Perspectief 2015-30

2015-30 Reluctant Prophets - The Prophetic Task of Military Chaplains 47 Reageer Thirdly , the concept of pastoral care as the main task of military chaplains is hard to combine with an educational role, in which people’s acts and learning processes are judged and evaluated. In this dilemma, a military chaplain may choose to provide care without providing challenge, education and confrontation – in order to avoid a role conflict. Fourthly , the Dutch cultural poldermodel has developed a double mechanism of avoiding cultural and religious conflicts (Zijderveld, 1970, 1988). The first is to not focus on the substance of a conflict but on its functioning, and to look for procedures to solve conflicts. In the case of a chaplain the procedure would require defining the limits of his responsibility: each person must follow his own conscience, so there is no responsibility to appeal to the military’s conscience in specific circumstances. The other mechanism is that Dutch culture has redefined itself from a dense culture with a lot of social control to a sparse culture with common but merely general and abstract values, combined with individual freedom (Pinto, 2000). One can observe this in the Dutch legislation on abortion and euthanasia, and in policies allowing prostitution and offering regulations for it, without combating the phenomenon itself – except in the case of human trafficking. In the context of this culture, the individual’s freedom is most visible; basic values and debate are in the background, only except when strictly necessary. It may well be the case here that a practice is allowed according to law – not because the practice itself is considered as good or justifiable, but to respect freedom and promote regulation of something some people do. 8 So in this type of cultural environment a prophetic role of military chaplains may be perceived as an illegitimate return to the ‘dense’ culture of our past with its social control mechanisms that limit the individual’s freedom. In this perspective, a prophetic role is not very attractive for chaplains who want to avoid social isolation. Fifthly , our constitutional state provides a guarantee for just decisions through the informal rule that 2/3 of the parliament has to support a peace operation. So the trust in political decision-making can make soldiers follow the government. Besides, th e military 8 Elsewhere I analysed how these mechanisms interfere with tendencies towards postmode rn fatalism, relativism, nihilism, pragmatism and individualism. All of these five tendencies that are present in Western culture, may threat the military’s system of meaning. See van Iersel, 2014.