Defence’s reliance on ordained ministers of religion is out of touch

Jan 14, 2024
bible

For many young military recruits, it is a shock to learn that a religious minister is their first port of call beyond the chain of command if they are having any issues at recruit school.

Although many Australians never have anything to do with pastors or priests in their real lives, the Australian Defence Force opts to rely mostly on a religious-based chaplaincy model as its frontline pastoral care/wellbeing support for personnel. These chaplains are ordained ministers of religion, with their primary qualification being a degree in theology and their previous care experience being within the confines of a Christian community.

This troubled me deeply when I served as the Royal Australian Navy’s Principal Chaplain and Director-General of Chaplaincy. Many serving personnel, for whatever reason, do not want to seek help from religious ministers.

In 2020, when I advocated for the introduction of secular pastoral care roles – known as Maritime Spiritual Wellbeing Officers (MSWOs) – into Navy’s chaplaincy branch, I found tremendous support from Navy leadership.

The then Chief of the Navy, Mike Noonan, saw the need for change and provided top cover for it to occur. As a result, the Navy decided to make a transition to a more realistic pastoral support system, with the addition of MSWOs.

In November, the Rationalist Society of Australia reported that a Defence ‘interim review’ of the new MSWO roles had found “strong” demand among Navy personnel where the seven MSWOs were located in ships, including HMAS Anzac, Cerberus, Waterhen, Kuttabul and Stirling.

The interim report, compiled in December 2022 by the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal (DFRT), also noted the popularity of the secular workers, especially for Navy personnel who were women or LGBTIQ+ and “did not want to see a religious Chaplain”.

While Navy recognised the need to provide more appropriate wellbeing support for its majority non-religious workforce, the Army and Air Force have yet to follow suit and provide a secular option for their personnel.

Army and Air Force leaders have their heads in the sand, resisting reforming their chaplaincy capabilities even as an increasing majority of their personnel identify as not religious. According to Army Colonel and Defence statistician Phillip Hoglin, the proportion of Defence Force members identifying as not religious could reach 75 percent by 2030.

The DFRT interim report revealed the staggering gap in the provision of secular pastoral care/wellbeing support. As of November 2022, the ratio of Christian chaplains to Christian personnel stood at 1:134. In comparison, the ratio for non-religious pastoral carers (MSWOs) to non-religious personnel was 1:11,992. For Muslims, the ratio was 1:62. For Buddhists, it was 1:83.

In not pursuing secular reform, Army and Air Force are effectively disregarding the evolving needs of non-religious members in seeking pastoral care. The question that then must be asked is: “Why?”

I see several challenges that need to be addressed for reform of Defence chaplaincy to happen.

The first is the age and conservative nature of senior military leaders. As detailed by Hoglin, religious adherence among senior personnel remains high – about 80 per cent. In contrast, almost 65 per cent of Defence personnel in total and about 80 per cent of new recruits are not religious.

It is these older senior leaders who consider religion an important part of the Defence Force. Senior officers will also have grown up in the military with memories of the “good old padre” and cannot see why the current generation would not want to engage with the chaplain.

Another block to reform is the taxpayer-funded committee of religious clerics known as the Religious Advisory Committee to the Services (RACS), which oversees chaplaincy appointments. From the outside, it looks like a multifaith 10-member committee. However, it is predominantly led by five Christian members, and they are all former senior military chaplains strategically elevated to influential roles within their churches.

This committee vehemently opposes chaplaincy reform initiatives. It frustrated my reform efforts. In 2022, after I spoke on ABC radio about the need for secular reform, the committee raised allegations against me with the Chief of the Defence Force, prompting an investigation. The investigation ultimately exonerated me – not before it was made clear that I would have to leave my Navy career of more than 30 years if I wanted to continue publicly advocating for secular reform of chaplaincy.

It’s troubling that a committee of religious clerics with a direct line to the Chief of Defence Force has so much influence over Defence’s frontline pastoral care and wellbeing support capability.

Amplifying that concern is the fact that some of its members have spoken publicly about chaplaincy roles being “missionary” ones, apparently with the aim of bringing people to Jesus. The current chair, Anglican Bishop Grant Dibden, said in a 2021 speech that chaplains were “missionaries in the Defence Force”. In a report to the Anglican General Synod in 2022, he said Defence chaplains must have a “missionary mindset” and must be strong enough to “resist” pressures to “compromise their message”.

RACS members have expressed such views without facing any criticism or consequences from Defence Force leadership or government ministers with responsibility for Defence portfolios.

Concerningly, the Pentecostal member of RACS, Pastor Ralph Estherby, told media in early 2023 that he was “not necessarily completely convinced” that the Army and Air Force would follow Navy’s lead in introducing secular pastoral care.

Senior ADF officers have occasionally defended chaplaincy against calls for reform by citing Defence’s other non-religious support avenues, such as medical, psychology or social workers. However, comparing these services to chaplaincy is not like comparing apples with apples.

Despite these alternative support options, none compare to the unique role of a military chaplain. Chaplains are embedded within the unit; they wear the same uniform and share the same challenges and privations of postings and deployments as those they serve. They intimately grasp military culture and challenges because they are part of the team. The religious chaplain is available anytime, any day, eliminating the bureaucratic hurdles other support services face.

Accessing medical, psychology or social workers requires members having to leave their units. This poses a significant barrier to seeking help. In addition, seeking medical or psychological support might inadvertently medicalise issues that personnel perceive as minor, raising apprehension among members. Defence Social Workers offer valuable assistance, but their primary focus is supporting the command, leaving them with limited time to engage with individual members.

So it is galling to hear people speaking about “other options”. Those who peddle this fiction should know better.

The Defence Force is facing extensive scrutiny over the mental health and wellbeing, especially in light of investigations into suicides among current and former service members. Commissioner Nick Kaldas, of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, has emphasised the imperative for urgent measures to prevent the tragic loss of lives. An essential part of this response should involve modernising the Defence Force’s chaplaincy capability to meet the needs of service personnel.

Defence’s almost exclusive reliance on ordained ministers of religion is increasingly out of touch and out of date. It is also posing an inexcusable risk to the health and wellbeing of our serving personnel.

Share and Enjoy !