‘Command and Control’ in the Royal Army Chaplains' Department: how Changes in the Method of Selecting the Chaplain General of the British Army have Altered the Relationship of the Churches and the Army

Abstract

With the reorganisation of chaplaincy in the British army which followed the experience gained in the First World War, the post of Chaplain General assumed a special importance as administrative head of all chaplains other than Roman Catholic. It quickly became the norm for the holder to be an Anglican. This article looks at how this came to be the case, and then considers how this policy came to be changed in the 1980s when a chaplain from the Church of Scotland was proposed by the army as the next Chaplain General. By then the churches had allowed the structure for discussing policy with the state to atrophy, and the decision was made by the army alone. An attempt by the archbishop of Canterbury to intervene was rejected. The last 20 years have seen further integration of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department (RAChD) into the army, with the selection of Chaplain General only notified to the churches once it has been made. This change of policy is seen to have implications for the command and control of the chaplains: they are now effectively owned by the army rather than the churches.

Acknowledgments

Archival material is reproduced by courtesy of: the university librarian and director, the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; the trustees of the Museum of Army Chaplaincy; the trustees of Lambeth Palace Library; and the convenor of the Committee on Chaplains to Her Majesty's Forces of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and to these I would wish to express my thanks.