Brian Kaylor and Jeremy Fuzy: ‘Chaplains’ for Christian Nationalism
Bloggers at A Public Witness, Brian Kaylor and Jeremy Fuzy look at the problems with the new push for uncertified “chaplains” in public schools.
Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill to allow the state’s public schools to bring in volunteer, unlicensed religious chaplains to counsel students. As he became only the second governor to approve such a school chaplaincy program, he insisted it was wrong to not allow religious groups to counsel students in public schools.
“No one’s being forced to do anything, but to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination,” DeSantis said. “You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended.”
With that argument against excluding religious groups, DeSantis might have problems with comments made last week by a key politician who sounded off on the proposal: … checks notes … Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Now, some have said that if you do a school chaplain program, that somehow you’re going to have Satanists running around in our schools,” DeSantis said. “We’re not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion, that is not qualified to be able to participate in this. So we’re going to be using common sense when it comes to this.”
With his contradictory remarks that violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against religious establishment, DeSantis took an already controversial idea and injected it with steroids.
But, the writers point out, folks are a little fuzzy on what it means to be a chaplain.
With his contradictory remarks that violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against religious establishment, DeSantis took an already controversial idea and injected it with steroids.
This training includes things like a graduate degree in ministry or theology, a practical component consisting of a Clinical Pastoral Education residency, official endorsement by a religious or spiritual body, and thousands of hours of work experience in the field. And all of this is just a prerequisite to sit for board certification through the Association of Professional Chaplains, in which a chaplain must demonstrate 29 defined competencies of spiritual care and mastery of a Common Code of Ethics that outlines norms and expectations.