One of the guiding principles in the founding of the United States is the right to freedom of religion. And even before this was codified in the U.S. Constitution, the Continental Congress had recognized the need to provide a means for its soldiers to practice their religious beliefs in an organized manner while they were serving their country.
But making provision to accommodate the worship needs of soldiers who come from faiths apart from Christianity—Protestant Christianity, to be more precise—took what in hindsight seems to be an almost tortuous length of time. Catholic soldiers, for example, were not provided with priests for more than 70 years after the Army Chaplain corps was founded, and it wasn’t until 1862 that Jewish soldiers could turn to rabbis to lead them in their religious observances and practices.
For Muslims, on the other hand, the wait was considerably longer: the first Muslim Chaplain, Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, was not commissioned in the Army Chaplain Corps until 1994. This was because, until the early 1990s, the Army did not recognize Islam as a faith with enough followers in the service to warrant representation in the Chaplain Corps. At the same time it gave the approval for Muslim Chaplains, the Army also recognized Buddhism as a faith to be included in the Chaplain Corps. But it wasn’t until 2008 that a Buddhist entered the Corps, and the first Hindu Chaplain was not named until 2011.
Related Chaplain Corps Items |
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Chaplain Corps Collar Devices |
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