Alabama Navy Chaplain Al Hill is on a mission. He wants Southern Baptists to have only ordained ministers serving as military chaplains. The North American Mission Board (NAMB) says ordination is not one of its criteria for endorsing chaplains to the military.
NAMB holds this policy, in part, so it can continue to endorse women to serve as military chaplains. NAMB has also said it will not endorse any woman ordained to gospel ministry. The military allows each participating denomination to establish its own requirements for chaplains. The military only considers whether the person has been endorsed by the sponsoring denomination.
Hill and other senior Navy chaplains contend the policy of endorsing nonordained persons (male or female) as military chaplains turns all Southern Baptist chaplains into “religious social workers” rather than ministers of the gospel.
Hill and other senior Navy chaplains first took their concern to the North American Mission Board. Participants in a January meeting say they were told that if they did not like the NAMB policy, they could seek endorsement for chaplaincy service somewhere else.
Then they took their concern to Southern Baptist leaders. Letters to the trustee chairman of the North American Mission Board and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention received no response. When a letter from Hill appeared in The Alabama Baptist about this issue he was summoned to NAMB’s Atlanta headquarters for a meeting with NAMB vice president John Yarborough.
At that meeting, Hill, who serves as director of training and education for the Navy Chief of Chaplains Office, and Tierian Cash, deputy chaplain of the Marine Corps, presented information demonstrating that the former Home Mission Board required ordination before endorsing anyone as a military chaplain.
According to Hill and Cash, Yarborough acknowledged that NAMB had acted on
misinformation when contending that the board had never required ordination for its endorsed military chaplains. Yarborough said he would attempt to get the issue placed on the agenda for the October meeting of NAMB trustees.
But the trustees declined to place the concern on their October agenda. A committee of the trustees called the Chaplains Commission said it might consider the issue in October but offered no promise. That is when Hill, a native of Gadsden who grew up in the College Heights Baptist Church, and other senior Navy chaplains decided to take the issue to Southern Baptists.
“We believe Southern Baptists want their chaplains to be clergy persons,” Hill said in an interview. He said he will attempt to get the issue introduced at the annual meeting of Southern Baptists in Phoenix June 17-18.
“I believe Southern Baptists expect their military chaplains to be ordained clergy persons,” Hill said. “That is the reason I am trying to get this issue into the public.”
A senior Navy chaplain holds the rank of Captain or higher. Twelve Southern Baptists currently are in this category. Eleven of the 12 expressed their concern in person to NAMB in the January meeting. All 12 are sympathetic to Hill’s effort, we were told. Obviously, the identity as an authorized minister of the gospel is important to these chaplains. We are told the concern is shared across the various branches of service though we have not talked to chaplains outside the Navy and Marine Corps about this issue.
What NAMB will do is unknown. Public statements since the meeting between Yarborough, Hill and Cash have downplayed the importance of materials the two chaplains presented.
What Southern Baptists will say about this issue is unknown. Do Southern Baptists want their military chaplains to be ministers of the gospel, as that term is generally understood, or not?
We believe it would be a sad day for Southern Baptist presence in the military if the 12 senior Navy chaplains and others took NAMB’s suggestion and sought endorsement for military chaplain service from other sources.
Hopefully, Southern Baptists across the nation will let their feelings be known about the identity they expect for military chaplains and all parties will be able to abide by that message.
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