Now Chaplains Can't Pray

Canadian Armed Forces in July 2019. Credit: Canadian Department of National Defence

In Canada, Remembrance Day is approaching, occurring on November 11th (Veteran’s Day in America). It’s a day of mourning the war dead, those who gave their lives for “God and country”—or so we once declared. According to a new directive that was leaked to the Epoch Times, military chaplains have been told that religious prayers in public functions are forbidden.

“While the dimension of prayer may occupy a significant place for some of our members, we do not all pray in the same way; for some, prayer does not play a role in their lives… Therefore, it is essential for chaplains to adopt a sensitive and inclusive approach when publicly addressing military members.”

— Directive signed by the Chaplain General, Brigadier-General Guy Belisle.

In effect, chaplains can neither quote from the Bible nor mention God, even in the generic sense. Instead, any commemoration of the dead will now have to be a “spiritual reflection”—somehow acknowledging the hope of an afterlife without pointing to a reason that one exists. Therefore, Canadian chaplains go from being practitioners of a faith to pagan spiritualists who must make up a vacuous religion on-the-fly.

We must not overlook the injustice to the dead who are denied their rightful prayers, before being made into a kind of unwilling participant in a pagan ritual. It’s easy to imagine that many of such deceased soldiers would wish to insist that such be done “not in my name”. Imagine a soldier who enlisted for “God and country” and was then mistreated in this way, with no acknowledgment of the faith that undergirded his actions.

The same directive tells chaplains to be mindful of how inclusive their words are, and to use “gender based analysis (GBA+)” in choosing how they will speak. In other words, there can be no reference to Our Heavenly Father, Our Father, “He” in reference to our Creator, etc. You cannot pray how Christ told his followers to pray. It seems that Christians are not to be included in these new “inclusivity” guidelines.

Ordinary language is inverted and familiar prayers jettisoned, allegedly to prevent offending those of other faiths or no faith at all. Yet, the desire to avoid offense at any cost does not seem to extend past the preferred groups of the Canadian government. Plenty of Christians, Catholics, and Muslims would find the LGBT flag flown on base to be deeply offensive, for it implies that the soldiers are united behind these sexual degeneracies that they know to be sinful. It implies that they support and defend what they must reject.

The repeated advocation of “Pride” events, flags, and even a monument (yes, really) demonstrates that the government isn’t eradicating religion, it’s imposing a state one that is deeply unChristian.

The new directive will even change the stoles that chaplains can wear (the item that looks somewhat like a scarf). As it stands, a Christian chaplain’s stole displays a cross, a Jewish chaplain wears a star, and a Muslim chaplain wears a crescent. Now, all of the crests will be replaced by the crest of the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service (RCChS). It’s the genericizing of faith. The government sees them as all the same, and you must too. The government combines them because it considers its own faith as the only valid one, for it’s inclusive, after all, except to those that are heretical of its doctrines.

“Chaplains must consider the potential that some items or symbols may cause discomfort or traumatic feelings when choosing the dress they wear during public occasions.”

You know what really causes discomfort? Accidentally receiving spiritual counsel from a chaplain of another faith. Sure, one could ask first, but then isn’t it simpler to avoid that awkward confrontation by all and just have a visible symbol? I would want to know before accidentally approaching a chaplain of another faith, because I don’t want his spiritual counsel. He’s working from a different foundation. I can’t imagine that anyone of any faith would disagree. Even an atheist who is seeking counsel would likely want to know the faith of the chaplain he is approaching.

None of this is actually about avoiding discomfort, for they are recklessly disregarding the discomfort that they are causing to chaplains, active service members, the war dead, and those grieving. It’s merely the latest step in the State’s establishment of its religion, which already has blasphemy laws that prevent the critique of its protected people, and which now claims dominion over practitioners of other faiths at public events.