Latest / Follow the Leighder / Why Military Chaplaincy Has to Be Interfaith | Chaplain Jared Anderson
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and joining me from Utah, ooh, this is gonna be a really good conversation, y'all, Jared Anderson, welcome to the studio. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Thank you. Happy to be here. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ folks, I know you're going to be humbled by this bio, by this resume. I'm real excited for this. So Jared Anderson is an inter-religious specialist or expert ⁓ currently looking at wellness design systems thinking. He heads a state level resiliency and risk reduction program for the Army National Guard, as well as serving as an Army chaplain. He applies his 20 years of teaching and chaplaincy experience to increasing the resilience and wellness of those who serve at the extremes of human experience. He is passionate about the impact of culture, navigating complex systems with wellness, and meeting each person in their distinctive human experience. His degrees are in Middle Eastern studies, religious studies, and inter-religious chaplaincy. He has studied 12 languages, taught world religions for seven years, and serves on an interfaith board of directors. Jared's experience as a chaplain in hospice, prison, hospital, behavioral health, university, and military settings informs his approach to chaplaincy and wellbeing. Thank you so much for your service and for being here. What knowledge and experience that you carry, sir. Thank you. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I love that Princess Bride quote where Inigo Montoya says, you're very good. And Wesley says, thank you. I've worked hard to become so. So I'm very grateful for my, I'm grateful for my path. I'm grateful that everything came together. Like I will embarrassingly admit that I, I'm ABD quit a PhD program in religious studies under Bart Ehrman. And I'm grateful. I'm so grateful, but I felt like a failure for a long time. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes! Yeah, yeah, no, I can imagine. But like you said, it has all led to this. And now look at what you're able to provide the experience you have. can you talk about how you came into this? Was your family military? Did your family have any sort of theological leadership background? Or how did you come into military chaplaincy? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I found military chaplaincy after the darkest moment of my life, after my second divorce, ⁓ everything kind of broke open. I was raised in a military family, military brat. My stepdad, my first stepdad was a military police officer. It was a very dark childhood, very, very difficult, but there was that familiarity, lived in Germany, Georgia, Alabama, bounced around. And I'm actually very grateful that religion was always a source of strength to me. And I playfully say that I lived in fantasy worlds, I'm on the autism spectrum, and it took divorce and chaplaincy to bring me fully into reality. I was raised Mormon or LDS, which is very useful, serving in Utah, but I do genuinely feel like I was called by God. outside of that particular faith tradition so that I could reach more people. And that has been vindicated. And so you can see by my biography that I have been, I felt driven to get as literate and aware as possible of multiple traditions. I've done a Buddhist training through Brighton Center for Oneness Buddhism. And so I'm humbly grateful that pretty much any religious preference someone has had. I can resonate with and I'm grateful that I was raised LDS because it's a very rigorous high demand religion, a very literalistic belief, similar. I think evangelicals and Mormons conflict so much similar to Jesus and the Pharisees because there's a lot of commonality, right? Like there's that proselyting, there's that enthusiasm, there's that certainty, that feeling of certainty. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: But we fight with our families. Like we fight with those that we are closest to and yet are working to become distinct from. Teaching world religions is what really shifted my own faith journey where I saw that big picture and I just didn't believe in a God anymore who'd be like, oh, it's really a shame that you're not part of that one little religion. mean, my hands are tied. So I really believe for me, God represents everything that is good and worthy and is bringing us toward that greater order. So I have a much more pluralistic approach to chaplaincy right now. And as I'm sure we'll get into, there's that paradox of chaplaincy and military chaplaincy in particular where we need to serve everyone, but we also need to come from our very specific background. So I feel fortunate that my background a bit meandering. ⁓ But I really believe it has shaped me into someone who can serve pretty much anyone, and I'm grateful for that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So let's talk about that. What did that look like in practice or what does that look like in practice since you're still serving to ⁓ serve different people? Do you get to have that opportunity at the base that you're on or is there a lot of pluralism ⁓ there? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: There is a lot of pluralism. ⁓ Utah, for better and worse, brings out extremes. The dominant LDS culture is so intense that everyone needs to raise the bar. And I really like that. So as a prison chaplain, I coordinated with religious groups consistently. And I feel like any time that one particular culture is dominant, I think it's like there's parts of the New England where it's Catholic. You know, but I feel like when there's one very strong culture, all of us need to be more aware. And I have found that in Utah in particular, people have very strong feelings about religion. Like it's difficult to be apathetic when it's in your face all the time. And I think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most effective organizations. on the entire planet. Like it's fascinating how much it is able to do both from a business perspective and a religious perspective. But there is a lot of variety. And one thing that's important to me is not to assume that you know what someone believes just because you know their religion. And I'm very sensitive to the fact of, you know, if someone's unconscious and I look at their ID tag, I don't know much about them. I can make educated guesses, but I don't actually know. So I work at the local children's hospital. Currently, I also do active duty inpatient behavioral health and the Strong Hope program. And so my favorite question, and it happens to be most intense in the children's hospital, I say, where do you go for support? And that will give me... any answer that I need. So as a chaplain, I find it helpful to keep my questions neutral and broad, kind of at that human experience level. Like, what is your relationship with your family? You know, not, where's your mom? She's dead. You know, because we don't want to make those assumptions because we're going to cause harm. And so that's, that's important where just because you know what the religion is on someone's ID tag. You don't actually know what their relationship is to that religion. And so I like asking that question a lot where it's like, what is your relationship? You know, I see your religious preference. Is it accurate? Is this what you want on your ID card? And then tell me more about it. And in hospice, especially in rural areas, I found it very interesting where members of a particular faith, they felt like they were okay and in good grace with God. but they didn't follow the rules of their religion. And as chaplains, that's not for us to judge. know, like we are not religious. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: judges. We are that non anxious presence, that non judgmental presence. That's our role. And my favorite definition of being non judgmental, because all of us are judgmental, is we just don't know the whole story. And it's similar with religion. Like even if we know someone's religious preference, we don't know the whole story until we have that talk with them. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about, like even looking at someone's dog tags, can you talk about why, for folks who are unfamiliar with the military, why is religion put on dog tags? Why is religion on a military service member's resume? What does that mean? And what does it mean for access to resources and spiritual caregiving? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Yeah, that's a great question. So the mission of the Chaplain Corps is nurture the living, care for the wounded, honor the fallen. And when we're dealing with the wounded and the fallen, those who have died, that religious information on their ID tag tells us what, like it tells the chaplain what I need to do to respect their human dignity and their preferences. And so there's the blood type and then the religion. So the idea is that if a service member is unconscious, I come to them as a chaplain. This is the only information, like I'm working with the medics, chaplains and medics work very closely together. And so the medics are like, oh, this is the blood type. And as a chaplain, I say, this is the prayer type. I can be, know, flippant dark humor comes with the territory, but I take it very seriously. And so, for example, if someone has Catholic, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: on their ID tag, I'm going to try to find a Catholic priest to perform last rites, or I'm going to read a Catholic prayer. And that's what I do in my civilian clinical chaplaincy is I will say, I am not a Catholic priest. I'm working on finding a Catholic priest. There's that perform or provide. As military chaplains, we are supposed to perform what we can. And then those areas of religious need that we ourselves can't meet, we're supposed to bring someone in. That's why we have what's called a distinctive religious group leader. And so we are supposed to bring in people who can provide for the religious needs. And so I really see it as honoring the human dignity and respect because there's a peace of mind, ⁓ readiness and a courage that comes from knowing that your identity, your preferences will be respected even if you can't speak for yourself. even if you're unconscious. And worst case, if you die in the line of duty, as a chaplain, it's my responsibility to respect their wishes. And it's their ID tag that tells me how to do that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So you talked about when someone comes to see you, you focus more on the human relationships to build a character background to get to know them a little bit more. And you've also talked about how strong, at least in Utah, ⁓ religion is. From what you've seen or just institutionally, what does someone who maybe doesn't identify with a strongly represented religion? a face someone who has a non-traditional pathway towards religion or has no religious preference at all, what does care look like for that service member? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I think this is one of the most important questions we could possibly discuss. In my experience, and I have helped dozens and dozens of people at the end of their life, like probably low hundreds at this point, and I have found that if you have some sort of relationship to religion, you will go back to it in crisis. Like even if you have a casual relationship with your faith, at the end of your life or in crisis, You want that prayer. You want that religious leader. You want your scripture. And that's why it's so important for us to talk about those who either have a traumatic relationship to religion, because that's important to name, or even a complex relationship to religion, or no preference. I imagine that in your podcast, you've talked about the nuns, know, N-O-N-E-S, that the demographic, no particular religious preference is the fastest growing demographic in the United States. And especially our military service members, like we are, we are right there. And I have found that even if someone has a particular religious identification or religious designation on their ID tag, they don't necessarily believe that. And so I think it's really important. And this is by regulation, like Army, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Chaplain regulation says that spiritual readiness, chaplain services are for those of any religion or none at all. And this is an area where I think we have room to grow in the chaplain core. And I'm sure we'll talk more about this paradox of like the chaplains in faith background versus the service member's religious background. That said, it is a fundamental part of chaplain practice to center the caregiver. And this is an interesting paradox. I like to differentiate the missionary, the religious leader, and the chaplain. We know what a missionary is, right? Like it is the missionary's job to convert someone. What's a religious leader? I think a religious leader is a poster child. And this is why we feel that deeper sense of betrayal when religious leaders fail and fall short, because at this deep intuitive level, we're like, they should be better. They should know better. And unfortunately, it's become a dark joke of like, ⁓ of course, you know, that a certain unit in the prison is right next to the chapel because all the religious leaders are in that, in that particular unit. But that's, I think, again, a religious leader, you're supposed to be an example. that tradition you're supposed to be you know, the rabbi is supposed to be an example of a good Jew, Imam, a good Muslim, pastor, so forth. Now a chaplain by regulation, we kind of become transparent, you know, like our own faith, our own background is not what it's about. A chaplain, a mentor of mine that I respect deeply said in like 25 years of active military chaplaincy, my own beliefs have only come up a few times. And that's what it's supposed to be because it's all about them. And I love that approach because our care as chaplains should be just, it should be fair, it should be respectful. That said, if someone, to put it mildly, like if someone has no religion or a particularly difficult relationship to religion, I think we have room to improve for the Chaplain Corps to know how best to provide. Now that said, the regulations I think are quite good. And Holistic Health and Fitness, FM 722, think is excellent. Chapter 10 is about spiritual readiness. And spiritual readiness, Lisa Miller, Columbia, the Awakened Brain, it's her research behind that. And I feel like The Army does a very good job defining spirituality, you know, that connection, meaning, purpose, values, resilience, identity, all of those things. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: But I think from a chaplain perspective, there are differences of opinion as far as like, is religion our focus or is spirituality our focus or is human care our focus? Now I agree with secretary Hegseth that chaplains are not primarily therapists and we could get more into that. The function of religion, like I love looking at the engine of spirituality and religion. You know, that's what a lot of these books are about is like, what are the mechanisms of spirituality? How does it work? How does it interact with the human experience? And I love being a chaplain. It's existential. As a chaplain, we work in the areas of what is taken for granted, what is assumed, what is most important. And so all of us have worldviews where we're like, this is what's worth living and dying for. This is what makes a meaningful or a good life. And so it's in that space that chaplains work, including military chaplains. And so I love again, lifting the hood, like I don't care what color your car is, but it's like, how does the engine work? How does your spirituality work? How does your religion work? How are you coping with the human experience? And if we, this is actually my answer to how we provide care for those of no religious preference. is by meeting the human needs. One more thing that I think is fantastic, I was interviewing a unit commander and he said, I want to implement this as far as I can, that during church they have a character training. And so you can either go to church or this character training. It's not like it's an optional 30 minutes where you're smoking in the motor pool. or something, you know, like if you're not in church, but that's brilliant. And so I think that all of us as chaplains, we are ethical advisors to command as well. That's another one of our really big roles is that we should advocate, because normally what happens, like the irony is everyone thinks they're squared away when it comes to spiritual readiness, because either they like church, they go to church, they think they're spiritual ready, or they don't like church. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And they think spirituality is not for them. They're spiritual, but not religious, but they're like, oh yeah, I'm good. I don't need that. Whereas I think if we break down into the ingredients of spirituality and religion, we can meet everyone's needs. And so that's the main thing. Like I oversee 85 units and I conduct these surveys about areas of risk and struggles. And almost every single soldier says, I need help. I need help with relationships. I need help with money. And I need help with resilience. And it is not common knowledge that when we say resilience, ready and resilient, that's literally the motto of the resiliency directorate that I'm part of. We don't know what that means. And people are going to have very, very different understandings of the intersection of spirituality and resilience. But Lisa Miller in her research found that spirituality has like an 80 to 90 % protectiveness factor against depression, self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide. So to kind of bring that together, spirituality is what makes us most fundamentally human. And I think one of the challenges of providing for the needs of those who do not affiliate with religion is how do they navigate their own spiritual needs? if they may or not be aware. And as chaplains, we should be experts in that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, absolutely. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I know that was a lot. Leigh/@followtheleighder: the demographics or the statistics of the religious makeup of either the general force, the chaplain corps, ⁓ and then I know you're in Utah, this could be for Utah or general tendencies, but ⁓ who's serving in our military? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: So it's interesting, like Utah is exceptional. And I do feel like I need to say again that just because something is on someone's religious preference, it does not speak to what their relationship is. So I talked to a lot of my soldiers who there's one thing on their dog tag, but they're like, I actually don't know what I believe, or like, I just put this for my mom, or, you know, so there is that. However, The national average of just religion in general is about 60 % Christian of that, about 40 % Protestant, 20 % Catholic. The biggest difference is we are currently 24 to 28 % unaffiliated, these nuns that we're talking about. And I haven't looked carefully at the demographics, but I would imagine that in the military, it falls roughly according to that. Utah is different. And then non-Christian religions, between about 6 to 9%. Now, in the Utah Army National Guard, we are about 54 % Latter-day Saint, which may be higher or lower than you would think. And then we're about 18 % Protestant and 11 % none. So that's still quite significant, you over 10 % of our force is none. And then 9 % Catholic, 3 % unknown, over 200 pagans and the Utah Army National Guard. You know, that's getting more popular. 90 other 50 Buddhists, 30 Jewish, 20 Muslim, 10 Hindu, kind of surprised that we have 10 Hindu. And in the chaplain core, every single chaplain is LDS. except for two. And so that's super interesting. There's more religious diversity among the chaplain assistants, the religious affairs specialists, because, and we can probably get into like the making of a military chaplain, which is where it's coming from. So religious affairs specialist or the chaplain assistants do not need to have any particular kind of like religious background or endorser, but every single chaplain needs to have a particular Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Okay. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: religious endorsers. So in our case, pretty much, so it's very interesting where about 50 % of our force is LDS, but almost all of our chaplains are LDS. And I think it's similar nationally. I haven't looked at the recent numbers, but I think over 70 % of military chaplains are evangelical Christian, whereas about 15 % of service members are. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: evangelical Christians. So there's this wildly disproportionate where I think we can say fairly that the chaplain core is dominated by the dominant religions. And then the service members break down more with the broader religious demographics. Like that would make sense because the chaplain core, are self-selecting into positions of religious leadership. So we're super excited about our religion. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-mm. All right. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Whereas service members, are all sorts of reasons that we joined the military. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why. It doesn't surprise me that it's the numbers that they are, but it does make me wonder, particularly in the general force, you said 28. mean, we're coming up on a third of the force not having a religious identification. it's striking to me because then it becomes. what happens when they need care, what does that look like? ⁓ That is a chunk of people. That is not a non, that is a non insignificant representation. I feel like you have something to say. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I think it's even more urgent than that because I think that we've been raised by consumerism and credit cards for the past 80 years. so, and I think that's part of the reason why you have the spiritual but not religious, no preference is like, oh, I'm good, I have an Xbox. And I'm being somewhat playful, but this is a very real problem and challenge because I don't think and data, show this, I do not think that we as a force are as spiritually ready, existentially resilient as before. Because in previous wars, I mean, we don't need to get lost in the weeds, but World War II was like a classic easy example, right? There was a much more cohesive identity of like, what does it mean to be American? What does it mean? Like very problematic. But the point that I want to make is like not only do these like 30 % have no religious preference, but that means that they have not articulated what is my why. And this is the main focus of the trainings that I give is you've probably seen Hacksaw Ridge. That's one of my all time favorite movies. And I like to highlight Desmond Dawes, Seventh-day Adventist, Andrew Garfield is an amazing human being. And I take apart the three things he says on that ridge. He says, one more, just one more. Like that's his why or his what, like what he's doing. And then he says, help me, help me get one more. And then of course he's addressing God. Please God, help me get one more. And so I like asking service members, what's yours? What is your phrase? What is going to get you through your hardest moments? ⁓ Do you know who Brandon Sanderson is? Like one of the most famous fantasy authors. So he has this suicide prevention coin. It has 988, the suicide prevention line. or number, and it has a line from one of his books that says, you will be warm again. And ever since I taught world religion, and he also has this really cool oath. He has this oath that you have to sign to like dedicate yourself to your life, like really powerful. And I'm getting somewhere important here because ever since I taught world religions, I've been obsessed with this question, if not religion, then what? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And this is the answer that chaplains need to help service members get to. If you do not like, how do you meet your existential needs? How do you meet your resilience needs? How do you meet your meaning, purpose, value, identity, belonging, like all of these elements of spirituality, how do you meet them? And so one of my favorite resources is called Nerd HQ. It's related to Zachary Levi. He was very depressed. therapy helped him, so Nerd HQ provides free therapy. And one of the most important things that I've learned in my suicide prevention training, and again, this is a great thing to address in this conversation, is specificity saves lives. Specificity saves lives. And religion, for better and worse, gives you specificity. Like the stronger the religion is, it will tell you what to do with your clothes. It will tell you what to do with your food. It will give you all these details. Whereas if you do not have a religious preference, which as we've discussed, we're looking at 30 % of our citizens and our force, I think that is the most urgent thing that chaplains can provide, is to help them get to their specifics of what will get you through your hardest moment. And it's gonna be a real test. And so what I love about Nerd HQ, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, it will. Yeah. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: is they say like, find your nerd. And I have a family day coming up and I'm gonna do a game where it's like, what are you embarrassingly excited about? What are you like awkwardly enthusiastic about? Like you love plants, I wanna hear about it. You love crocheting, I wanna hear about it. And so what I do in my work is I find what people are already excited about and I mine those areas for resources. So for example, ⁓ X-Men Days of Future Past has this line that is scripture for me. Have you seen it? So Professor X of the X-Men is talking to his future self. There's a time travel element. And young Professor X says to old Professor X, their pain overwhelms me. And older Professor X says, it's not their pain you're afraid of, Charles. It's your own. And as difficult as it is, if you open yourself to that pain, you will be more powerful than you can imagine. And this is the line. This is the line that is scripture for me. It is the greatest gift we can give to bear their pain without breaking. And I feel like that's the work of chaplains. That's the work of us as human beings is to bear each other's pain without breaking. And so in my trainings, I straight up ask, what is your inspiration? What are your favorite songs? What are your favorite quotes? ⁓ You know, who are your favorite characters? Because when some 20 year old is on the front line of whatever battle, you know, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I want them to remember that they're inspired by Hermione or Gandalf or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, like whatever it is. that's, it doesn't replace religion. I'm not pretending that it will, but I think all of us need to tap into our deepest sources of resilience. But again, chaplains need to be open to that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, that and I like to your comment on chaplains needing to learn other faiths to be more effective. I mean, this is a multi-faith workforce. We don't have an established religion. And coming into this, like you said, everyone has different motivations for why they serve. They're not largely religious, but the underlying theological, I don't know, the underlying worldview. deserves to be cared for by merit of them raising their hands. ⁓ And it is a really interesting just conversation because the military seeks to uniform its troops to dehumanize and to make uniform its troops so that they serve as part of this machine. They follow orders, there's no questioning. I almost like in this take we're talking and just and you can't afford questioning on the front lines. religious, religion, faith, conscience, worldviews, like those are the one thing you can't make uniform. And even if you have a whole bunch of people in the same congregation, you're going to get different views, ⁓ slightly different takes. But what does it look like to be so dynamic, ⁓ to tend to different views? And have you heard of things going sideways for some folks? Have there been issues with pluralism or what does it look like to manage that one aspect of the military that can't be made uniform? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Your phrase dehumanize jumped out at me. ⁓ One of the things that I take most seriously as a chaplain is our role, our mission is exactly that, to protect the humanity, to protect and preserve the humanity of the force. are ethical, know, ethical advisors to command. And you rightly touch on this paradox of how can we make our force uniform enough to accomplish the mission while also protecting humanity and dignity. I war is hell. War is a terrible, terrible thing. And I'll make this joke because it's important. I used to not understand war crimes. It just seems so absurd to me where it's like, good, good, sir, if it is not too much of a hassle, would you please kill these 50,000 people like so? rather than like, so it seemed absurd to me until I realized that war kills humans. War crimes kill humanity. And that's the paradox that we're wrestling with as a chaplain corps. And it's a terrible thing. It's a terrible reality that as a chaplain. I am tasked to help our nation fight and win its wars, right? ⁓ While also protecting as much humanity and dignity as possible. And I think one of the biggest challenges to answer your question is I think a lot of service members don't understand what the role of a chaplain is. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: because they just assume, ⁓ yeah, that religion is, or that chaplain is that particular religion, or they just want to talk to me about religious stuff. And very often service members will turn to chaplains because they don't really have anyone else. Chaplains, as you're aware, are the most embedded helper in the military, especially in the army, where we are deployed, we are front lines, we jump out of like we are emotional service animals, like we are right with them in what they're doing. And so like go talk to the chaplain is very normal. Like it's a very normal thing to say like, ⁓ yeah, you're struggling with your marriage, you're depressed, and this is also very important. I would need to look at the statistics, but like psychological casualties are the number one thing that we're seeing. is people who are pulled back from the front lines because they don't have the resilience, they don't have the mindset, they don't have the mental health to accomplish the mission. So this is so urgent. And behavioral health helps, but chaplains again are the most integrated force. And so I think the soldiers, sorry, service members, ⁓ the service members can understand what a chaplain can do for them. And I think a chaplain also needs to understand how to provide for that service member. One of the most poignant situations I had is I was doing a unit visit after a really, after an arrest. Like there was a betrayal of a member of that unit. And this very specialized soldier, he was in military intelligence, you know. counterintelligence. So it's very much in this complex area of human behavior. And he said, I don't need a religious leader right now. I need a chaplain. And I think that line captures so much of what we're talking about. So again, I think I put the responsibility on the chaplains. I think we as chaplains need to be aware of the diversity of religious expression, right? ⁓ And I think that we need to earn the service members trust. And I have one of the most surprising things is I have had multiple soldiers go to me and say, I don't want to talk to a chaplain of my own faith, because I know what they'll tell me about my bad habits, about my divorce, about Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: about this. Like, I know what my religion believes. Like, I don't need, and I say this so respectfully, like this is just about the work and it's about what works. It's ironic. Like, I have found that you would think, now granted with religious services, sure, obviously, like we want the chaplain that can provide for the religious services, but there are already distinctive religious group leaders. Like, the services will be taken care of. In the day to day, in my experience, military chaplains are closest to hospital chaplains. Because as a hospital chaplain, I walk into a room, I don't know what's going on. The people who go to a chaplain are the ones who are struggling, not the ones who are totally cool with everything going on in their lives. And so I need to find out what's going on in that person's life. And then I need to find out what their, this is too brief, but I like the summary that social workers and therapists connect you to external resources, chaplains connect you to internal resources. And so as a chaplain, my role, and also we connect to external resources, but our main lane is to connect our service members to their own internal resources. And so if a chaplain has a stereotyped or biased understanding, which we all do, we just need to deal with it and compensate for it, If we have a particular like, ⁓ this service member is my same faith, I'm going to make assumptions and judgments about what that looks like. So there are these two paradoxes where if a service member is of our same faith, because it's worth saying out loud, as I'm sure you have in other episodes, that every single military chaplain needs to have a very specific religious endorser. That is not true in most civilian chaplaincy. In most civilian chaplaincy, chaplains are interfaith. Like I am an interfaith chaplain. Like it doesn't matter what my own background is, I'm just going to take care of you. Whereas because military chaplains need specific religious endorsers, and I have been asked, you know, like, who's your endorser? What's your background? All of this kind of thing. There's that challenge of... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. All right. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: if you are the same faith background, you're gonna make assumptions. And then if you are different faith backgrounds, ⁓ there's going to be challenges. And so I think the solution is humility, like a humble competence where we don't make those assumptions and we stay curious. And that's why I love asking soldiers, tell me, like again, like where do you go to support? That's gonna give me... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: for support, that's gonna give me the most important answers. But I asked like, tell me about your relationship to religion. know, like tell me about your relationship with church or whatever. You know, like what's your background? So those broader non-assuming questions. And then very often they're like, ⁓ yeah, you know, my congregation is great. I go here and I love my leader. Cool. Like they're gonna be taken care of, but they're gonna be taken care of no matter what, including by their own religious leaders. And that's a final, maybe not final, but. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Right. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: That's another urgency around the non-affiliated service members because the affiliated service members connect to the chaplain easily and they also have their own faith leaders. And chaplains are so important because we understand the particular military culture, you know, but I think this is a really urgent need. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and you did talk about the differences between the chaplains and the therapists and your agreement with Secretary Hegset that ⁓ chaplains are not therapists and they have become that over time. How do you feel about any sort of clinical training or CPE training for chaplains? What does that look like? And no, they aren't therapists, but there is some stuff that they should know in the counseling mental health world. What kind of education or training does that look like? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: and you've seen. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And that's a great question. And I think there's an overlap, of course, with traditional therapy and chaplaincy or pastoral counseling. And this is, we could go down the rabbit hole of like the histories of both and the weird problem. Like there's so many interesting things about the history of therapy. And one thing I love about chaplaincy, religion and spirituality, is that it taps into that deeper human wisdom, right? And I think it's very powerful and I'm humbled by how efficient chaplaincy is. Because a therapist, you know, there's that therapeutic relationship, there's the modalities, there's all of that. like therapy is fantastic, it's important, it's helpful. As a chaplain, I just get to be present. again, in someone's deepest worldview and most urgent needs. Now, getting directly to your question, there's a power and a responsibility there because we're working in that area of what's taken for granted, what's assumed, we need to be clinically trained and competent enough to understand how how religion works, how spirituality works, how the mechanism of our therapy works. And this is an area that, civilian chaplains are required to have clinical pastoral education. so this is like units or hundreds of hours of clinical training. The military does not require that at this point. And one thing on my wish list, around military chaplaincy is I wish there were a clinical path. It would have made a huge difference in my own life. I had much more clinical experience than I congregational experience. And I think this would actually solve the problem is, because when you apply to be a military chaplain, you have a ministry history. You talk about how many prayers you've given, how many funerals and weddings and all of that. So it is in the pattern of congregational leadership. Like the military draws congregational religious leaders and puts them in uniform and makes them chaplains. Like that's how it currently works. Do these chaplains have clinical experience? I don't know. Like that's not required. And so I think if there were, I think it's too much to say there needs to be like a clinical requirement. because I think it's okay that there are different approaches to chaplaincy, but the other missing step would be there would need to be an ability to connect the right chaplain for the right job. And so if something were more religious realm, take the more pastoral chaplain. But with the clinical issues, and this is the most haunting and important summary that I got from clinical pastoral education. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And I'm a board certified chaplain. Like, is care beyond competence does harm? and I think this is a summary of the entire conversation, is there are religious assumptions and power that come from being a religious chaplain. And I think our realm, our lane should be religious, existential, spiritual, whatever you wanna call it. But if there's a clinical need, there should be clinical care. And so I think that clinically minded chaplains should be empowered. and supported and so again just connected with that. So I think if there were a clearer way to identify and support those chaplains like myself who have that clinical training, I mean, there are also like chaplains who are therapists, you know, they may have that training and I do think that we need to stay in our lane and keep focused but this is just part of that assessment that perform and provide of Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: what is needed in this moment, like suicide prevention, which is my full-time job, chaplains play a very, very important role in suicide prevention. And so I think, again, it goes too far to say that all military chaplains need to have CPE. Now, as you're aware, well, most chaplains have a Master of Divinity degree and most Master of Divinity programs require one unit of clinical pastoral education. So there's already like lots have like that one unit. That said, and I think it'd be fine to say like every single military chaplain should have like a single unit of CPE or like ⁓ a single clinical certification or something, but not necessarily. Like I think if a military chaplain feels called, to have that like very focused pastoral congregational lane, they would just need to have the self-awareness and the humility to say, if a soldier comes to me with a problem that is not in my, you know, that is not an area of my competence, I'm going to find someone who is. Does that make sense? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, yeah, no, it absolutely is. I'm, I liked what you said, that care beyond competence causes harm. ⁓ It's an overextension. It's a lack of humility ⁓ is really what it is. And ⁓ I think... Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And chaplains are put, it's systemic as well. Like the position chaplains are put in, like chaplains are embedded with our service members in a way that no one else is. like, especially deployed, there is no one else. And so that, so again, I think these considerations should be taken into account when you're deploying chaplains and things like that. I think like it's just a basic military answer. that you make sure that the resources are sufficient to the mission, right? And one thing that intrigues me about religion is religion seems to be an exception to like all of the different rules, right? Well, this is all religions believe that they are above human institutions. That's fascinating. And so for example, This is an interesting poignant paradox. If you ask many people what's more important, God or the Constitution, like for most people, it aligns. Like we are a very theistic country. Robert Bela talks about that national religion of kind of this therapeutic deism. We don't need to get lost in that, but there is some sort of like Christian adjacent theism in our country, you know, the book. American grace talks about that. Exactly. So there is that assumption. But I think there's a real risk with military chaplaincy. Is my endorser or is the military regulation more, you know, like what is the hierarchy there? And the answer, the functional answer is that Leigh/@followtheleighder: God bless America. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: chaplains fulfill their military role within the bounds of their endorser, which is interesting. But I think all of this could be solved the same way all military problems are solved if you just match the strengths of the chaplain with the needs of the mission. But that's too idealistic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: it is. Okay. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: because there just aren't enough chaplains. There's roughly one chaplain to a thousand service members. And so, but at the same time, I think any commander or any mission could say, like, we're going to have these particular challenges in this deployment. Like, let's just make sure that our service members can get their needs met. And the chaplain could have a varying role in that depending on their background. and expertise. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, I'm bitter that we are coming to the end of our conversation for today, but I would love to have you back if you'd like. I don't want to put you on the spot, but this has been such a rich conversation. And I feel like we've asked great questions that each one of them could have been an episode. I I could have, you could have expanded on so much. And again, thank you for your service to our country and to our service members and for being a sort of. spiritual Swiss Army knife, if you will, an ideological worldview Swiss Army knife so that you can be the tool that our diverse military forces need. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: Yep, thanks for having me on. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Can you tell folks where they can learn more about you or like, you know, learn? ⁓ Do you have a blog or any kind of work you're working on? Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: I'm working on a lot of things. At this point, the easiest way to find me is extreme chaplain. I'm proud of that handle. So that's at extreme chaplain and I'm on YouTube, Instagram, know, tick tock, we're gonna other things, but that's you can at least message me and find out more. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That is terrific. Thank you for your voice and for your advocacy and just being open, I think, in a world that really wants to close and draw a lot of clear, I don't know. ⁓ It just seems that you're staying open when there's a lot of people who are closing off from one another and I appreciate that. Jared Anderson, Army Chaplain: And one thing that's poignant is the answers are there. Like it's clear in regulation, you know, and I personally love that wrestle of hierarchy of values, hierarchy of allegiances. And I think that's something that each of us needs to figure out and navigate. And I'm grateful to be part of that conversation. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ wow. certainly needs your voice. Well, folks, this was Jared Anderson again, joining us from Utah, Army National Guard chaplain, and of course, many other chaplain. We have prison and hospital and behavioral health. So certainly a wellspring of chaplaincy experience and knowledge. Y'all, let me know what y'all thought of this conversation down in the comments. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. Y'all know the drill. This has been another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and until next time, see ya. ⁓