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Ministering to the Military

May 12, 2009

Kim Schuette’s recent book talk at Longyear explored the host of issues found at the intersection of Christian Science and its war- and peacetime healing work with the United States armed forces.

It was about four years into the writing of Christian Science Military Ministry 1917-2004, that author Kim Schuette (photo left) had a realization of the real subject he was writing about.

There had been a Christian Science marine chaplain back in the 1960s who, when visiting combat troops in Vietnam, would greet them by saying, "I represent the love of The Mother Church."

Into this dangerous war zone and Vietnamese jungle, Schuette said in a recent interview, this chaplain's greeting came with such power that it would often bring tears to the eyes of hardened marines.

And that, Schuette realized, is what his ten-year labor-of-love writing project was all about.

"This book is about the love of The Mother Church," said Schuette. "The real story here is what The Mother Church did, the extension of love all the way into the battlefield."

Schuette's 653-page work traces this unrecognized aspect of Christian Science Church history, beginning with the United States' entry into World War I, and extending all the way through the invasion of Iraq.

As he related to nearly eighty attendees at the April 19 Longyear Museum book talk, his research turned up remarkable stories of God's protection and care of soldiers on the battlefield. It also contains over eighty healings through the application of Christian Science.

One such illustration of protection was that of Richard H. Chase, a Christian Science practitioner and then-Committee on Publication for Rhode Island, who served as a Christian Science chaplain in World War II. Marching in total darkness, he and the rest of his battalion found themselves surrounded and pinned down by enemy machine-gun fire. The soldiers crawled into a shallow ditch and "hugged the ground" as "bullets drilled into the dirt."

After much prayer, they found that the enemy had withdrawn. To the amazement of everyone, there were few casualties in what had appeared to be a massacre.

Schuette also tells of the difficult reception received by Janet Y. Horton, one of the first women chaplains who were also Christian Scientists. After being spit upon three times by soldiers, once by another chaplain, Horton overcame her initial reaction of "white-hot anger," to quickly recall a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy (page 234): "You must control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second."

Recalling that Jesus, too, was spit upon by soldiers, Horton said to the soldier, "I can't imagine what you must have been through to spit on another human being."

The man fell to his knees, asking for forgiveness.  

Horton went on to become the executive director of the Pentagon's Armed Forces Chaplains Board.

Schuette, who completed The Mother Church's chaplain training in 1975 and served as an army chaplain from 1975 to 1983, says his book also reaches beyond the subject of military ministry.

"It's about being a Christian Scientist," Schuette said. "These are amazing circumstances. But we all have circumstances. The idea is that we can learn from this wherever we are."

 

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