The Sword of the Lord: Military Chaplains from the First to the Twenty-First Century [Hardcover]

The Sword of the Lord exploresthe development of the military chaplaincy across history and geography and shows the legacy of these devoted men.

From the first to the twenty-first century, from Europe to North America, the military chaplaincy has existed in a recognizable form for more than 1,600 years. The Sword of the Lord analyzes specific historical moments in the development of the chaplaincy, beginning in antiquity and progressing through the Crusades, the English Civil War, the American Civil War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. The book also includes vivid accounts by two former chaplainsan American rabbi who served in World War II and an American Catholic priest who served in Vietnam. This remarkable work treats with care and sensitivity a fascinating and important topic, serving as a record of these mens lives as well as raising important questions about morality and faith in the face of war.

Surveying the history of the military chaplaincy is only part of what this book does. The authors also concern themselves with more immediate questions about military chaplains in specific settings. What do chaplains do? What do those they serve want from them? Addressing these questions, one cannot help but be impressed and moved, in Paul Fussells words, by the appallingly difficult job of military chaplains in increasingly secular societies.

The intensity of wartime and the omnipresence of death haunt the work of the military chaplain. Perhaps a soldiers words are the best introduction to the emotional and spiritual neediness that chaplains confront. During the American Civil War, a fourteen-year-old girl asked her brother, a young Indiana lawyer fighting for the Union, what it felt like to be in battle. His reply conveyed a desperate spirituality:

There is no man, however brave he may be, who does not when the storm begins to rage fiercest around him; when he sees a friend on the right and another olã)