Captain Tim Riemann recently attended Marine Corps Expeditionary Warfare School, a basic officer course for communications and leadership skills — somewhat like a  9-month version of Air Force Squadron Officer School.  He wrote an article while there entitled “Replace the Clergy” that was published in the unofficial Marine Corps Gazette:

It [is] clear that the Chaplain Corps is expensive and provides a redundant religious capability, and its members are routinely employed beyond their capabilities. Therefore, the Department of the Navy (DoN) should begin phasing out active duty chaplains, replace them with licensed professional counselors (LPCs), and utilize the Reserve Chaplain Corps for duty exclusively in combat-designated areas.

While an interesting topic, the article was clearly an academic exercise and reads like little more than a school project. At about 1,600 words, Riemann has little time to articulate his argument on a substantial topic and fails to demonstrate sufficient credibility to make up for the lack of support for his proposition.

For example, the only numbers he based his “study” on were 165 people who answered a survey he conducted through an online website; the participants were very likely his fellow students, though he provides no details.  Further, he unwisely, and without any evidence of rigor, extrapolates from the poorly worded survey to characterize the entire institution of the military chaplaincy — including using those responses to broadly assert that “the pews of [military chapels] are notoriously empty.”

Finally, he asserts that “licensed professional counselors” are a “solution” — though he never adequately identified a problem that needed solved, other than his obvious disdain for the cost, “redundancy,” and apparent existence of the military chaplaincy.

The article likely hit the necessary points he required for academic necessity — it had structure, flow, two figures, citations, etc — but as to the objective of its content, Riemann failed.  The article presents itself as little more than a predetermined outcome with an author searching, somewhat unsuccessfully, for ways to justify it.

As with many such broad declarations of ‘obvious’ lack of need for the chaplaincy or other religious support in the military, it seems to be based more on Riemann’s personal preferences than any substantial data — so much so that one commenter intimated Riemann might have a “hidden agenda.”

Notably, Riemann is a fan of “new atheist” Sam Harris and once declared the late Christopher Hitchens was his “hero.”  For his part, Hitchens was the author of “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

While atheism or ideological disagreement itself is not “disqualifying” with regard to the ability to present a logical case against a religious viewpoint or resource, it may mean the author has a higher bar to meet to demonstrate the argument is, indeed, logical, and not just a declaration of his personal worldview.  It is perhaps most challenging to articulate a reasoned, evidentiary support for those positions with which we are most aligned.  That is a challenge Riemann did not appear to meet.

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