The moral anchor of a fighting force

Late Tuesday night, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a video with a direct promise: “We are going to make the Chaplain Corps great again.” In it, he argued the corps has drifted, under “secular humanism” and “political correctness,” from spiritual leadership toward a quasi-therapeutic role. As his Exhibit A, he pointed to the Army’s new Spiritual Fitness Guide, which he noted is more than 100 pages long—yet mentions God only once. It does, however, mention feelings eleven times, “playfulness” nine times, and even treats ethics as a “component of creativity.”

Hegseth argued that the guide reflects an unacceptable and unserious swap of faith and virtue for self-help and self-care. His aim, he said, is to restore the Chaplain Corps to its historical roots as a moral anchor for the fighting force. Hegseth is aiming toward an older American clarity that views religious adherence as an asset to the warfighter, not a liability.

As the Secretary Hegseth noted, the Chaplain Corps is older than America itself, and its history is rich with religious courage, both in doctrine and practice. From the beginning, Washington’s Army treated military chaplains as essential to the Army’s moral fabric—and enforced that in General Orders. After Congress authorized a chaplain for each regiment, Washington’s orders said:

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.

This is the tradition the military still inherits, and it ought to do so more consistently. In current Army doctrine, the Army ethic has its origins in “theological traditions, and the historical legacy that frame our Nation”. This includes the “moral motivation” of the Declaration of Independence, which appeals to the “Supreme Judge of the world.” Chaplains have the privilege of stewarding this rich theological heritage in their roles as religious leaders within the military. This mission is captured in the Chaplain Corps’ motto: Pro Deo et Patria— For God and Country.

Post–World War II, the Army did not treat religious moral formation as a bug, but a feature of military chaplaincy. That only worked because chaplains were endorsed clergy—accountable to their denominations and therefore able to speak candidly about God and virtue. The instruction assumed that “Natural Law” and “Moral Law” come from God. By the early 1970s, however, the program was repackaged as “Human Self-Development,” with its theological core stripped away. The institutional story explains the drift; the battlefield story shows what the chaplaincy was made for.

Chaplains embed with units and minister in combat. To date, nine chaplains have received the Medal of Honor. One was Francis Bloodgood Hall, a Civil War chaplain from New York. Writing from camp with his regiment near White Oak Church, Va., while making pastoral rounds among soldiers headed back into the fight, Hall resolved, “I think the plan of speaking to each about Christ before leaving is the best plan.” His Medal of Honor citation records that he “voluntarily exposed himself to a heavy fire during the thickest of the fight and carried wounded men to the rear for treatment and attendance.”

The secretary of war is not inventing a new role for chaplains; he is reinvigorating the old one. His appeal is consistent with Congress’s Articles of War in 1775, which urged “all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend Divine Service.” Chaplains serve warfighters best when they stop imitating emotional support officers and instead shepherd the souls of a flock who have answered their nation’s call to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

As Hegseth concluded his video, he quoted a U.S. Army Chaplain’s Manual from the 1950s, “The chaplain is the pastor and the shepherd of the souls entrusted to his care.” This is chaplaincy at its best: holy men answering the sacred call to minister the gospel to America’s soldiers in the most austere environments, for God and country.

— The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Department of the Army, Department of War, or U.S. Government.