c. 2003 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) A decision last year by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board has prompted a challenge by some senior Navy chaplains concerning the denomination’s requirements for military chaplaincy.

Chaplain (Capt.) Al Hill, director of training and education for the Navy Chief of Chaplains Office, hopes to present a motion at the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Phoenix to instruct the board to make ordination a requirement for military chaplains. The meeting will be held June 17-18.

After Southern Baptists adopted the 2000 version of their faith statement, which declared that the office of pastor was not suitable for women, their denomination’s chaplains commission decided it would no longer endorse ordained women chaplains. Women who are not ordained may serve as chaplains.

At the time of the mission board’s Feb. 2002 decision, it stated: “The Chaplains Commission has not required or considered ordination in the endorsement of chaplains in the past.”

That statement roiled some Navy chaplains, who consider it inaccurate.

Some chaplains fear that statement implies they could be viewed as lay people instead of professional clergy.

“It is not a gender issue,” Hill said. “It is a ministry identity issue.”

Hill, who has written letters of complaint to several Southern Baptist officials, met with North American Mission Board staffers in late May, along with Chaplain (Capt.) Tierian Cash, deputy chaplain of the Marine Corps.

At that meeting Cash presented two 1980s letters about his endorsement process that he received from the chaplaincy division of the then-Home Mission Board that refer to ordained pastoral ministry.

“… the date and place of ordination must be included on the application form,” a 1982 letter reads.

Martin King, a spokesman for the mission board, said in response: “The guidelines, the policy that we had and still have don’t require ordination.”

He interpreted the 1980s letters as possible evidence that “the chaplaincy staff was advising them that the military recommended ordination.”

But Chaplain (Col.) Darrell Morton, chief of personnel and readiness in the Office of the Chief of the Air Force Chaplain Service, said the military does not have a specific requirement about ordination and leaves the decision about who is appropriate for the chaplaincy in the hands of religious bodies.

King said the chaplains commission or the mission board trustees could reconsider the matter later in the year.

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