What Have We Been Missing? New Views from the Field’s Professionals, Researchers, and Educators

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.

This paper examines the relationship between Hindu college chaplains and the students they serve through the lens of three models of faith development: one arising from a study of Muslim-American students (Peek, 2005); a second based largely on research conducted with Christian students (Parks, 2019); and a third that borrows from a Hindu framework (Gosvamin, 2003) that I seek to re-interpret here. Drawing from my doctoral research on Hindu student life in higher education and my lived experience as a Hindu college chaplain, I seek to juxtapose the stories of the Hindu student /chaplain relationship with these three faith development models. I hope to shed light on an under-studied, marginalized, and minoritized religious community within our field, as well as  suggest lessons that might be applicable to our evolving understanding of chaplaincy more generally.