Anyone with any curiosity about Unitarian Universalist military chaplains should read this remarkable essay by David Pyle, a seminary student and U.S. Army Chaplain Candidate:

In other words, my primary duty as a military chaplain is to insure that all of the soldiers under my care are given the necessary time, space, materials, and freedom to practice their religion. It is not to proselytize, to convert people to my faith, or to hinder those who hold a faith other than my own. It is to insure that I help soldiers to explore and connect deeper with the religious faith they are called to, be it Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Humanism, Paganism, Wicca, Hinduism, or anything else.

What a profound call for a Unitarian Universalist! The separation of church and state is deeply imbued in our faith, as is religious pluralism, and this ministry is the opportunity to practice both in a profound way. It is a chance to grow with others as they grow in many different faiths, and to call others back to this commitment to religious freedom when, for reasons of passionate belief in their own faith, they stray from what is constitutionally permissible. This is the reason that, besides being a military chaplain candidate, I support the work of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, to continually remind the Chaplaincy of where our primary mission lies: the protection of the free exercise of religion.

In this ministry I get to live out the oath that I took to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. I think I probably focus much more on the “domestic” than I do on the “foreign”.

Read the whole thing at Celestial Lands.