July 14, 2005

Sky pilots

There's more about Air Force evangelism in Monday's Times:

Figures provided by the Air Force show that from 1994 to 2005 the number of chaplains from many evangelical and Pentecostal churches rose, some doubling. For example, chaplains from the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministries International increased to 10 from none. The Church of the Nazarene rose to 12 from 6.

At the same time, the number of chaplains from the Roman Catholic Church declined to 94 from 167, and there were declines in more liberal, mainline Protestant churches: the United Church of Christ to 3 from 11, the United Methodist Church to 50 from 64.

There's an interesting analysis from the article trying to explain why the mix of chaplains has changed from more-or-less ecumenical to evangelical-heavy:

There are also political reasons. Anne C. Loveland, a retired professor of American history at Louisiana State University and the author of "American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942-1993," said the foundation for the change in the chaplaincy was laid during the Vietnam War.

"Evangelical denominations were very supportive of the war, and mainline liberal denominations were very much against it," Ms. Loveland said. "That cemented this growing relationship between the military and the evangelicals."

Now that's interesting, and since she's done the research for her book, I suspect it's true. I'd never thought of it, but certainly Reverend William Sloane Coffin was no evangelical when he was an anti-war activist chaplain at Yale. The Berrigans were both Catholic priests when they were actively protesting the Vietnam War.

I do think the decline in the number of Catholic chaplains is a mirror of what's happening overall in the Church; there's a severe shortage of priests in general, so it makes sense that there'd be one in the military as well.

Posted by Linkmeister at July 14, 2005 12:01 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I think you are right.

When i first read the reports, I also thought of the rise in attendance in evangelical churches, a steady increase that has been sustained over a several decades.

It is not surprising that the military chaplain corps would mirror trends in the general population.

Posted by: Pixelshim at July 14, 2005 07:45 AM