Changing Chaplaincy: a Contribution to Debate over the Roles of US and British Military Chaplains in Afghanistan

Abstract

This article addresses the challenges presented to NATO military chaplains in conflicts waged in majority-Muslim countries, focusing on the British and US experience in Afghanistan. Though the two militaries have quite different formal guidelines for chaplains about relations with local populations, it is argued here that the challenges for chaplains relating with local religious actors are in many respects similar. Recent changes to chaplaincy guidelines in Afghanistan have reflected a recognition of their potential to act as interpreters for soldiers facing a religious ‘frontier’ with which they are ill-equipped to grapple. However, chaplain engagement with locals on a religious basis is not uncontroversial. With this in mind, this article focuses on the symbolic status of the military chaplain, both within the military and in encounters with locals. Though the symbolism of a Christian chaplain in this context is not unproblematic, it is argued that ultimately chaplains could contribute to the navigation of differences and commonalities between soldiers and civilians. However, at present military chaplains are inadequately trained to deal with the religious Muslim populations they encounter in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere. The contribution closes with conclusions about likely developments in the roles and training of chaplains deployed in Muslim-majority countries in the future.

Notes

1 Bourdieu gives as an example of a ‘frontier group’ the ‘labour aristocracy which hesitates between class struggle and class collaboration’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 476).

2 Ministry of Defence Freedom of Information request by the authors, 20 April 2010.

3 One British chaplain emphasised the importance of the counselling and pastoral support role for recent deployment because ‘around 20% have never been deployed before … it is a young army’ (Butt, 2010).

4 Adams (2006, pp. 24, 27). Much of this may be a matter of context. Johnstone and Hagerty (1996, pp. 297–303) have noted that Catholic British chaplains' Spanish language skills as well as shared Catholicism with the Argentinians were helpful during the Falklands War.

5 Andrew Sullivan has written: ‘So to wage a war designed to expose the evil of the Taliban's religious intolerance, we deliberately manipulated Islam into a means of abuse. In a war designed to prove that the West was not Islam's enemy, we used Islam and Muslim culture as tools to break down the psyches of prisoners suspected of terrorism’ (Sullivan, 2009).

6 Author's interview with a senior officer in the British Army, July 2008.

7 On the limitations to the space for multifaith education at theological seminaries, see Gilliat-Ray (2003).

8 An exception is Abercrombie (1977, p. 171).

9 On the visit to Afghanistan, see MOD (n.d., p. 11).

10 The Brigade of Gurkhas in the British Army is composed of Nepalese soldiers and dates its heritage to Gurkha units in the British Indian Army prior to 1947 and, before that, units working for the East India Company. Most recently the Gurkhas have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

11 See, for example, the articles on military chaplaincy in the Review of Faith and International Affairs, 7, 4 (Winter 2009).