Evangelicals Are a Growing Force in the Military Chaplain Corps

When Morris Janowitz, the late and renowned military sociologist, wrote the Professional Soldier a half century ago the officer corps was still dominated by "elite" protestant sects, namely the Episcopalians and the Lutherans. Religion in those days was only quietly assertive, and never really in-your-face. Over the last five or six decades the officer corps has changed. Catholics were always there, but Protestant sects from the evangelical right have increasingly made their way into the officer corps along with many Mormons who found in military one of the few employers in America that would reward their large go-forth-and-multiply families with expanded government housing and extensive programs for children. The result is an officer corps that increasingly reflects not just the beliefs that mark George Bush's political base, but the political ideologies as well.

The upshot is that officers (and enlisted people) now more often find themselves in situations where religion is inserted into their work, even if they do not desire to encounter religion in temporal life. The recent flap at the Air Force Academy showed quite clearly how dangerous this latter trend may be while also highlighting the dubious constitutional basis for military officers, chaplains or others, to promote religion in daily military life.
Some religious minorities are already under-represented in the military, Jews for instance. The trend that I allude to above will only promoted that divergence from military service.
Evangelicals Are a Growing Force in the Military Chaplain Corps - New York Times