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Several people who are either still on active duty in the Army or recently discharged have asked me to comment on a book which is apparently being taken very seriously by some chaplains and commanders. According to what I have heard, there is some command influence to have chaplains use the book as a guide as they work through with their soldiers the combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book: "The Faith of the American Soldier" by Stephen Mansfield, who is also the author of "The Faith of George W. Bush."

My comments:

The book is a piece of blatant and undisguised right-wing religious propaganda. Though it uses Christian terminology throughout, it is rooted more in the various warrior codes found throughout history than on biblical faith.

The first chapter makes clear that the soldiers in Iraq are seeking the assurance that they are fighting a "righteous" war; they want to know that it is a "righteous cause," that "our enemies are the enemies of God." In the author’s view, the chaplains cannot endorse this view because our nation is officially nonreligious and we do not fight holy wars nor view our enemies in religious terms. The problem for the author is really the secular nature of the American political system. He tries to construct a warrior code that in his mind compensates for this deficiency. The real reason chaplains can’t endorse this view is not that American society is secular, it is simply that the idea is biblical, theological and historical nonsense.

The author wants to find a "faith based" warrior code rather one founded in secularism. He succeeds in this, but the faith is more Manichean than Christian. The specific religious base is classic American civil religion, which itself is rooted in English and other European versions of the post-Constantinian notion that "we" embody the good, while "they," the enemy, are the evil ones. Our enemies are thus God’s enemies and by engaging them in combat we are doing God’s work.

This is a very old idea: the various warrior codes have used it for centuries and it is deeply entrenched in the American psyche. Though it has been around a very long time and has been widely used, it has little to do with biblical Christianity. It has always been a dangerous aberration and a blot on Christian history. It is not only wrong, it is dangerous to the spiritual health of those who espouse it. Dangerous because it sets up the soldier to experience a tragic loss of faith later in life.

If one is convinced in youth that he or she was engaged in the war of good vs. evil, that it was all about defeating God’s enemies, the later realization that this fervent conviction was not really true results in terrible disillusionment. It may be effective to "pump up" soldiers with this kind of religious propaganda to keep them in combat, but those of us who have worked with veterans have seen the massive devastation of soul wrought by this insidious ideology. Later in life the veteran tries to integrate personal experience of what really happened in combat with the what he or she has learned of the basis on which the war was fought and then fit them together within a personal moral/religious perspective. In my work with veterans, I have found that something like a "warrior code" is so thin a foundation that the most likely outcome will be disillusionment, cynicism, even nihilism.

The author relates stories of prayer and Bible study from the combat zone. Stories of prayer and Bible study in the field could be told by chaplains and veterans of any war. I have my own stories from Vietnam where I served as a chaplain and I have heard others from Korea, World War II and Gulf War I. There is nothing unique or special about this. Chaplains have always been with the troops in combat, sharing danger and hardship with them, praying with them, leading them in worship, counseling and reflecting on Scripture. It is encouraging to know that this fine tradition continues in Iraq, but Mansfield’s implication that these must somehow be tied in with a warrior code religious base is simply false.

One thing the author gets right is his description of the "Millennial" generation. They are indeed delightfully postmodern and altruistic. They are actually the second postmodern generation, following in the footsteps of "Generation X" which immediately preceded them. These young soldiers and their chaplains are to commended on their faith, dedication and courage. What the author says about their religious faith could also be said by many university chaplains and parish pastors about the young people with whom they work. Young soldiers are drawn from the surrounding culture. As a former campus chaplain I can also attest to this.

War is very personal. One never forgets the experiences. War demands a reason and it also requires that those who fought eventually come to terms with what they did and what they saw. War demands that the truth be told by its architects, its soldiers and its victims. War is ultimately about death and destruction. The soldier’s objective is always to kill the enemy. Killing other humans takes an immense emotional and spiritual toll on those who do it. Combat brings about an irreversible spiritual/psychological/emotional/physiological change on the part of those who participate. There is no longer any doubt about this. Anyone who works with veterans or victims of war knows this to be a fact. Having worked with veterans of every American war since the Spanish-American war and with Australian and Russian veterans, I know this to be an ineluctable truth of war. The shift of religious and moral perspective that takes place transcends any clinical symptoms of PTSD. One can be relatively free of PTSD and still be in religious and moral pain because of the war. Again, a well documented fact.

The perfidy of this book is that it denies this fundamental truth about war. It assumes that ascribing to a "warrior code" is all the soldier needs to be delivered from the impact of war that I have described. This is totally and demonstrably false. The soldier can be carried along for awhile, while still in the military service and surrounded by others who are similarly "pumped up" with the same “gung ho” beliefs. But long and tragic experience shows that veterans who are released from military service undergo a change of perspective which most often leads them to evaluate in a new light what really happened in combat. If their chaplains, representatives of religion, have endorsed this warrior code faith, then a major part of the veterans' change of perspective is most likely to be a terrible cynicism about religion itself. The widespread loss of faith by veterans for this specific reason has been widely noted and well documented.

The type of "civil religion" this book espouses is uses Old Testament passages which refer in Scripture only to the historical "people of Israel" and applies these passages to the current nation state as if it were the historic people of God. The United States, like its British precursor, has a long history of seeing itself this way. This provides a religious veneer for our bellicosity and allows little room for questioning the rightness of our military operations. The New Testament is little used by this kind of religious writing because there is no biblical grounds for it. In fact, the early Church did not endorse combat: quite the contrary. The kind of civil religion is, from a Christian perspective, a form of idolatry because it elevates the state to the religious realm.

The only legitimate Christian justification for war has been the "just war tradition" which allows for war only as a reluctant last resort. The author of this book not only misrepresents this tradition, but he gets its fundamental points wrong. He confuses the ius ad bellum, which is the right of the nation to go to war, with the ius in bello, which is the conduct of the soldier in war. He inverts them (p 131). He doesn’t really deal with the just war tradition, but resorts to a commentary on General Boykin's infamous statements regarding the religious nature of the war in Iraq. These statements were widely reported and rejected by all but the most right wing fundamentalist religious thinkers. The author notes that General Boykin is a man of prayer and that President Bush begins his day early with Bible study. These are commendable qualities in both men, but have nothing to do with the issue at hand. In fact the implication is that Bush and Boykin must be correct in their policies and statements because they are devout Christians. Implied also is the notion that those who oppose Bush and Boykin are not devout and sincere Christians.

The author cites Catholic philosopher Michael Nova's defense of the Iraq war by using the just war doctrine, but he fails to reveal that Michael Novak failed to persuade Pope John Paul II and leading thinkers of his own Church that the Iraq operation met the norms of that doctrine.

The Pope and most Christian leaders in the world opposed the Iraq intervention precisely on the grounds of just war. There were several conservative groups who disagreed, but the Roman Catholic and mainline Christian denominations all issued statements opposing the war. The debate continues to this day. The author's presentation of just war using Novak and citing Boykin without any acknowledgment of the overwhelming opposition of major religious leaders is simply dishonest.

Returning veterans from Iraq that I have met are aware of the moral and religious ramifications of the war and some of them are highly conflicted. Active duty soldiers and veterans are fully aware of the controversy about the war. Military personnel are increasingly aware that they are the only ones making sacrifices in the seemingly endless "war on terrorism." Veterans are aware that their VA benefits are under assault by the government that sent them to war. Neither soldiers nor veterans are isolated from the misinformation, deception and corruption surrounding the war. At some point active duty soldiers will be out of combat and they will then attempt to integrate their personal experiences with the facts about the war into their own personal religious and moral frame of reference. If their spiritual guides in this journey are unable to enter with them into the complex and morally ambiguous reality of war, then the guides are worse than useless. They are an obstacle. That is what frightens me about this book. Those who take it seriously and attempt to use it with soldiers are sowing the seeds for a harvest of cynicism, despair, nihilism and loss of faith.

If Christian military chaplains wish to guide their soldiers and veterans on the journey through combat and its aftermath, they must do so at a very deep spiritual level. They must understand Scripture, the complexities of theology, the writings of the saints and mystics down through the ages. To do anything less than that is to do their soldiers a great disservice and to diminish their own ministry.

I recommend that chaplains be aware of and be able to use the theological resources supplied by denominational headquarters, that they be aware of the latest discussions of just war theory and its application to the current war. They should also read the statements of the denominational leaders on the war. They should shrink from none of this.

We are already seeing among veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan who come to the Va, not only symptoms of PTSD, but moral and religious confusion of the type I have described. Many of them saw and participated in the needless death of civilians and some have intense guilt. These veterans represent only the first wave of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea that Mansfield’s book should be used as a guide for these veterans is outrageous. To use it for active duty soldiers in order to pump them up to fight the war and gloss over these serious issues would be malfeasance for an Episcopal military chaplain or anyone else with classical theological training.

Some fundamentalist chaplains will, of course, use this book with no qualms of conscience because they actually endorse the total religious perspective behind it. There is nothing to be done about that. For those soldiers who fall by the wayside as a result, it will be up to VA chaplains and other clergy to assist them later on. The real problem is command influence on chaplains from the mainline traditions who have a different theological viewpoint.

If it is found that command influence is in fact being brought to bear on chaplains to use Mansfield's book with soldiers, I recommend that chaplains report this fact to your office, or if they belong to their own denominational endorsers. I recommend that endorsers contact the Chief of Chaplains.

Somone remarked to me, "the Army is really now as bad as the Air Force" in its endorsement of fundamentalist religious positions. This person was referring to the recent Air Force Academy incident. The question then arises: "how about the Marine Corps and the Navy? If there is a drift in this direction, it must be remedied for the sake of military personnel and chaplains whose religious traditions repudiate these views. Commanders who exert this kind of pressure have stepped over the line and need to be held accountable. If commanders persist, then they should be reported. The press also needs to hear about it and let the American people know the facts.

It has been widely noted that the all volunteer military force is increasingly isolated from the rest of American society. This book raises the question whether the military will also become religiously isolated from mainstream America. Will the military become an adjunct of the religious right which is now politically ascendant? What are the implications of a religiously right wing profesional military force?

The military and their families are the only Americans paying the price for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest of us are supposed to spend money to keep the economy running. The war has no personal impact on the average American. Multiple tours to the war zone leaves little room for tending to marriages, families, jobs. Soldiers and Marines especially are paying a very high price. As a religious undergirding for these sacrifices, they are offered a "warrior code" to sustain them.

This is just another example of what's going on in this country. Americans need to wake up and reclaim our nation and its values. American Christians need to reclaim our traditional faith.

The price for the war in Iraq continues to mount: not just the financial cost, but the human cost. We know of the dead and wounded, we learn of those with emotional and spiritual trauma. Now it has become abundantly clear that the marriages and relationships of our military serving in Iraq are increasingly becoming casualties of the war. The Los Angeles Timestells the very sad story of the high incidence of divorce and the shattering of loves among those who have served.

Very few Americans are bearing the cost of this war, many are profiting and profiteering from it, but it is the soldiers and their loved ones who bear this enormous burden. Let's wake up to what's really going on.