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new policy forbids military chaplains from not only praying, but from referring to God or the divine in spiritual reflections. They are being required to be publicly secular.
The eminent Canadian philosopher Charles Tayor calls our time the Secular Age, a time when life can be lived without reference to God or the transcendent. Belief in God is only one option. For military chaplains, conforming to the secular age in their public pronouncements is now compelled.
The policy applies to chaplains when speaking at government sponsored events or where members of the Canadian Armed Forces are expected or required to attend. It also applies when they are speaking publicly in their capacity as CAF members. It even applies to Remembrance Day ceremonies even though they are hosted by the Legion, a non-governmental organization.
In public venues, chaplains are often the ones asked to provide a reflection or meditation, historically a prayer of solace, as Canadians gather to remember those who served and continue to serve, and acknowledge the pain and suffering that accompanies this sacrifice. Belief in something beyond humanity must now be privatized and the historic public ritual muted in its fulness.
What has long been a practice to comfort military personnel and their families in times of remembrance for sacrifices made is now stripped of transcendent allusion. We can now only gather publicly to remember sacrifice as if honour, gratititude, hope, duty, compassion are but human manufacture.
Under the previous policy, before chaplains gave a spiritual reflection or prayed a nondenominational prayer, they would offer a preamble that recognized that members of the audience would adhere to a variety of beliefs, including those who believe and those who do not believe in the transcendent or the divine. In 2023 the policy changed to prohibit any prayer. Now even a mention of God or the divine is proscribed.
Christian chaplains are being required to be mute about their faith and how it informs their understanding of life – in effect hiding it under a bushel (Matthew 5:15).
I am a member of the Interfaith Committee for Canadian Military Chaplaincy, representing many of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s affiliate denominations with serving chaplains. This years-long debate over prohibiting prayer and now the mention of God or the divine has raised substantive issues about the role of chaplains serving in a religiously diverse context: how they can serve those of their own faith traditon while caring for all, the meaning of state neutrality and the nature of pluralism, and what fairness entails. Is there an approach that does not succumb to privileging one view above others?
The justification for this new policy is that offering a humanist or secular spiritual reflection does not take sides among various worldviews or show favouritism to any one faith tradition. However, the military has humanist chaplains, and humanism is recognized as one of the spiritual and faith traditions served by the Royal Canadian Chaplaincy Service. It is one belief system among many.
The new policy does not effect a chaplain’s ability to hold religious services in base chapels or spaces set aside for religious services. Prayers can still be offered at military funerals. They can still provide pastoral care to Canadian Armed Forces personnel and their families.
But when these religious leaders are functioning publicly, they must be secular.
In public events like Remembrance Day ceremonies, people gather to grieve and to remember the sacrifices of those who died to protect our freedoms. It is about grieving well together, as people of different faiths or no faith at all, and doing so publicly in a way that is respectful to all gathered. How will we learn to grieve together across our differences if chaplains are so constrained?
The new policy assumes a spiritual reflection without reference to God or or a supreme being is neutral and inclusive. But is it? By prohibiting reference to God, the divine or a supreme being, it expresses a worldview devoid of the transcendent, one that is secularist and characteristically humanist.
As the Supreme Court found in a case involving education about religion, neutrality is impossible to attain. We live in a society of deep religious and spiritual plurality, in which some belief systems contradict or deny the beliefs and doctrines of others.
This new policy is based on a subsequent 2015 Supreme Court decision about the legitimacy of a set prayer that was offered at the beginning of every city council meeting in Saguenay, Que. After the mayor made the sign of the cross while saying “in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” the mayor would lead the council members in a set prayer at the beginning of each meeting, sometimes with a flashing neon cross.
The court determined this was not an inclusive prayer. It said the prayer, “in combination with the circumstances in which the prayer was recited, turned the meetings into a preferential space for people with theistic beliefs.”
The court was concerned with any exclusionary effect an observance might have.
The court said that while absolute neutrality was impossible, true neutrality requires that the state not favour one religion over another, and by religion they included atheism and agnosticism. The court said,
True neutrality is concerned not with a strict separation of church and state on questions related to religious thought. The purpose of neutrality is instead to ensure that the state is, and appears to be, open to all points of view regardless of their spiritual basis. Far from requiring separation, true neutrality requires that the state neither favour nor hinder any religion, and that it abstain from taking any position on this subject.
The goal of neutrality is to ensure there is no privileging of any belief system over others.
The spiritual reflection required by the new policy is not open to all points of view. In its current form, it takes a position on spirituality and religion which excludes other views. It is exclusive by design and prohibits the expression of some religious beliefs in public reflections.
There is a caveat. The policy seeks to include Indigenous practices in order to “reflect Canada’s constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights, the historical suppression of Indigenous traditions by the state, and an ongoing commitment to reconciliation.” While recognizing that Indigenous practices may have a spiritual element – and noting that those attending “are not required to participate in any spiritual component of these practices” – the policy nonetheless insists they be framed “explicitly within an educational and cultural context.” It requires the inclusion of Indigenous practices to be consistent with maintaining religious neutrality. A supplementary document says that any spiritual component is understood as an expression of cultural and spiritual heritage, and not an endorsement of the state.
This is to be an example of embracing a more inclusive understanding of neutrality, which is the overall intent of the policy.
However, an inclusive neutrality is one that shows openness to a diversity of spiritual and faith traditions. Forbidding even a reference to the divine or the transcendent in spiritual reflections is not an expression of inclusive neutrality.
A more inclusive approach for all would be to allow for both prayer and spiritual reflection, or an approach that includes a preamble with prayer and spiritual reflection offered rotationally by chaplains representing various spiritual faith traditions.
In Canada, some contend neutrality should be understood as the absence of religion. The government of Quebec continues to press a secularist agenda and restrict religious expression in public spaces.
I have spent 30 years of writing and speaking into issues of religious freedom and expression in Canada, and this new military policy is as frustrating as it is controversial. This policy is another step in the secularization of Canada under the veil of a supposed religious neutrality, presumed to be good for our national identity and sense of belonging.
State neutrality is a concept used to explain what is required by governments to protect religious freedom and ensure they don’t play favourites or privilege one view over others. This is how the role of government was understood historically in Canada, and it is vital it be reclaimed.
Our goal must be a chaplaincy policy that supports the spiritual health of all Canadian Armed Forces members. One that recognizes and makes room for all in the expression of belief in spiritual reflections, a principled accommodation of the diverse beliefs of Canadians, including those who believe in God.
Bruce J. Clemenger is the EFC's senior ambassador and president emeritus. He is a member of the Interfaith Committee for Canadian Military Chaplaincy.
Author:
Bruce J. Clemenger