Modern military chaplaincy : neither fit for purpose, nor obsolete

Chaplains in the United States’ and United Kingdom’s militaries occupy an unusual position as the sole providers of confidential counseling available to service members, thanks to a quirk in tradition and law. Nominally, all chaplains meet a similar set of criteria: the appropriate graduate degree in the United States, or the appropriate ordination in the United Kingdom; the appropriate number of years in service; and the endorsement of an approved ecclesiastical body. In practice, these can mean very different levels of preparation, especially when it comes to pastoral counselling. This thesis explores ecclesiastical endorsements, chaplain selection, and training in two multi-religious militaries, as well as what these chaplains face while working in the field. Using semi-structured interviews with retired chaplains, documented requirements from militaries, ecclesiastical endorsers and religious education programmes, this thesis finds that chaplains are asked to serve in roles that their educations and endorsements may not have fully prepared them for. Moreover, due to doctrinal restrictions attached to ecclesiastical endorsements, further education will simply not prepare some chaplains for the pastoral needs of some service members. Nonetheless, the modern chaplain continues to fill vital needs for these militaries as a whole: providing an unofficial connector, who can serve as a knowledgeable insider, outside of the chain of command; an expert on issues of religion and ethics; a facilitator for religious needs in a stressful environment, and a truly confidential counsellor, who has the time and remit to sit with anyone who needs an ear

Visualising Peace: a virtual museum

A discussion of the Visualising War and Peace project's virtual Museum of Peace

Museum of Peace:a virtual museum

‘Peace’ is a seemingly simple concept. But how would you define it?In this museum we have brought together lots of different ways of visualising peace. Our aim is not to promote any one particular vision. Instead, we want to spark more conversation about what peace ‘looks like’ to each of us, how it gets imagined and represented, where different kinds of peace can be found, how it can be promoted, and what peace-making and peace-keeping actually involve. We think that talking about different manifestations of peace is an important step in empowering everyone to play a part in fostering it, no matter who they are or where they come from.‘Visualising Peace’ is a Vertically Integrated Project directed by Dr Alice König with support from PG mentor Jenny Oberholtzer. Twelve undergraduate students, based in a range of Schools at the University of St Andrews, have worked together to expand the scope of the School of Classics’ Visualising War project from focusing on how representations of war impact broader attitudes towards conflict to investigating conceptualizations of peace across academic disciplines and broader domains of human activity. In doing so, the Visualising Peace project seeks to research, challenge and stretch habits of imagining, understanding, representing and working towards peace