William McCoy
edein, 2007.
Topic: Spirituality

Under Orders is subtitled “A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel,” has a rare endorsement from active duty General Petraeus, and is written by an experienced chaplain. It has exemplary reviews on various websites. It seems like an excellent reference for a military Christian.

It’s not.

The book’s intended audience are those who are non-religious, non-church-going, depressed, or traumatized. Nothing is said to those who already have a spiritual faith.

Chaplain McCoy, who is sponsored by the Lutheran denomination, doesn’t speak confidently about his own faith. In fact, he has little positive to say about the Christian faith at all. He belittles fellow Christians with side comments about evangelical “hurdles,” “rules,” and “righteousness.” The Chaplain advocates spirituality above Christianity, as if something is better than nothing, and explicitly states that there are “alternative” ways to God:

• “It is important for you to believe in a god.” (p78)
• “It will be your decision as to whether you want to be religious as a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Methodist.” (p57)
• “Your convictions are just as good as the next person’s convictions.” (p86)

In so doing, the Chaplain undermines the legitimacy of his own faith by actively supporting views that are inconsistent with Christianity. To the Chaplain, Christianity is just one more world religion. The “Gospel”–always capitalized but never explained–is an abstract secret ingredient that “is meant to give you a word of hope.” (p207) More importantly, he holds a decidedly unChristian view of one of the central tenets of Christianity:

Christ came into the world so that people could be saved from “being redundant and meaningless, that people might have lives of significance and meaning rather than emptiness and sorrow.” (p211)

With regard to “spiritual” living, ostensibly one primary purpose of a “spiritual handbook,” his advice is infrequent, vague, and self-centric.

“Living a life of worshipping God is not about you becoming like someone who carries a Bible in your [unit]. Its about you feeling at ease…” (p208)

He gives no advice on how to live a life of faith in the military; rather, he “encourages” people to persevere until they can leave the military. When challenged, rather than encouraging people to make the hard choices in accordance with the tenets of their faith, the Chaplain suggests they search for a religion that fits their lifestyle.

“If my theology doesn’t integrate how I interact with people then I should drop it and begin searching for one that does.” (p106)

Less importantly, the book is also rife with less than stellar grammar and formatting. (It appears to be self-published and poorly edited.) There are unsupported theses, redundant sentences, and dozens of unexplained (and irrelevant) pop culture references. There is even a simple Bible story retold with basic errors. Such faults may be overlooked if there are other redeeming qualities; they compound the negatives of a book that does not.

It is possible to argue that it is appropriate for a military Chaplain to write a “non-sectarian” book, or one that promotes no particular religion. This can be done, though, without compromising one’s own faith or proposing the validity of the truth claims in all.

Not recommended. This book is not addressed to Christians, and it is written by a Christian Chaplain who undermines not only his own faith, but also that of his readers. This “spiritual handbook” provides no spiritual guidance for military Christians.

This book is available from Amazon. (This site is an Amazon Associate and may earn from qualifying purchases made through Amazon referrals.)

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