2 - Religion and American Military Culture

Summary

Introduction

As we have seen, a greatly enhanced form of military chaplaincy formed the centrepiece of religious provision for American service men and women in World War II. However, and although it seems hard to dispute Doris L. Bergen's assertion that ‘World War II marked the high point of the status of military chaplains in the United States’, it must be borne in mind that religious support went much further than formal military chaplaincy. This chapter will show that the American armed forces were, like American society in general, culturally and historically predisposed to support religion, and that this orientation had never been as emphatic as in the years of World War II. It will also demonstrate how chaplaincy was resourced and reinforced by unprecedented levels of material assistance, likewise provided by government, and how the sympathetic orientation of the armed forces also gave full rein to a massive and complementary civilian effort in support of their spiritual wellbeing. Overall, it will show how the underlying religiosity of America's armed forces, although sometimes well hidden, acted as the dominant factor in accounting for positive religious change among American veterans, a change that will be explored more fully in Chapter Four.

Religion and regulations

Religious life in America's armed forces was ultimately regulated by the Constitution and by the Bill of Rights. Article Six of the Constitution states that ‘no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States’; furthermore, and according to the First Amendment, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Nonetheless, and in common with many other areas of American public life, religious values suffused American military culture. In their respective oaths of enlistment and oaths of office, enlisted and commissioned personnel routinely invoked the help of the Almighty. Furthermore, the free exercise clause of the First Amendment sanctioned military chaplaincy, and its many corollaries, while the historic Articles of War and Articles for the Government of the United States Navy (which remained in force until 1950) were derived from British models that predated the American Revolution and that were informed by a profound sense of religious obligation and Christian morality. However, given the unambiguous terms of Article Six of the Constitution, the army and navy treated issues of religious affiliation with circumspection.