Read an Aug. 21, 2007, Christianity Today article about parachurch groups’ outreach to troops and their families.

View an April 4, 2008, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly story about Army chaplain training.

Read a June 25, 2008, New York Times story about allegations of religious pressure at the Army and Navy service academies.

Read a transcript of a July 3, 2008, interview with George Washington University church-state expert Robert Tuttle about current issues of faith in the military, posted at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Read an Aug. 29, 2008, American Forces Press Service story from the U.S. Department of Defense about Muslim chaplains.

Read a 2004 report that includes religious preferences in the military (see Page 25). The report found that service personnel were less likely than the general population to have a religious affiliation.

Read the U.S. Department of Defense Directive 1300.17, which governs the accommodation of religious practices in the military services.

Daniel Smith-Christopher is professor of theological studies and director of peace studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He served for two years in volunteer peace research in Israel/Palestine in the late 1980s. His publications include Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions and Jonah, Jesus and Other Good Coyotes: Speaking Peace […]

Joseph Prabhu is a philosophy professor at California State University, Los Angeles. His interests include comparative religion and social and political theory. He is the author of Liberating Gandhi: Community, Empire and a Culture of Peace.