The year 2017 marks an inspiring anniversary in the history of Christian Science: It is 100 years since, in 1917, The Mother Church first endorsed military chaplains in the United States to minister to Christian Scientists serving during World War I. The functions of a military chaplain have evolved over the years, but one thing remains constant: the spiritual leavening that Christian Science chaplains bring to the military.
I spoke with Janet Horton, the current endorser of Christian Science military chaplains, about the spiritual purpose of military chaplaincy and the healing effect that Christian Science chaplains have contributed over the past century.
Janet, you enjoyed a 28-year career as an Army chaplain. It’s quite an unusual career. Can you let readers know what made you want to pursue it?
When I was young, I was very shy, and I couldn’t even look another human being in the eyes. As I was praying to overcome that shyness, I read in the book of Isaiah: “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary” (50:4).
I realized that God had given me intelligence for a purpose. And I knew that I would use that intelligence to help comfort people.
One of the reasons I was shy was because I was embarrassed about being called the “smart girl” in school, but as I prayed I realized that God had given me intelligence for a purpose. And I actually knew at that point that I would use that intelligence to help comfort people in some way. Another passage in Isaiah says, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (40:1). That was one of the foundational things I studied and thought about regularly as I was praying and listening for what direction I would go in life.
Later, when I was in college and still listening to God for the right path to take, I witnessed two young guys messing around with a knife, and one of them accidentally slit open his friend’s finger. The injured student was actually someone I needed to talk to, to ask whether his band would play at an upcoming school dance. So, I walked over to him, and I said, “You don’t know me, but would it be OK with you if I prayed with you and stopped the bleeding in your hand?”
He looked kind of shocked, but he put out his hand and said, “Sure, knock yourself out.”
I took his hand in my hand, and I repeated out loud in a firm voice a verse I was familiar with from Ezekiel: “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live” (16:6). The bleeding stopped immediately. He stared at his hand, and he agreed that he would do the music for the dance!
That verse from Ezekiel came to me automatically because it was a verse a Christian Science practitioner had used in praying for my mother when I was a kid, and I had seen my mom have an amazing healing from that prayer. All my life I continued to pray with that verse anytime there was bleeding. To me it meant that life doesn’t have anything to do with blood or with matter. Life is spiritual—it’s what God gave us.
I didn’t think much about the healing because I was accustomed to Christian Science being effective. But on the night of the dance, whenever the band had a break, this student would run over to me and demand to know what I had done to him. Even after the dance was over, he stayed another 45 minutes. I talked to him about the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and who Mrs. Eddy was as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. We talked about how the lost element of healing was very much a part of Christianity.
A couple nights later he came to my dorm at about 10:30 p.m. Back then women were not supposed to go out of the dorm late at night, but he demanded that I go off campus with him to a house that he and a bunch of kids rented. I prayed and it came to me that, even though this would not seem like an intelligent thing to do, I needed to go with him.
When we got to the house, he began to take out bags of illegal drugs, and he filled an entire kitchen table with these bags. Then he began to rip the bags open and flush the drugs down the toilet, and this was thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs. He kept demanding to know what I had done to him. He said: “When I was in Vietnam as a soldier, I started selling drugs, and I’ve always made my money selling drugs. I don’t know how I could finish college without selling drugs. But I can’t do it anymore. I want to know what you did to me.”
As I prayed, it came to me to say, “If I ask you a question, will you promise to answer me honestly?”
He said, “OK.”
“Did you or did you not want to be free of this?”
“Yes, I did, but there’s no way you could have known that.”
I explained that God is omniscient, and it was God that knew he wanted his freedom. I said, “We will find a way for you to not have to sell drugs.”
Later I went to the dean of the school, and the school granted him some of his tuition and got him some work to help pay off the rest. And he moved out of that house.
In preaching a sermon, or in a one-on-one counseling session, Christian Science chaplains are sharing a spiritual understanding of the Bible.
I didn’t get back to the dorm until really late that night, well after midnight. All the women were waiting up for me, and they were terrified. They said: “Are you the stupidest person on this campus? Are you the only person who didn’t know he was the biggest drug dealer?” I explained that I never saw him as a drug dealer. I only knew him as a young man on campus who had always had a cute little puppy whose name was Missy. He’d hold and hug this puppy with such tenderness and compassion. That was the man I knew.
Since he was a Vietnam vet, when people would hear me give that testimony, they would say, “You need to interview for military chaplaincy.” I didn’t know what that was, and this was the 1970s and the military was only just starting to integrate women into the military as chaplains.
You were one of the first women in the military as a chaplain. You weren’t consciously trying to be one of the first?
No. In fact, I said to people at my church, “Do you think they let women do that?”
The First Reader said, “I’m sure you’re not going to let that stop you.” He was looking at it metaphysically—that nothing can keep us from our right place or the purpose that God has for us.
So then you had to apply to The Mother Church military chaplain training program. What are the requirements of Christian Scientists who are applying and want to be endorsed by The Mother Church as military chaplains?
When you determine that you want to go into the military chaplaincy as a Christian Scientist, you look at two documents. One lists the Department of Defense requirements: seminary education and an undergraduate degree, as well as things that a person would need to go into the military, like a physical exam.
The Christian Science Board of Directors has a separate list of what is important for Christian Scientists. Understanding the practice of Christian Science is one of the most important things on that list, and that’s because military service members would look to a Christian Science chaplain to provide help as a Christian Science practitioner in a military situation.
Another requirement is Primary class instruction in Christian Science, which of course is a requirement for being a practitioner. Individuals entering the chaplain training program are often asked if they have done healing prayer, not just for themselves but for other people.
Christian Scientists are appointed as Protestant chaplains to the military. Because it is general Protestant ministry, what makes it a worthy Christian Science activity?
I think that Christian Scientists who go into the chaplaincy ask themselves, “What is the metaphysical basis for doing this?” They look at portions of Mrs. Eddy’s writings that are applicable to military chaplaincy.
One of the very first passages I looked at was from Science and Health: “Clergymen, occupying the watchtowers of the world, should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise their hearers spiritually, that their listeners will love to grapple with a new, right idea and broaden their concepts. Love of Christianity, rather than love of popularity, should stimulate clerical labor and progress. Truth should emanate from the pulpit, but never be strangled there. A special privilege is vested in the ministry. How shall it be used? Sacredly, in the interests of humanity, not of sect” (pp. 235–236).
I wanted to assure individuals who had been assaulted that they were God’s child and that they had done nothing wrong. Christian Science helped me teach children and adults about their spiritual purity.
The thing I love about that passage is that Mrs. Eddy talks about listeners who “love to grapple with a new, right idea,” and I think Christian Science has so much to offer in terms of new, right ideas—spiritual ideas. Often in the military chaplaincy there will be Protestants from almost two hundred different traditions worshiping together lovingly on a Sunday morning in a military chapel. It’s beautiful to see, and practically nobody’s asking, “What do you think your denomination would say about this?” People are just looking for an answer of peace; they’re looking for new, right ideas about God.
In sharing these spiritual ideas, Christian Science chaplains go to the Bible. Mrs. Eddy writes: “The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained” (Science and Health, p. 547). In preaching a sermon, or in a one-on-one counseling session, Christian Science chaplains are sharing a spiritual understanding of the Bible.
How are Christian Scientists trained to be chaplains?
Before they can be appointed as chaplains, trainees are in seminary for three years at Boston University School of Theology. Since they’re in Boston, they have a monthly training session at The Mother Church. At these sessions trainees explore a topic applicable to military chaplaincy and approach it metaphysically. For example, trainees might have been learning academically in school about how to counsel someone with the claim of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and so they would spend time approaching that subject metaphysically. That session might be called “Healing post-traumatic stress disorder.”
When I have led that session, the chaplain trainees went to the Bible and picked somebody who we might expect to have had PTSD because of having gone through a traumatic experience, like Daniel or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And yet, even though they went through trauma, they didn’t seem to have PTSD. We talked about the metaphysical healing ideas that enable an individual to be completely protected, to feel in no way damaged by a traumatic experience.
One aspect of training is learning to administer the sacraments. How do Christian Science students approach that?
They look at the sacraments from a spiritual perspective. In the chapter “Atonement and Eucharist” in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes, “The true sense is spiritually lost, if the sacrament is confined to the use of bread and wine,” and, “Jesus prayed; he withdrew from the material senses to refresh his heart with brighter, with spiritual views” (p. 32). What are those brighter, spiritual views? What are the spiritual aspects of communion that are not confined to the ritual of Eucharist? What does the bread represent spiritually in the Bible? Christ Jesus himself says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).
So Christian Scientists look at the sacraments in a complex way. If a chaplain is asked to perform those rituals, which might happen depending on the military situation, then for a Christian Science chaplain it becomes important that they never seem like mere rituals. As a result, after a Christian Scientist has given communion to military service members, they often remark: “I’ve never heard anybody say the words from the Bible with such reverence.” They are struck by the sacred manner in which a Christian Science chaplain provided them the Eucharist.
Tell me more about that. Christian Science chaplains need to minister not only to all Protestants under their care, but they also try to provide for everybody’s religious needs in their unit, while remaining true to their own religious faith. How did you carry out that pluralistic ministry in your career?
I don’t like to mentally separate individuals into surface-level religious categories, so one of the thoughts I always tried to hold was that we are all God’s children. I was available to meet the religious needs of everyone I could, and I determined that I would do so lovingly.
On September 11, 2001, when I went into Ground Zero at the Pentagon with firefighter crews and medical teams, they would bring people out of the building and lay them on the grass. As a chaplain I would kneel beside people and ask them if they wanted to pray. Military chaplains are very respectful of individual faith, and what was very striking to those of us chaplains who were present was that there was not one person who declined to pray.
The second thing a chaplain would ask is, “What is your religious tradition?” A chaplain would want to pray with the individual in a manner that is meaningful for that person. (In a situation like the one we were in, it’s highly unlikely that we could have gotten a specific representative of a person’s denomination to the scene to pray.)
I remember one Catholic woman telling me she wanted to pray. So, just before we prayed the Lord’s Prayer, I said to her, “Let’s do the Our Father,” because that was how she, as a Catholic, would refer to the prayer. I saw her eyes light up when I said, “Let’s do the Our Father.” She grabbed my hand and we had a beautiful sharing of that prayer.
It sounds like Christian Science chaplains have any number of ways to help someone spiritually who has just faced a traumatic experience. Do you have other examples?
One of the things I did in the military was to work with women and children who had been assaulted. I was always trying to see the child of God. One time I asked a child who had been assaulted if I could sit so that we could name all the wonderful characteristics about that child.
I think that’s a wonderful thing about the military chaplaincy: People are so open and loving. Even though the Protestant chaplains are from very different and diverse traditions, they all treasure the Bible and God’s love.
We made a list. I said: “You can run really fast. You are really funny when you want to be. You have a wonderful smile,” and I just listed all the things that I could think of. Then I said, “I want you to understand, when you express these characteristics, you are really expressing spiritual qualities, because you can’t reach out and touch the laughter that’s in your heart, can you?” We talked about the spiritual qualities that were at the heart of everything on our list, like joy and strength, and how they weren’t something you could see with your eyes. Finally I said, “So, the most important things about you are things that people couldn’t even touch. So, nobody has touched anything that really makes you who you are.”
I always wanted to assure individuals who had been assaulted that they were God’s child and that they had done nothing wrong. Christian Science helped me teach children and adults about their spiritual purity, which is innate, and how that purity can never be taken away or corrupted.
Reading the history of Christian Science military chaplains, there are so many accounts of healing resulting from the prayers of chaplains. What healing have you seen in your ministry?
One of the most beautiful experiences I had was when I was serving in the Intelligence and Security Command. We had a fantastic Seventh-Day Adventist chaplain. If there was a prayer breakfast happening, he was known for coming in that day dressed up like he was Moses. He’d give a talk at the prayer breakfast on the Ten Commandments, and you would swear Moses himself was talking—he was that inspiring.
But two days before the National Prayer Breakfast, he called and said, “I can’t do the prayer breakfast,” and he explained that his wife had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her surgery was less than two days away.
We had a wonderful Baptist chaplain who was my deputy and who was on the phone call, and the Seventh-Day Adventist chaplain asked us to pray for his wife. We both said we would be honored to pray. Then there was a brief pause, and he said, “Janet, as a Christian Scientist, you’d be thinking that we would pray for actual healing, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would,” I said, and that sparked a discussion.
He said, “I guess in Christian Science you would not only understand God to be able to heal someone in a situation like this, but that He would be willing to do that.” I could see his thought moving to accept this new, right idea about God. He said, “You know what? We’ve got to pray about that.”
Right after the prayer breakfast two days later, we got a call from him, and he said: “I can’t wait to tell you what’s happened! My wife went in, and because they were going to do surgery, they had to update her records first, and they redid the CT scan. The doctors said the tumor is half the size that it was a couple of days ago.”
What was very moving to me was the gratitude and humility that the surgeons expressed, because they had told this chaplain, “We don’t know what you chaplains are doing in prayer, but it’s more powerful than anything we can do.” They decided to give his wife two more weeks, and they would check on her then. And he was so delighted and overjoyed.
All three of us joined together in prayer again for another two weeks, and when she went back, there was no sign of the tumor. That was almost 14 years ago. I think that’s a wonderful thing about the military chaplaincy: People are so open and loving. Even though the Protestant chaplains are from very different and diverse traditions, they all treasure the Bible and God’s love, and they are very accepting of sincere spiritual seekers. They’re open to exploring new ideas on Christianity.
How do Christian Science chaplains meet the needs of Christian Scientists in the military?
Any assignment that I had, I would always try to track down if there were any other Christian Scientists.
Once I went on an overseas tour up near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea, and in my division I found only one other Christian Scientist, a private. The Christian Science Society in Seoul was going to host one Christian Science lecture that entire year. Seoul was far away, but the private and I agreed that we would drive to Seoul to go to the lecture.
It was never me doing ministry, but really I was simply being the transparency for God’s healing love to shine through. When I would do that, I would witness how God is taking care of individual needs.
As the date approached, I found out that the Army’s large training exercise was right during the time of that lecture, which meant the young private and I couldn’t get away. I met with him, and I said: “I don’t think we can be deprived of having our part in this lecture. If our part is nothing more than to find each other that day, then I’ll meet with your commander so you can be excused to sit down and read the Christian Science Bible Lesson with me, and we’ll pray and give metaphysical support for the lecture.”
He said, “I’d love to do that.”
So, I found him that morning. He was doing a river crossing with his unit, and his commander let him go with me. We went up on some rocks, and we sat down and started reading the Bible Lesson. And it was interesting, a one-star general who I knew came up over the rock. He said, “Chaplain Horton, what are you doing out here?” I explained that the private and I were reading the Bible Lesson because we couldn’t attend the only Christian Science lecture in Korea that was going to be given that whole year. He said, “It’s the only one this whole year?”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said: “I’m flying in my helicopter to Seoul in about 45 minutes. I’m going to be in Seoul about two hours in a meeting, and we’re going to fly right back here afterwards. The total time gone would be about four hours. I can fly you to Seoul so you can go to that lecture.”
The young private looked at the general and said, “But sir, I don’t think my sergeant would let me leave the training exercise.”
The general—I thought this was kind of cute—pointed towards his one star. He said, “Son, yes he will.”
It was beautiful because this young private and I were praying and knowing we could metaphysically support the lecture, and that metaphysical support ended up meeting our need. Because we were on a training exercise, we were in camouflage and wearing field gear, and the private had to take his M-16 rifle with him. I think that was the first time that the lecturer ever had someone come in the front row of her lecture with an M-16 and camouflage!
It was a wonderful, spiritually inspiring experience. I learned that it was never me doing ministry, but that really I was simply being the transparency for God’s healing love to shine through. And when I would do that, I would witness how God is taking care of individual needs.
Thank you, Janet. It’s inspiring to hear about the ways chaplains are practicing Christian Science in military situations, ministering to soldiers with love and spiritual understanding, and bringing healing.
There’s a passage from Science and Health that I love: “The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good” (p. 450). Mrs. Eddy contrasts two things: the allness of good, and the nothingness of evil. Many times in the military people find themselves in very unusual, tense situations, and they may have never seen anything like it before. For me that passage in Science and Health was a real foundation for times like those. It was interesting how many times the carnal mind was saying something bad could happen, or I could be a victim, or somebody else could be a victim. But in reality there is no such thing as a carnal mind; there is nothing that can oppose the allness of God, good, and His government.
And so a Christian Science chaplain is essentially saying, “Yes, I’ve enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death,” because he or she is going to pray about overcoming those in all different types of situations in the military. And evil, disease, and death are going to be lessened through the understanding of their nothingness and the true allness and goodness of God.
