Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Protecting Inmates From Dangerous Ideas
Christianity is no longer permitted in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers.
Chaplain David Wells was told he could either sign a state-mandated document promising to never tell inmates that homosexuality is “sinful” or else the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice would revoke his credentials … The Kentucky regulation clearly states that volunteers working with juveniles “shall not refer to juveniles by using derogatory language in a manner that conveys bias towards or hatred of the LGBTQI community. DJJ staff, volunteers, interns and contractors shall not imply or tell LGBTQI juveniles that they are abnormal, deviant, sinful or that they can or should change their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
One incident doesn’t constitute a trend, but this was predictable, and it’s reasonable to expect similar rule changes following the Supreme Court ruling.
Will this litmus test be applied to military chaplains before or after it is applied to prisons across the country?
Published in Culture, Law, Religion & Philosophy
Incidentally, though I am not, myself, a law enforcement officer, there are chaplains who serve in both capacities within their department.
And I would hope that they are capable of distinguishing one role from the other.
I would hope so, too. And I’m glad that’s one problem I don’t have to worry about.
I think you had a police officer who was abusing his authority.
I’m pretty sure a criminal on his way to the courthouse would be annoyed by anything his police escort had to say.
If chain gangs are legal, annoying inmates with words should be. But no one has to hear a preacher.
… even though people are sentenced or forced by employers to meet with psychologists regularly.
Another large difference between my work and Pastor Wells’ is that he is more like the resident physician in a long-term care facility, and I’m more like an ER doctor; my job is to stabilize and refer. I don’t have time to convert anyone even were I inclined to do so; I have no choice but to meet people where they are, and do my best for them. As Nanda put it, “Chaplains are good at finding common ground, ” and those of us in emergency services have to find that ground fast.
Having said that, I am aware that Christian pastors, in particular, have a bad rap among many (not all, but many) ordinary people. I am frequently told “y’know, when they told me the chaplain was coming, I thought you’d be judgmental or try to force me to accept Jesus or something…but you’re really nice.”
This may be the result of how clergy or Christians are portrayed in the media, or it may at least sometimes be the voice of experience. Personally, I’ve found that the majority of Christian ministers (and most Christians, period) are at least as nice as I am, but is one of those professions that narcissists are drawn to, and, like the occasional corrupt or sloppy cop, they make all of us look bad.
There is no better witness to the power of faith than a person who expresses it through kindness, good humor, patience, tact, fearlessness and the magic combination of conviction and humility.
Me, too. And what I was getting at, clumsily, is the care with which anyone who takes spiritual care seriously (or, for that matter, takes evangelism seriously) has to approach someone who cannot get away. “When I was imprisoned, you visited me,” Jesus says. Not “you pointed out my sins to me, with scriptural examples, and you scared me with visions of damnation…” You showed up.
This isn’t an argument for the Kentucky CoC—which, by the way, I approve of when it is applied to other workers and volunteers in juvenile facilities. I don’t want the janitor, or the guy who comes in to help organize the library holding forth on his views of sin to the little miscreants… but it may be appropriate under some conditions (subject to the best, trained, thoughtful judgement of the chaplain) for the chaplain to do so.
…and reverence. If a Christian minister talks just like a friendly atheist, then what’s the point?
If one does his father’s work but ignores his father, that is not love. Love is personal. And one Person matters above all. We cannot love Him while deliberately avoiding mention of Him.
To return to the subject of the original post, I wonder if those supportive of the Kentucky policy would feel the same if the policy prohibited chaplains from telling those they counseled that homosexual behavior was morally acceptable.
Yup. Reverence is good, too, and speaking of God.
Unless the person you are spending time with has big issues with the word. “God-talk” can be very counterproductive if, for example, a person was raped by someone who used a lot of religious language to justify his behavior. Religious language can be contaminated in this way (as in others) and it’s good for a chaplain to have other ways of speaking up his or her sleeve, other words by which the Word might be expressed.
Again, chaplaincy is not (mostly) preaching from a pulpit. It is presence, silence, prayer, attentive listening, conversation, and it is help with practical things–a loaf and a fish, or, in my case, maybe some warmer clothing, a safe, private place in which to wait for news, a bottle of water or a cup of coffee, a bowl of soup, a cell-phone charger, help with contacting friends, relatives, clergy or with arranging for a someone to pick up your kids from daycare. It’s giving bad news, and comfort, and help with seeing and touching the body of the one you love and figuring out what to do next.
Corrections chaplains have their own lists of helpful actions, but they, too, will describe theirs as a ministry of presence or, as one NY state chaplain put it , “I have a ministry of Hanging Out.”
There was a time when ministers like me, who indeed believe that homosexual behavior is morally acceptable, might have been prohibited from saying so. I am sure you and Aaron would strenuously defend my religious freedom in that case, too, so perhaps there would be a most unRicochettish unanimity?
Great! Just get Larry and Gary on board and we can all join in a chorus of Kumbaya.
Please tell me you’re a baritone?!?!?
Why? Too many sopranos in the mix already?
Just something from a guy who always had reasons why state requirements rather than private choice should apply. Nowadays we call these types “libertarians.”
Indeed, Basil, and they can imagine you making a distinct contribution to one of New Jersey’s most significant new landfill projects!
This is what makes the whole question of this particular, peculiar intersection between religion and government —the one I literally embody when I go to work—-so fascinating. Chaplaincy (at its best) naturally resists regulation, and even, at times, definition. Sometimes it seems that my job is literally to just be present. Just show up and be. Apparently, I do this quite well. “Thank God you were here!” someone is bound to say after a day in which, from my point of view, I was completely useless. God indeed works in mysterious ways, brothers, and makes use of strange tools His wonders to perform.
I’m on board. A principal should be able to give his agent any instructions, so long as the instructions do not require the agent to engage in unlawful conduct. If the agent doesn’t want to do the job as required, he is free to leave. I’m committed to the principle; not the outcome.
Wow. You really don’t understand libertarians. Maybe you meant to say “librarians”?
I’m on board too, Larry. And I just *know* that Basil would have fought like a tiger to protect Rev. Kate’s freedom to preach a pro-gay message in, say, 1991. So we’re all on the same page.
1991? Is that before they cleaned up Times Square?
Actually, no. that didn’t happen until Giuliani came in, 1993, and it took a couple of years.
Kate, I do think there’s a distinction here between a chaplain employed by an organization and a volunteer chaplain. To say that an employee has restrictions on his activity is altogether different from saying that a volunteer can’t come into a prison and freely espouse the faith he or she would espouse outside the front gates. The latter is much more problematic.
And there’s also a distinction between an ongoing ministry, as in a school or a prison or juvenile detention facility, and an acute crisis kind of intervention, as in a law enforcement or hospital setting. In the latter setting, the chaplain on hand needs to do his or her best because there is no time to wait for the preferred chaplain to arrive, whereas in the former setting those to whom the chaplain is ministering have time to engage with one chaplain and not with another according to their preferences.
I agree with all of the above, Lucy.
Even in my case, if the family of the victim involved is, say, Catholic and would like to have a priest, we do our best to fetch a priest. If no priest is available, or there simply isn’t time, we all make do with me.
Since there’s plenty of time in prison, I would imagine that a Catholic prisoner can request to see a Catholic priest, or a Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Assemblies of God, Unitarian-Universalist or Wiccan, for that matter.
That’s different from the Prison Chaplain, who (volunteer or paid) is part of the prison community. He or she will be expected to be a pastoral presence and to be available to provide pastoral care to all the prisoners, regardless of their religious affiliation, as well as serving on an emergency basis (for example, giving death notification to prisoners). This naturally tends to create a certain ecumenical spirit in chaplains that I, at least, find appealing. Chaplains (especially prison chaplains) are often very well-versed in the tenets of other religions, and develop faith in a God that can draw goodness out of even the most unpromising material.
This does not mean that the chaplain abandons his beliefs or the doctrines of his tradition. To me, asking a chaplain to declare, a priori, that he or she won’t state those doctrines under any circumstances needlessly eliminates good people, and reflects a misunderstanding of the chaplain’s role.
Given that these authorities are responsible for the well-being of vulnerable people, however, it is their prerogative to define or simply eliminate the role of chaplain. No pastor/priest/priestess/shaman/diviner/rabbi/imam/guru has the right to insert himself into a prison, a hospital, a firehouse or an accident scene no matter how strongly he feels called to harvest the low-hanging fruit.
@Kate. Harvest the what?
Hahaha! Funny man.
ftfy.