We’re Glad You Made It
This week, in our Unbelief Brief we look at the Pentagon’s decision to dramatically reduce the number of religious identities recognized by the military—a move that raises questions about secularism, religious privilege, and who gets counted.
Unbelief Brief
The Department of Defense has updated and significantly shortened the list of religions military service members can identify themselves with. The previous list, which included over 200 designations, has been reduced to just 30. About two-thirds of them are different sects and denominations of Christianity.
This move is interesting in a few ways: its implications for the non-religious, what it says about the Trump Administration’s vision for the relationship between religion and state, and its reminder that Christians in the US are not a harmonious monolith.
First, much has been made of the removal of numerous faith classifications such as paganism, Wicca, and Unitarian Universalism. Also included in those removals is atheism. Atheist groups have expressed alarm over this, ourselves included, but it’s worth pausing to reflect on what hasn’t been removed: the choice of both “agnostic” and “no religion” are still available to service members.
The choice to keep agnosticism while removing atheism (and, remarkably, deism) is a curious one. The Defense Department has not gone quite as far as some Muslim-majority countries which refuse to acknowledge the legal legitimacy of non-belief, but it is noteworthy that the new list classifies the 30 categories as “recognized religions” for the first time ever. This new label does create some complications in terms of how chaplains would be directed to provide—or not provide—spiritual care to service members who do not fit neatly into the remaining boxes.
The Department claims the reclassification is essentially about streamlining a “bloated” list, but Secretary Hegseth’s own comments in March about “secular humanism” “infecting” the chaplain corps suggest it’s about more than that. The care and attention paid to Christian denominations in the new list while collapsing or removing other belief systems is not out of character for this administration. Earlier this year, a commission created by the Administration attacked “so-called separation of church and state” as an infringement on religious liberties. Secretary Hegseth praises an avowed “Christian nationalist” and invites him to Department functions. It is clear the Administration’s vision here is to turn Christianity into a de-facto state religion.
Thus, while atheist service members can still select “no religion,” the move as a whole seems designed to push atheists and the non-religious back to the margins. It seems Mormons also felt sidelined: the initial list of changes used the explicit label of “Christian” to describe all its Christian denominations except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Among others, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah expressed strong indignation over this, demanding a “correction.” The administration later fulfilled this request by removing the “Christian” label from the other Christian faiths. A sectarian dispute successfully averted! The open hostility to secularism on display here is worrisome, but arguments between religious sects over whose imaginary belief system is correct remain amusing to watch. Perhaps, given another couple thousand years, Mormons and other Christians—or Sunnis and Shias, for that matter—will realize whose indisputable truth is the most indisputable.
Lastly, we'd like to take a moment to honor the passing of Iranian and French author and film director Marjane Satrapi. One of the most prominent Iranian atheist figures, she is also renowned as a film director and the mind behind comic books like Persepolis. Following the recent death of her longtime husband, her family has stated that she “died of sadness” on the 4th of June.
Of religion, Satrapi once said: “I don't need it. I respect humanity. That's my religion.” We would do well to honor her memory by recalling this wisdom, which is so simple yet so difficult to grasp for far too many fanatics and zealots.
Until next week,
The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America
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