The church and state have distinct jurisdictions, but sometimes they overlap. At times, that overlap creates tension. Rather than retreating, Christians ought to rush to fill those spaces because they know that Jesus is Lord over both church and state. One such overlap is military chaplaincy, where public theology is put on martial display. We need the local church to send more, not fewer, gospel-preaching chaplains to minister to military service members and their families.
Military service is no impediment to pleasing God. In fact, some of the most faithful Christians I have known have been warfighters. Their sincere faith has endured the most trying circumstances and, in turn, strengthened my own. These brave men who answer their nation’s call to serve God and country need religious support to secure their God-given right to worship the one true and living God. When soldiers raise their right hands and swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, they do not thereby agree to set aside their sincerely held religious beliefs. For many, that oath is itself an outworking of those beliefs. It therefore follows that the government ought to provide clergy who facilitate the free exercise of religion for those who serve. Military chaplains answer this sacred call.
This essay argues that military chaplaincy can be a faithful Christian vocation and that local churches should gladly send qualified gospel ministers to serve America’s warfighters. First, I examine the historical basis for chaplaincy from our nation’s founding and trace its moral warrant through military history. Second, I consider what happens when chaplaincy breaks bad, using its failures as a foil to demonstrate the need for healthy chaplaincy. Finally, I argue that chaplaincy, at its best, fulfills the natural law requirement of religious liberty through the local church for the sake of God and country.
The History of U.S. Military Chaplaincy
Our nation’s founding had a strong appreciation for the Lordship of Jesus and the need to order civic action to his renown. General Washington explicitly joined Christian faith and patriotism: “To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”1 Love of God and country are not opposed to one another; instead, the latter is a consequence of the former. In fact, the motto of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps is Pro Deo et Patria: For God and country.
1. George Washington, “General Orders, 2 May 1778,” in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 15, May–June 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel (University of Virginia Press, 2006), 13.
The chaplain is indispensable as both an ethical advisor and spiritual leader to the fighting force. The exigencies of war can incentivize the cutting of ethical corners, and Army doctrine itself recognizes the need for moral ballast drawn from sources such as natural moral reason, the Just War tradition, and the Declaration of Independence.2 These sources belong to the inheritance of Christian moral thought and remain relevant to civic theism within a diverse military.
2. Department of the Army Headquarters, Army Leadership and the Profession (ADP 6–22) (Department of the Army Headquarters, 2019), 1–7.
The Declaration provides a compelling test case. Even a cursory reading reveals how thoroughly theological the Founders’ moral philosophy was. It invokes God four times: “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”; the affirmation that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”; the appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions”; and the signers’ “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.” Taken together, these claims locate the American political order beneath a natural law authority that precedes the state. Chaplains therefore occupy a unique space between church and state, serving as clergy in the former and commissioned officers in the latter. Their dual status uniquely enables them to safeguard the soldier’s free exercise of religion and liberty of conscience.
Modern U.S. chaplaincy does not exist in a vacuum. It inherits a rich tradition of religious support from Western civilization. Paget and McCormack trace the tradition of chaplaincy to Late Antiquity as they explain the fourth-century origin of the word “chaplain” in The Work of the Chaplain:
Traditionally, a story relates the compassion of a fourth century holy man named Martin (a former soldier) who shared his cloak with a beggar. Upon the death of Bishop Martin, his cloak (capella in Latin) was enshrined as a reminder of the sacred act of compassion. The guardian of the capella became known as the chapelain, which transliterated into English became chaplain. Today the chaplain continues to guard the sacred and to share his . . . cape out of compassion.3
3. Naomi K. Paget and Janet R. McCormack, The Work of the Chaplain (Judson Press, 2006), 2–3.
Even before our great nation was founded, it carried forward the role of military chaplains. More than eleven months before the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Continental Congress established the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps on July 29, 1775.
Our nation has therefore always held both religion and religious leaders in high regard. Washington issued orders requiring moral conduct among his soldiers and “a punctual attendance on divine Service.”4 A year later, Washington ordered his commanders to procure chaplains who were “persons of good Characters and exemplary lives” and instructed soldiers to “pay them a suitable respect and attend carefully upon religious exercises.” He continued:
4. George Washington, “General Orders, 4 July 1775,” in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775–15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase (University Press of Virginia, 1985).
The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger—The General hopes and trusts, that every officer, and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.5
5. George Washington, “General Orders, 9 July 1776,” in George Washington Papers, Series 3, Varick Transcripts, 1775–1785, Subseries 3G, General Orders, 1775–1783, Letterbook 1: July 3, 1775–September 30, 1776, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
That moral logic remained visible in later American warfighting thought. During the Civil War, General McClellan ensured his fighting force could enjoy the blessing of the Fourth Commandment in worship of the Lord of the Sabbath:
Unless in the case of an attack by the enemy, or some other extreme military necessity, it is commended to commanding officers that all work shall be suspended on the Sabbath; that no unnecessary movements shall be made on that day; that the men shall, as far as possible, be permitted to rest from their labors; that they shall attend divine service . . . [T]he observance of the holy day of the God of Mercy and of Battles is our sacred duty.6
6. George B. McClellan, “General Orders, No. 7,” Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, Washington, September 6, 1861, in U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1, vol. 51, pt. 1, Reports, Union Correspondence, Etc. (Government Printing Office, 1897), 472–73.
The American constitutional order presupposes that the government must recognize and protect certain goods, including religion. Military service does not nullify the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. Soldiers remain moral and religious persons in uniform. Chaplains safeguard that liberty, preserving obligations that precede military service, above all man’s duty to God.
Chaplains extend the ministry of local churches into places their ordinary ministry cannot regularly reach. Since entering active duty, my family has conducted a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) on average every seventeen months, and military duty often takes me where regular access to a church and its elders is impossible. In those settings, the chapel community may provide the only consistent body of believers gathered on the Lord’s Day.
Military chaplains hold a Master of Divinity (MDiv), ordination in a local church, denominational endorsement, and years of full-time pastoral ministry experience following seminary graduation. They then live and serve among the service members entrusted to them as uniformed noncombatants embedded in their units. Where their soldiers go, chaplains go: barracks, overseas garrisons, ships in the Pacific, field exercises, and combat deployments. They jump out of perfectly good airplanes with their soldiers, helocast from Chinooks, ruck for miles on end, and endure enemy fire alongside their units. Their ministry comes with muddy boots. Wherever American warfighters go, chaplains carry their ministry with them.
American service members enter some of the most morally acute circumstances imaginable. In the moral milieu of combat, they must distinguish “thou shalt not murder” from justified killing.7 That distinction is no easy matter, especially when they are separated from their families and churches. These struggles can produce significant moral distress.
7. Jared L. Vineyard, “Making the Right Decision: A Proposed Army Decision-Making Model,” Military Review, February 24, 2026.
Without a chaplain, this moral distress can quickly be pathologized and redescribed in clinical vocabulary as moral injury. Mental health professionals certainly have a role to play, but chaplains attend to what clinicians cannot: the warfighter’s soul. Behavioral health professionals can offer therapies aimed at reducing distress and restoring functioning, but, as Furner argues, “clinical models . . . cannot adjudicate the truth of moral judgment,” much less questions of forgiveness or reconciliation with God.8 Nor should they. Mental health professionals need not pretend to be chaplains any more than chaplains should pretend to be mental health professionals.
8. Emmitt Maxwell Furner II, “The Far Country: Moral Injury and the Recovery of Chaplain Identity,” Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, published online April 16, 2026, 1.
The American tradition has long recognized the importance of a proper fear of God among those who bear arms, joining the twin duties of service to God and country. The American military, however, has at times failed to uphold that ideal.
When Chaplaincy Breaks Bad
American chaplaincy has not always remained faithful to its founding vision. Vietnam veteran and author Carl Marlantes, in his work What It Is Like to Go to War, expresses frustration with a military chaplain who, in his view, lost sight of his calling to God and country:
Along with food, water, mail, and ammunition came the battalion chaplain. He had brought with him several bottles of Southern Comfort and some new dirty jokes. I accepted the Southern Comfort, thanked him, laughed at the jokes, and had a drink with him. Merry Christmas. Inside I was seething. I thought I’d gone a little nuts. How could I be angry with a guy who had just put his life at risk to cheer me up? And didn’t the Southern Comfort feel good on that rain-raked mountaintop? Years later I understood. I was engaged in killing and maybe being killed. I felt responsible for the lives and deaths of my companions. I was struggling with a situation approaching the sacred in its terror and contact with the infinite, and he was trying to numb me to it.9
9. Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011), 7.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently chronicled some lapses in Army chaplaincy: “In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers. Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care.”10 He went on to say several months later: “The crucible of combat tests more than the body. It tests conviction, character, and spirit.”11
10. Tim Hains, “Secretary Hegseth: Chaplain Corps Has ‘Traded Faith and Virtue for Self-Help,’ ‘New Age Notions,’” RealClearPolitics, December 18, 2025.
11. Noah, “Pete Hegseth: We Are (Still) Making the Chaplain Corps Great Again!,” WLT Report, March 24, 2026.
Secretary Hegseth was right. Through intramural politics and other institutional pressures, our profession slowly drifted from clergy in uniform toward a role increasingly indistinguishable from that of emotional support officers.12 This drift worked against chaplains whose ecclesiastical identity and religious functions were ordered by a strong normative commitment to the Lordship of Jesus and the centrality of the local church. It also left unanswered the deeper need of the brave men who have stood in the gap for our nation against tyranny: a salve for consciences burdened by the moral weight of prosecuting the exquisite art and science of organized violence on behalf of the greatest nation on earth.
12. Andrew Schmitz, “The Moral Anchor of a Fighting Force,” WORLD, December 19, 2025.
Sergeant Brendan O’Byrne, a U.S. Army combat veteran interviewed by filmmaker Sebastian Junger in the documentary Korengal, gives voice to precisely the kind of moral and theological anguish chaplains must be prepared to address:
For a while there, I started . . . I started really thinking God hates me. And, like I said, I’m not religious or anything, but I felt like there is this hate for me. Cause I did . . . sins. You know, I’ve sinned . . . Is that what God’s gonna say? “You did what you had to do. Good job.” Punch you on the shoulder and . . . say “welcome to heaven?” I don’t think so.13
13. Brendan O’Byrne, interview in Korengal, directed by Sebastian Junger (Goldcrest Films and Outpost Films, 2014), 1:00:09–1:02:00.
Bereft of its religious core, what could chaplains offer Sergeant O’Byrne? Pithy sayings that do little to address his deep-seated guilt? A so-called ministry of presence to the exclusion of gospel proclamation? At its best, chaplaincy carries forward the heroic legacy of those within our nation’s heritage who loved and served the Lord Jesus. At its worst, it loses its saltiness, its distinctly gospel character. Such failures should not deter gospel preachers from entering the chaplaincy for the glory of God. They should animate them all the more.
Chaplaincy, Natural Law, and Religious Liberty
Local churches ought to support chaplains with chests full of gospel fervor, stirred by the very Spirit of Jesus to do the work of an evangelist. America’s chaplains bring together commitments to both God and country, demonstrating a patriotism that historian John Wilsey describes as “a rightly ordered love of country that comes from gratitude and joy in the good gifts God has freely given by His grace.”14 Wilsey goes on to aver that Christian patriots recognize that “Being an American means being part of a great tradition. America is not perfect, but America is the greatest champion for human freedom in history. For that, we are to be grateful to God, who is the Giver of all good and perfect gifts.”15
14. John D. Wilsey, God and Country: Upholding Faith, History, and National Identity (B&H Academic, 2026), 143.
15. Wilsey, God and Country, 155.
This idea of Christian patriotism, and its embodiment in military chaplaincy, is indirectly explored in Andrew Walker’s account of the relationship between natural law and religious liberty:
A natural law right is the protection of a moral faculty . . . as such, is essential to a person grasping and actualizing their duty to act in accordance with the truth . . . Hence, when we talk about protecting religious liberty, we are not agreeing with every viewpoint of one’s religious beliefs, but protecting the faculty that informs their grasp of what is true.16
16. Andrew T. Walker, Liberty for All: Defending Everyone’s Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age (Brazos Press, 2021), 58.
It follows, then, that our warfighters retain their natural law right to worship, not however they please, but as they ought. The greatest need of our soldiers cannot be met by therapeutic modalities, Stoic aphorisms, or veterans’ benefits alone. It is reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and communion with his bride, the church. Christ himself is the warrior King who laid down his life for those who were once his enemies, atoning for their sins and gathering them together as his bride, the church.
John’s Apocalypse depicts when Christ will come again, not as a suffering servant, but as a conquering king to martially finish the work that he started, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.” (Rev. 19:11).
America is not the church, yet many Spirit-filled soldiers take up arms to defend the political goods God has entrusted to our nation. Serving God and country calls for wise moral formation, not withdrawal. Military chaplains help warfighters hold the exercise of force in moral trust before the God who judges justly.
In Luke 7:1–10, we see in a small first-century fishing town, Christ marveled at a Roman centurion whose military formation under authority gave him a grammar for faith: he recognized in Jesus an authority greater than his own, trusted that Christ need only speak for even death to obey, and displayed a faith surpassing any Jesus had found in Israel. The profession of arms is not a necessary evil, but a virtuous calling that proleptically anticipates the Day when Jesus comes to wage the final battle against his enemies. Chaplains can take a language soldiers already know, the language of authority, and use it to point them to the warrior King whose word even death obeys.
Military life often carries service members and their families beyond the ordinary reach of the local church, making them a distinctive mission field in need of gospel ministry. Who better to serve them than chaplains ordained and sent by local churches? A chapel cannot replace the local church, and chaplains cannot replace pastors. Yet the church may send its ministers into extraordinary places. Some question whether chaplains may administer the ordinances in such settings.17 I argue that they may, much as missionaries do when the gospel advances beyond the reach of an established local church.
17. Jonathan Leeman, Jamey Norman, and Sean DeMars, “On Prison Ministry (Ep. 307),” Pastors Talk, 9Marks, September 23, 2025, podcast, 47:00.
A chaplain’s ministry must remain subordinate to the local church that sends him and holds him accountable. In that capacity, he may baptize converts and gather believers around the Lord’s Table. Chapel communities gather on the Lord’s Day under the preaching of the Word, often when military service makes regular access to a local church impossible. In such irregular circumstances, chaplains carry the Great Commission where the local church cannot regularly go: making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded, for God and country.
Conclusion
I recently entered my twenty-first year of military service. With each passing year, I have grown more worshipful of my Heavenly Father and more patriotic toward the country he has given us. That experience has deepened my conviction that local churches should see chaplaincy as an extension of their ministry. Churches that desire the fame of Christ to spread and the free exercise of religion to endure should send qualified men of character and competence into military ministry.
Someone will stand beside the warfighter in the barracks, aboard the ship, and under fire. The church should want that man to carry the gospel with him. Local churches should therefore send and support chaplains enthusiastically, while chaplains remain indelibly tethered to the bride of Christ through meaningful membership in, and submission to the elders of, a local church whenever possible.
