The Changing Role of Protestant Military Chaplaincy in Germany: from Raising Military Morale to Praying for Peace
Focusing on Lutheran chaplaincy, I argue that the German Protestant Church expects chaplains to be the moral conscience of the army. To facilitate this role, and to ensure that the chaplains' own consciences are never again blunted by their environment, the chaplaincy is designed to prevent cle...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2011
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| In: |
Religion, state & society
Year: 2011, Volume: 39, Issue: 1, Pages: 79-91 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Focusing on Lutheran chaplaincy, I argue that the German Protestant Church expects chaplains to be the moral conscience of the army. To facilitate this role, and to ensure that the chaplains' own consciences are never again blunted by their environment, the chaplaincy is designed to prevent clergy from becoming too closely integrated into the military. Chaplains are structurally outside the chain of command and have no military rank; their terms of service are restricted to between six and 12 years. Their role is to sharpen the consciences of individual soldiers, and to ask whether the military operations in which the Bundeswehr participates are actually conducive to peace or whether they add to the spiral of violence. This structural separation is not total, however. The Christian churches are still privileged by law in Germany, and the military's exclusively Christian chaplains are obliged to deliver compulsory ethical training to all soldiers irrespective of their professed faith (or atheism). I also argue that the challenge will be to maintain a prophetic ministry (shaped in armed forces which were created for defensive engagements only, and which did not engage in combat operations until 1995) now that German chaplains are once again supporting soldiers engaged in battlefield action. Promoting the civilian churches' peace ethic necessarily leads to conflict with secular politicians and military leaders. Even in conditions designed to strengthen their primary allegiance to their sending churches, military chaplains may feel conflicted when the soldiers they support are criticised by clergy ‘outside’. |
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| ISSN: | 1465-3974 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion, state & society
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2011.546506 |