State troopers resign over ban on praying in Jesus’ name

Good for them! Sometimes sticking to your beliefs is hard and I wish them the best of luck.

understand that people in certain professions need comfort at times, but shouldn’t that be with their regular pastor? It’s not like these folks were stationed overseas.

I’m not sure I get why we have publicly funded chaplains.

They need to sue. This is important. It is a violation of their unalienable rights, and of the very nature of chaplains.

As to syncretism being the national religion, I don’t think so. I think it is philosophical materialism, as established by the Courts.

America has had paid chaplains since the beginning, right on through the War for Independence and the framing of the Constitution. There is no legitimate basis for banning them or denying them their denominational particulars.

This was founded as a Christian country, with the several States having their religious establishments, uninterfered with by the federal government.

EconJeff @ 2: Do you mean why do we have them at all, or why do we have them stateside? I can certainly understand why we have military chaplains, particularly for military personnel stationed overseas or in remote posts. I’m not sure why we need domestic chaplains in police and fire departments. There, it seems as if a person’s own clergy, or a rotation of community clergy, could suffice.

However, when we do have them, there is no constitutional reason I can see for forbidding them from praying or otherwise leading worship according to the particulars of their faith practices and beliefs. The only issue would be whether there was discrimination as to which denominations/faiths were eligible for the positions.

Econ Jeff @2 raises a compelling point. Why should we have publicly funded chaplains? Especially domestically, where one can easily receive spiritual counsel off the job from his or her pastor? I and my co-workers have no chaplains where we work.
I think decisions like this ought to force us to think.

Anon @ 5,

“This was founded as a Christian country, with the several States having their religious establishments, uninterfered with by the federal government.”

The language in the constitution is too vague to say this is the case. The most you can say is the nation was founded on the idea of religious freedom. Just because most people who worked on the constitution and signed it were Christians – or, at least, nominally so – doesn’t mean they intended the nation to be a Christian one. I think the idea of “unity in diversity” applies here, though it was not a phrase used at the time.

Anon, if it was, which is wasn’t, it now isn’t.
You shouldda left that horse in the barn. It’s very lame.
Religious, yes–in temper, not in law–but not Christian.

Susan (@4), according to that article (leaving alone for the moment the question of whether CBN is a good news source), Christian prayers weren’t prohibited in public, either: “the state police superintendent, asked chaplains to offer only non-denominational prayers for public events and ceremonies,” yes, but “One trooper was left with the impression that mentioning the name of Jesus was not allowed – a claim police spokeswoman Corinne Geller denies” (emphasis mine).

At this point, we need more details on the definition of “non-denominational”, which is, as always, an almost meaningless term. It’s not clear what would or would not be allowed under this new rule.

FW (@10), you said what I was going to say. Well, mostly. The reason WELS supports their own chaplains is because of their understanding of the doctrine of fellowship from the Bible. But I don’t believe a WELS pastor would be very likely to participate in this or any similar domestic chaplain program.

The world is such a mixed-up place: Canada is generally perceived as liberal, but in my kids public, non-Catholic school the start every morning by reciting The Lords’ Prayer. Ok – SK isn’t exactly Vancouver/Toronto, but all the same. Now in other things, Canada is much more “liberal” than the US. But certainly not consistently.

EconJeff, that troops need chaplains, especially in times of war.

Michael, the Constitution is not the only document from the colonization and founding of this independent Republic. You would do well to start with the Mayflower Compact, the constitutions of the several colonies, the writings of the founders and framers, the practices of General Washington in the field and as President, the actions and words of even Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Much of what is in school textbooks these days frankly consists of a tissue of lies, but if you read the primary source documents, you will get a clearer picture.

Susan, sounds like you could do some reading as well. But I think you like to read, anyway

Sorry for a late post (weekend and all):

War is somewhat different; those men and women are not near any regular support structure and making a pastor available makes sense. It doesn’t follow, however, that the state should be providing that service. A better set up, to me, would be for churches to provide a minister, pay him (or her) on their own, and the military just given him (or her) the opportunity to preach, comfort, do what they do. What types of services are offered is also questionable. Should that service include a ship-wide prayer? Probably not, in my view, since I’m not about the syncretism. They can say private prayers or prayers with groups of people of the same faith.

There is no reason why the chaplain of faith A should be expected to comfort a person of faith B using either faith B’s structure or a generic formula. That cannot be expect of the person of faith A and it is probably not very comforting to the person of faith B.