{"id":6135,"date":"2010-07-02T00:50:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T06:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=6135"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:07","slug":"chaplain-brings-religious-perspective-to-trainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/02\/chaplain-brings-religious-perspective-to-trainees\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaplain Brings Religious Perspective to Trainees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chaplain (Ens) Asif Balbale is a Muslim Chaplain — in fact, the only one — at Camp Pendleton.\u00a0 He shares his unique religious position at the base with Chaplain Shin<\/a>, the Navy’s only Buddhist Chaplain.<\/p>\n

The Chaplain seems to have a solid grasp of his role, which includes religious training of military members:<\/p>\n

Part of my job is to educate people on what it means to be a Muslim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s absolutely correct, of course, just as other Chaplains’ jobs include educating people about what it means to be a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, etc.\u00a0 The cultural understanding required to foster the appropriate atmosphere in the pluralistic military environment requires that military members understand what it means to be a particular faith.\u00a0 Unfortunately, some organizations have disagreed and have attempted to neuter Chaplains’ roles to the equivalent of a “moral hall monitor.”<\/p>\n

Balbale’s entry into the ministry took a circuitous path<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Balbale…was intending to apply for officer candidate school when he mistakenly sent an e-mail to a chaplain recruiter.<\/p>\n

That led to an extended conversation with the recruiter, and a subsequent meeting in Okinawa with a Muslim chaplain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Balbale has an interesting and admirable perspective on his service, and it is one that many people of faith share:<\/p>\n

“God has put me in the place where he wants me to be,” he said. “I can’t think of any job like this one where I can serve my country, my God and my religion all at once.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christians aren’t the only ones who mix their faith and their profession.\u00a0 Ironically, Chaplain Balbale reportedly drives a car with an Islamic scripture on the rear window, written in Arabic.\u00a0 According to one military “religious freedom” group, the MRFF’s Richard Baker, that is a coercive and unconstitutional\u00a0display of religion and should be prohibited; at least, that is, if its a Christian symbol<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chaplain (Ens) Asif Balbale is a Muslim Chaplain — in fact, the only one — at Camp Pendleton.\u00a0 He shares his unique religious position at the base with Chaplain Shin, the Navy’s only Buddhist Chaplain. The Chaplain seems to have a solid grasp of his role, which includes religious training of military members: Part of my job is to educate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5284,4,44,2,5218,7,10,420],"class_list":["post-6135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-islam","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion","tag-rick-baker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}