Faith Under Fire
This week’s Newsweek cover features the words “God and War” and the focus is on chaplains in the armed services. The cover story focuses on Army Chaplain Roger Benimoff. As Newsweek write Eve Conant puts it, his story is a “tale of a devout young man who begins his time in Iraq brimming with faith and a sense of devotion that carries him into a second tour.” But that faith would come to be severely tested in the cauldron of war:
Benimoff’s journal is written in a scribble of printed letters on 126 unlined pages. It’s a tale of helicopter crashes, suicides, improvised explosive device blasts—and the professional, spiritual and marital troubles of soldiers seeking comfort. A mixture of adrenaline and devotion keeps Benimoff focused in the theater of war. Yet over time, his spiritual foundation is shaken by the carnage. The demons surface in full once he finds more time for reflection. After joining Walter Reed last June, Benimoff was plagued by questions. “I am not sleeping well and I am still scared,” he wrote. “I was reading my Bible and I found myself getting violently mad at God.” For a brief period early this year, he came to “hate” God, and wanted nothing to do with religion.
It’s a powerful story, and one worth reading.
I’ll enjoy reading about the chaplain’s struggle with faith and doubt much more than I would the latest atheistic attack on religion, in the form of Christopher Hitchens’ new book, “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” It must be oddly comforting (for now) to have neither faith nor doubt, but certainty that there is no God. There is an excerpt from Hitchens’ book at slate.com, but providing a hot link directly to the excerpt somehow feels wrong to me in the light of Chaplain Benimoff’s honest tale.
When I was going through USCG boot camp in Alameda, Ca in 1970, our Navy Catholic chaplain was CDR (or LCDR?) McHale :) who, if I recall, resided at the nearby naval air station but was on duty on Government Island (now CG Island) during the day.
A number of years later when I was employed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, I went to Fort Campbell, KY where I conducted business at a portable chapel annex adjacent to a Catholic chapel. During lunch break, I went to Mass presided by Chaplain Nasser dressed in fatigues and combat boots :) I must say, he looked quite tired and I think he was nearing retirement.
I want to thank all our chaplains, regardless of religious affiliation, who try to “be there” for our folks in uniform, their families, civilian employees, and contractor personnel.
I’m afraid that all too often, many of us all too easily say things like “There, you can see how much God cares!” when something occurs that pleases us. This kind of talk does no longstanding service to anyone who has to confront horrors either of nature’s or of humankind’s making. If we claim to be able to read God’s will or favor from worldy events, sooner or later, at least some people are going to use the same sort of thinking to doubt or deny God. The truth is that our faith, and hope, is not dependent on any set of worldly events. Sure, we have reason to thank God for good health, for talents, for our being Catholic. But we can’t use any of these “empirical” things as part of some purported proof either about God’s being or or His attributes. At least one important part of this Newsweek story is to remind us of how our bad arguments can blow up in our faces.