The Military-Educational Complex: The Fraught Relationship between U.S. Military Chaplaincy and Theological Education

This paper investigates whether the U.S. Federal agency charged with executing violence on its enemies also does violence to theological education systems. We trace the relationship between the Department of Defense (DoD) and theological education institutions as it develops from World War I to the present. Ted Smith’s work in The End of Theological Education (2023) provides the framework through which we examine how the dynamics of professionalization and individualization converge around military chaplaincy. The DoD requirements for chaplains contributed to the founding of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) with the mass mobilizations of the World Wars. Moral outrage over Vietnam disrupted this dynamic relationship. In the wake of 9/11 and new wartime needs, the DoD unilaterally revised the requirements for military chaplaincy, which has hastened and exacerbated the forces of individualization in theological education: diminishing residency, reducing credit hour requirements, and changing accreditation obligations.