Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military- Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA'

H-War Fitzmorris on Brekke and Tikhonov and eds., 'Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military- Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA'

Review published on Friday, September 7, 2018

Torkel Brekke, Vladimir Tikhonov, eds. Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military-Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. viii + 270 pp. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-947074-7.

Reviewed by John Fitzmorris (University of Southern Mississippi) Published on H-War (September, 2018) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air War College)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=52486

A shrinking world and its growing interconnectedness have created new issues for nation-states, and military organizations—often most reflective of the societies they protect—have experienced the changes wrought by political reorganization, immigration, and integration of more religions into their ranks. Religion’s relationship with the military and the military chaplaincy become lenses through which one can examine those changes. Torkel Brekke and Vladimir Tikhonov have broken new ground in an ambitious, transnational study titledMilitary Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism. A series of essays from several authors addresses the role of religion in the military and the function and roles chaplains have in it. The subjects cover the period of history roughly from the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 to the present in the militaries of the nations of India, Slovenia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Israel, the United States, Thailand, Norway, the nineteenth-century British Raj, and South Korea. Both editors have compiled a series of studies that examines the military chaplaincy as either a formalized structure integrated into military apparatuses or an informal network of clerics whom the military accepts as a function of maintaining morale and the overall well-being of their troops. In either case, the editors and their contributors adhere to the principle that military chaplains contribute to the transformation of religion in the larger societies they inhabit.

Brekke, Tikhonov, and their contributors all agree that militaries help shape the societies they defend and give shape to the very concept of religion, and that the military chaplaincy provides a conduit through which the pacifism of religion and the bellicosity of the military find a modus vivendi. Yet Military Chaplaincy is hardly a seamless garment with unified examples. The Indian Army’s ethic of harmony and respect for other religions contrasts with the weakened ecumenism of the Norwegian military in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. The resistance to secularization by orthodox rabbis like Avichai Rontziki in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is different from the Sri Lankan Army’s refusal to formalize its Buddhist chaplaincy to protect Buddhism and its ethic of pacifism from the state. Yamagata Genjō’s attempt to link nationalism with Shingon Buddhism in the nineteenth-century imperial Japanese Army stands opposite of the belief by the Slovenian Army that religion transcends politics. Where the Sri Lankans opposed a formalized chaplaincy for its Buddhist monks, the military of Thailand found an interesting solution by mandating that former monks were best suited to bring spiritual and moral healing to their warriors. Finally, the Sri Lankan and Slovenian Armies’ respective desire to see religion develop good public servants in its soldiers and contribute to their new political

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Fitzmorris on Brekke and Tikhonov and eds., 'Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military- Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA'. H-War. 09-07-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/12840/reviews/2351792/fitzmorris-brekke-and-tikhonov-and-eds-military-chaplaincy-era Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-War states contrasts with Syngman Rhee’s use of religion and the military to legitimize his regime in a newly established government.

As with all first attempts to wrestle with a complex subject like religion and the military,Military Chaplaincy is not without its flaws. The editors themselves note the lack of cases from Muslim- majority countries and their own inherent academic bias toward Buddhism and Hinduism. Kim Philips Hansen’s contribution toward the military chaplaincy in the United States wanders into a defense of evangelical Protestantism and does little to add to the debate other than to give the reader perhaps a point of reference. In addition, the essays would have been better arranged chronologically (for example, placing the essays about the belief in a “martial race” in the Sepoy Army and transition of the chaplaincy in the British Raj earlier or even first) to give the reader a better understanding of the change of the chaplaincy over time.

Such criticisms, though, highlight the possibilities of making a good and important work even better. Brekke, Tikhonov, and their contributors have forayed into uncharted but fertile territory by using a broad array of sources and (perhaps most important) interviews to create a transnational survey of the interplay between religion and the military and how the chaplaincy can forge a working relationship despite the dichotomy. One can only hope that this work does not stand as the end of the study but instead serves as a clarion call to broaden even further the study of religion in the military.

Citation: John Fitzmorris. Review of Brekke, Torkel; Tikhonov, Vladimir; eds., Military Chaplaincy in an Era of Religious Pluralism: Military-Religious Nexus in Asia, Europe, and USA. H-War, H-Net Reviews. September, 2018. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=52486

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.