Sky pilots and earth pilots

[cbayer]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/05/armed-forces-religion-and-humanists

Armed forces, religion and humanists

May 15th 2015, 14:58 BY B.C.



LIFE can be an endurance test for the thousands of budding sailors who attend the Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes, Illinois, otherwise known as the navy's boot camp. A couple of hundred of them, it seems, were finding some solace in the "earth-centred worship services" offered at the facility by a man called John Chantry, who is a Druid, in other words a follower of the nature-based religions of pre-Christian Europe.

Last month, he and several other spiritual practitioners representing minority creeds were told to stop their visits to the camp, on grounds that they were violating the navy's religious regulations. The decision caused fury in many quarters, and prompted an unlikely coalition. One group that spoke out was the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which campaigns against many forms of religious propaganda in the armed forces and is especially wary of Christian proselytising; another was the Chaplain Alliance for Religous Liberty, which generally advocates the right to practise religion, and Christianity in particular, while in uniform. The two organisations have been at loggerheads over many issues, but they joined forces to defend Mr Chantry.

In a joint statement, they said that "in this instance it is easy for us both to say that the navy went too far and is clearly in violation of the constitutional liberty rights of American sailors...". The navy defended its decision as a bureaucratic matter, rather than one of principle. Services on a base should normally be held by a "uniformed chaplain" (a category which includes many faiths but not Druids), or failing that by a regular member of the military, or failing that by a formally contracted chaplain. If none of the above options were available, and demand for a particular practice existed, then civilian volunteers could be brought in. But in the case of Mr Chantry, these procedures had not been followed.

In the latest twist, the navy said it had begun the process of "reinviting" civilian volunteers to offer pastoral support at the base; it is not clear how the Druids will fare.

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[nil desperandum]

1. I couldn't resist....