Strueker said on the front lines, complaints against chaplains are very rare. “Sharing the Scriptures with somebody who’s about take their last breath on a battlefield are the kind of complaints people that are way back in the rear make,” Strueker added. “The guys that are on the battlefield don’t ever make those kind of complaints to me as a chaplain.”

FORT BENNING, Ga. — “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was once a term used to refer to homosexuals in the military. Now, however, the term is more often being applied to Christians in uniform.

Military chaplains are feeling the pressure to conform to the new reality, as some label biblical values “hate speech.”

Chaplains have been an integral part of the military throughout our nation’s history, bringing hope to the living and comfort to the dying.

Now some chaplains are coming under fire from official government policy and must choose between their consciences and their commander’s orders.

A Faith at Odds
The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” worried the chaplains who follow the biblical view of same-sex relationships. Congress then stepped in, passing a bill that guaranteed the rights of all military personnel to exercise their faith.

Ron Crews, head of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, said the result of that legislation is that “chaplains can be chaplains.”

“They can, in fact, bring their faith to the table in their work,” he said.

Crews served as an Army chaplain for 21 years.

“Chaplains, and not only chaplains but all service members, cannot receive recriminations for living out their faith in the military,” he said. “We want not only chaplains but all those who serve to be able to exercise the religious liberties that they are putting their lives on the line for.”

Despite the law, many Christians, and especially chaplains, often find themselves at odds with military leadership.

“I got an email from a chaplain in Afghanistan who preached a sermon for his unit out of 1 Peter, talking about the last days and the fact that there would be a rise in homosexuality during the last days,” Crews said.

“He got called into his commander’s office, he got told, ‘You cannot preach out of that text,'” Crews said. “He wound up getting a bad OR from that commander in the war zone.”

Exploding Controversy
Another example of this tension happened recently at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade. A chaplain was asked to give a suicide prevention class. But what happened next exploded in controversy.

Capt. Joe Lawhorn serves as chaplain for the 5th Ranger Training Battalion based at Fort Benning. He was asked to lead a class on suicide prevention at the Mountain Ranger Camp.

In addition to covering the Army-wide curriculum, he cited his own experience and shared his personal struggle with depression.

“And so he gave his rangers a handout,” Crews said. “On one side was all of the resources available to military personnel. On the other side, though, he said, ‘I want to tell you that this is what worked for me.'”

What was on the reverse side were referrals to Christian counseling services.

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