worship for a range of faiths, navigated questions of conscience, struggled with discrimination, and confronted untimely death. Enlisting Faith is a vivid portrayal of religious encounters, state regulation, and the trials of faith—in God and country—experienced by the millions of Americans who fought in and with the armed forces.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674972155
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/06/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Ronit Y. Stahl is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

A Note on Terminology ix

Prologue The Mixed-Up Dog Tags of Private Leonard Shapiro 1

1 Mobilizing Faith 15

2 "Christ Is the Melting Pot for All Our Differences" 44

3 The Boundaries of Religious Citizenship 74

4 Chaplain Jim Wants You! 106

5 The Military-Spiritual Complex 134

6 "Maybe God Is an American" 165

7 Moral Objection and Religious Obligation 196

8 Fighting with Faith 226

Epilogue Between God and the American State 258

Abbreviations 269

Archival Sources 271

Notes 277

Acknowledgments 333

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

Cutting across a century of perpetual war, shifting its analytic gaze from bureaucratic functions of the state to the people of faith who served, from mainline denominations to religious movements on the rise, Ronit Stahl’s study of the military chaplaincy brilliantly recasts our understanding of church–state relations in the modern era. Stahl vividly shows how the military chaplaincy has offered the means for Washington to encourage proper religious expression in a pluralist society, and for faith communities to earn political legitimacy in the eyes of their peers. An essential book for students of American religion, politics, and history.

Darren Dochuk

Given the perennial argument over whether the United States military should or should not be a social laboratory, Stahl’s book invites fresh consideration of the connections between military and society…Ronit Stahl’s book is a thoughtful and well-researched account of a singular religious institution, the military chaplaincy, that has weathered a century of profound social change…In an age when some want to preserve the military ethos from social changes, Ronit Stahl reminds us that concerns for authentic individual expression, in the form of religious belief, have been in play since the United States began mobilizing its citizen soldiers in the modern era and even earlier. Perhaps the greatest value of this book is that it shows us how the U.S. military has been a social laboratory for many decades, thanks in large part to its seemingly innocuous and oft overlooked chaplains.

The Strategy Bridge - Michael Peterson

Enlisting Faith contributes a marvelous exploration of how the American government attempted to manipulate religious institutions into supporting its political missions…Stahl deftly reveals what kind of religiosity the American state encourages and discourages in its citizens, and to what lengths the state will go to realize its vision of acceptable American spirituality.

Reading Religion - Alan J. Clark

Well worth the time of any scholar or casual reader interested in the military chaplaincy and the evolution of American religion.

Patrick G. Stefan

[An] outstanding, definitive book… Expertly, with deep research and great stories, historian Stahl charts the course of the military chaplaincy from WWI (when the current chaplain system effectively was institutionalized) to the present… A supremely important, well-executed work of scholarship, sure to have wide influence.

Choice - P. Harvey

Enlisting Faith vividly explores American military commanders’ century-long war to force their soldiers’ multifarious religious faiths inside the myth of a pristine Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation. Startling, incisive, and gorgeously written, Stahl’s book shows how the military’s reluctance to accept cultural and religious complexity demeaned soldiers and compromised chaplains as they grappled with death, maiming injuries, and the terrors of war.

Jon Butler

Enlisting Faith deserves to be read by anyone interested in an underexplored aspect of the intersection of religion and the state or, even more, in the stories of those who honorably served them both.

Wall Street Journal - Marc M. Arkin

Offers many significant ways in which the military and faith influenced each other through compromise and creative thought. Discussions of the atomic bomb, Eisenhower’s support of the chaplaincy program, and the Vietnam War are all particularly interesting and informative.

Anglican and Episcopal History - Nancy Saultz Radloff

Enlisting Faith tells a compelling story, showing how the military chaplaincy has entailed deep mutual engagement between government and the great diversity of American religious life. Stahl’s excellent work is a must-read for anyone interested in religious freedom, separation (or not) of church and state, war, politics, and the many challenges of pluralism.

Sarah Barringer Gordon

The federal government used the military chaplaincy to unify diverse Americans, promote ‘ethical’ personal behavior, and marshal faith on behalf of domestic and foreign policy goals. In Stahl’s illuminating book, we listen as chaplains, GIs, and their families wrestle with issues posed by race riots, rape, pacifism, feminism, proselytizing, interfaith marriage, and untimely death. She adds enormously to our understanding of the evolving relationship between religion and the American state across much of the twentieth century.

Wendy L. Wall