A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, and evangelicals among its ranks. Enlisting Faith traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. Moving from the battlefields of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam and between the forests of Civilian Conservation Corps camps and meetings in government offices, Ronit Y. Stahl reveals how the military borrowed from and battled religion. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition as American faiths. At times the state used religion to advance imperial goals. But religious citizens pushed back, challenging the state to uphold constitutional promises and moral standards. Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, the federal government authorized and managed religion in the military. The chaplaincy demonstrates how state leaders scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexities. While officials debated which clergy could serve, what insignia they would wear, and what religions appeared on dog tags, chaplains led worship for a range of faiths, navigated questions of conscience, struggled with discrimination, and confronted untimely death. Enlisting Faith is a vivid portrayal of religious encounters, state regulation, and the trials of faith—in God and country—experienced by the millions of Americans who fought in and with the armed forces.

Raised in a Catholic family in the Pacific Northwest, author Robert Willis learned to obey two judges: his father, a county superior court judge, and God. He joined the Jesuits, hoping to please both. The 1960s revolution tested his unthinking obedience to authorities-paternal, religious, and political-as the immorality of the Vietnam War troubled his conscience and the Second Vatican Council challenged his position in the modern world. When his efforts to stop the war led him to Vietnam, he knew he had to break the chains that bound him to the past. Willis's path took him to the nascent human potential movement in California. Experiencing its healing power, he joined Carl Rogers and colleagues at the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla while simultaneously pursuing a doctorate in psychology at San Diego's United States International University. In his teaching and practice of psychotherapy, Willis emphasized the crucial importance of the healing relationship. In its depths, he felt the presence of the Spirit of God. In his personal life, together with a woman who touches his soul, he meets the God of love. The chains, at last, lie broken.