The military's secular theocracy

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) may go to war — not in Ukraine, but against its own members who don't conform to a new standard of theological intolerance.

This week, the minister of national defence released the report of the Minister's Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination. The panel, set up in December 2020 by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was given the “clear mandate to seek out the policies, processes and practices that enable systemic racism and discrimination in the Department of National Defence (DND) and CAF.”

The terms of reference made it clear what the panel was to find: “All forms of systemic racism and discrimination, including anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, LGBTQ2+ prejudice, gender bias, right-wing extremism and white supremacy are exhibited within the CAF.” (It's noteworthy that “right-wing extremism” was slipped in there. This government has a rather expansive view of what constitutes right-wing extremism; some days it is anyone who disagrees with the prime minister.)

The report is admirably brief for government work, a brisk 100 pages, but no less ambitious on that account. Unusually for a government body, the advisory panel began its weekly meetings with a prayer. Members turned toward “our Grandfathers the thunder beings, our Grandmother Moon and our Creator, however imagined.”

It turns out that the panel has a rather limited view of how the CAF should permit its members to imagine the Creator. Indeed, the panel advocates firing all Muslim and Orthodox Jewish chaplains, as well Catholic priests and many Protestant pastors. They will all fall afoul of the new theological orthodoxy.

The panel concedes that many CAF members find in religion “a source of solace, optimism and compassion,” and can turn to their “unit chaplain … for effective support in ethical guidance or spirituality through the new Total Health and Wellness Strategic Framework.” Bureaucratese like that makes it clear that this won't end well.

So does the panel's ominous warning that, “Some chaplains represent or are affiliated with organized religions whose beliefs are not synonymous with those of a diverse and inclusive workplace.”

As an example, the report notes that “some churches' exclusion of women from their priesthoods violates principles of equality and social justice, as do sexist notions embedded in their religious dogmas. In addition, certain faiths have strict tenets requiring conversion of those they deem to be `pagan,' or who belong to polytheistic religions. These faiths' dogmas and practices conflict with the commitment of the Defence Team to value equality and inclusivity at every level of the workplace.”

Thus all those chaplains must go, for the CAF “cannot justify hiring representatives of organizations who marginalize certain people or categorically refuse them a position of leadership.”

The advisory panel's view is that if a soldier who's been wounded in battle, or even dying, calls for a chaplain, the CAF should not provide one unless it approves of the theological beliefs being offered. What the panel does not make clear is why the soldiers themselves are entitled to hold unacceptable religious views. Perhaps they aren't — or won't be.

The panel denounces religions that propose monotheism rather than polytheism. That follows logically if you believe that there is a true God; other gods are by definition false. Does the panel take offence at Joshua, who challenged ancient Israel to declare itself, saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”? Joshua was fearsome in battle, but would have no place in the CAF.

The panel is advocating a crippling relativism here, in which a chaplain is not permitted to believe that his own religion is true.

The panel recommends, in effect, that the CAF hold the theological view that there is no difference between believing in the Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and professing belief in the divinities of the Roman pantheon, and that all its chaplains should hold this view.

Should a Jewish chaplain consider that belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is — what's the word? — true, and that faith in Jupiter is false, then he would be sent packing by the CAF. On the other hand, if you could find a Muslim chaplain who holds that Allah and Apollo are equally valid divinities, then he could be retained. But you won't find him, because anyone who believes that is no longer a Muslim.

But what if a “Muslim” who believes that there are other gods besides Allah could be found? Even that would not satisfy the extremist relativism of the panel.

The CAF “cannot consider itself supportive of inclusivity when it employs as chaplains members of organizations whose values are not consistent with National Defence's ethics and values — even if those members express non-adherence to the policies of their chosen religion.”

So not even an apostate Muslim qualifies! The panel would apparently be cool with a Christian chaplain who isn't too fussed about whether Jesus is divine, but if the pertinent “chosen religion” professes the 1,700-year-old Nicene Creed that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,” then unleash the anathemas!

That's why the panel's chaplaincy recommendations are a total assault not only on religious liberty, but the very idea of religion itself — unless that religion happens to be the “total health and wellness” dogmas of the CAF. It is proposing that the CAF become a secularist theocracy, a contradiction in terms.

The panel's rank anti-religious bigotry is revealed in relation to residential schools, as it argues that Christian chaplains are to be avoided because “Indigenous peoples have suffered unimaginable generational trauma and genocide at the hands of Christian religious leaders through initiatives such as residential school and Indian day school programs.”

One might ask, but the panel does not, that if the Christian churches are disqualified on the grounds of residential school trauma, what about the government of Canada itself, which conceived, mandated and funded the schools? It was a government program, after all. According the panel's reasoning, that should disqualify the Government of Canada from being involved in Canada's Armed Forces.

The report is advisory, not government policy. One wishes for it the same treatment that our military procurement process delivers: no actual implementation.

TOTAL ASSAULT ... ON THE VERY IDEA OF RELIGION ITSELF.