Chaplain

Do you remember Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H? He was the chaplain for the fictional 4077th mobile army surgical hospital in Korea. Do you remember his role? He was to offer spiritual guidance and in some cases, last rites to soldiers. That's what a chaplain does, right? Police departments have chaplains, hospitals have chaplains, nursing homes have chaplains, some larger fire departments have chaplains and branches of the military have chaplains. Knowing the very definition of a chaplain caused me to do a double take on the following news story. Somebody in the army is ticked off because the chaplain was promoting Christianity. Uh... what's a chaplain supposed to do if not promote Christianity? Get a load of this! Unbelievable!

An Army chaplain was punished for discussing matters of faith and quoting from the Bible during a suicide prevention training session with the 5th Ranger Training Battalion -- leading to outrage from religious liberty groups and a Georgia congressman.

Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn was issued a Letter of Concern that accused him of advocating for Christianity and “using Christian scripture and solutions” during a Nov. 20th training session held at the University of North Georgia.
“You provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a biblical approach to handling depression on the other side,” Col. David Fivecoat, the commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Ft. Benning, Georgia, wrote in the letter to the chaplain. “This made it impossible for those in attendance to receive the resource information without also receiving the biblical information.”

Ummm...okay...whatever.

Notice the cross hanging prominently around his neck? Well, that's because he is a CHAPLAIN! Holy Guacamole!