Photo by Diego González on Unsplash

 The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging the Defense Health Agency, the Department of Defense and staff at Walter Reed Hospital to end coercive religious programming and activities. 

A Walter Reed employee informed FFRF that during the week of March 17, an email went out to all Walter Reed Hospital staff inviting them to a recurring “Soul Care Bible Study.” The program was billed as “a spiritual readiness program that supports the Defense Health Agency Director’s spiritual pillar of readiness.” The invitation asserted that the “Department of Defense recognizes that Spiritual Fitness is an essential area that requires some training and development for DoD personnel to be healthy, fit and resilient.” The invitation describes “Spiritual Fitness” as “one of the major components of the Total Force Fitness Framework, first established by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” FFRF learned that chaplains would encourage staff members to wash their hands with Holy Water. 

“The overtly religious practices taking place at Walter Reed are unnecessarily divisive and coercive,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle Steinberg writes. 

By offering bible study, Walter Reed and the Department of Defense show that Christians (especially those who subscribe to their selected bible version) have preferential status in the nation’s armed services. Blatant endorsement of Christian beliefs disrespects our proud military community — especially those who do not share the DoD’s belief. About 30 percent of individuals in the armed forces have no religious affiliation or identify with a religious belief other than Christianity. 

Discussing religion risks dividing the armed forces community among different sects and between believers and nonbelievers. It can disrupt unit cohesion and distract from the “shared purpose” of protecting American interests and freedoms. The Department of Defense cannot express religious favoritism or sponsor religious activity. It cannot contort the mission of the armed forces to support religious beliefs that align with those of its leaders. DoD and DHA policy should focus on universal, secular directives and their shared purpose of constitutional freedom.

Religion by compulsion further defies the ideals that our armed forces community stands by and defends. DHA signals that to reach full “readiness” and military excellence, individuals must pass faith-based standards. In essence, the DHA policy denotes that good soldiers are Christian soldiers; fitness for duty requires fitness of faith. Such mandated orthodoxy is plainly un-American and unconstitutional. DHA’s sponsorship of religious activity would require more from its employees than is necessary and more than the Constitution allows.

To respect the Constitution and the First Amendment rights of all members of the military community, FFRF asserts that the DHA must refrain from sponsoring bible studies.

“Theocrats are embedding Christian nationalism into the highest levels of government, and the effects are already being felt,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “America is not a Christian nation, and it certainly does not need members of the armed forces to be ‘spiritually fit’ in order to serve.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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