One of the mandates for Sailors seeking to serve in the Religious Program Specialist (RP) rating is the willingness to assist in the preparations and conduct of religious services of a wide variety of faiths. A Catholic or Jewish RP Sailor, for example, might be assigned to a Jewish chaplain to form a Religious Ministry Team, and consequently must be extremely familiar with the rites and ecclesiastical requirements associated with Judaism.
Although Chaplains have served in the U.S. Navy since its founding, for nearly 170 years they only represented Christian denominations. Those unfamiliar with the specifics of Christian denominations might assume this would make it simple for Chaplains to conduct religious services, but of course the same disagreements over doctrine that led to the Protestant movement meant that a Protestant Chaplain could not conduct Mass for Roman Catholics.
But it was only in the 1940s that the Chaplain Corps began to expand to include faiths beyond Protestant and Catholic denominations. In 1941, the Navy designed a Jewish Chaplain Corps insignia for H. Cerf Straus, the service’s second Jewish Chaplain, in the shape of a shepherd’s crook; it was subsequently changed to a Star of David and an image of two tablets representing the Mosaic Law. (David Goldberg, the Navy's first Jewish Chaplina, also wore an insignia in the image of a shepherd's crook.)
It would be over fifty years before the need for a new Chaplains’ Corps insignia was needed.
Lieutentant Junior Grade Monje Malak Abd al-Muta Ali Noel, Jr. became the first Islamic Chaplain to serve in the U.S. Navy in August, 1996; the first Islamic Chaplain to serve in the U.S. Military was appointed in the Army in 1993. In 2004, another Lieutenant Junior Grade, Jeanette G. Shin, became the Navy’s first Buddhist Chaplain.
As more and more faiths are represented in the Navy’s Chaplain Corps, the responsibilities of Sailors serving as Religious Program Specialists will become more expansive, but almost certainly more rewarding as well.
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Religious Program Specialist (RP) Rating Badge
Religious Program Specialist (RP) Collar Device
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CWO Ship's Clerk Soft Epaulets
CWO Ship's Clerk Sleeve Device
CWO Ship's Clerk Collar Device