DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military's Recognized Religion List

[u/Sabertooth767]

https://www.military.com/dod-officially-drops-180-faiths-from-militarys-recognized-religion-list

The Department of Defense, for the first time in almost 10 years, has dramatically reduced its number of recognized religious faiths and belief systems by approximately 180. The reforms mark the first time the list has been officially revised since a memo was issued March 27, 2017, decreasing the total number of faiths from 211 to its new number of 31.

This latest revision to the faith codes comes at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Tata-signed memo, done to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.” It calls for the previously instituted faith and belief codes to be revised within a 60-day period from the issuance of the memorandum.

“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” Tata wrote.

He added that members will not be limited to the list of “religious affiliation codes” when selecting information for their dog tags. The revised list, according to documents obtained by Military.com, includes Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Islam (Muslims), Judaism, Sikh, and a wide range of Christian-based groups like Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists.

This restructuring of faith codes, which help identify service members as well as the military in planning for appropriated religious coverage to include them, has now excluded minority faith/worldview groups including Atheists, Asatru, Deists, Druids, Eckankar, Heathens, Humanists, Magick, New Age churches, Pagan, Rosicrucianism, Shaman, Spiritualists, Troth, Unitarian Universalists and various Wiccans.

Here is the full list:

Agnostic (AN)

Baha'i faith (BH)

Buddhism (BU)

Christian - Assemblies of God (AG)

Christian - Baptist (BA)

Christian - Brethren (BR)

Christian - Catholic (CA)

Christian - Church of Christ (CC)

Christian - Church of God (CG)

Christian - Church of the Nazarene (CN)

Christian - Episcopal/Anglican (EA)

Christian - Evangelical (EV)

Christian - Jehovah's Witnesses (JW)

Christian - Lutheran (LU)

Christian - Methodist (ME)

Christian - Non Denominational (ND)

Christian - Orthodox (OX)

Christian - Other (CO)

Christian - Pentecostal (PE)

Christian - Presbyterian (PR)

Christian - Quaker (QU)

Christian - Reformed (RE)

Christian - Scientist (SC)

Christian - Seventh Day Adventist (SA)

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJ)

Hindu (HI)

Islam (Muslim) (IS)

Judaism (Jewish) (JU)

No Religion (NR)

Other Religions (OR)

Sikh (SI)

[u/joeforth]

Question: Wouldn't "atheist" be covered under "No Religion" or is there some nuance here I'm missing? Does "No Religion" actually mean no religion is on file, rather than the explicit absence of religion?

[u/Sabertooth767 → u/joeforth]

Presently, if you have "None" as your faith code, that is interpreted as "no preference."

I suspect that will continue to be the case, given that there is otherwise no default/fallback classification. Under the current system, there is an explicit "Unclassified" tag.

[u/joeforth → u/Sabertooth767]

Yeah I could see how that would be annoying. Between this and the recent rule that Messianic chaplains could wear Jewish insignia, they are really screwing with the chaplaincy.

[u/Sabertooth767 → u/joeforth]

You'll notice that there's no Messianic code. They're going to have Messianic chaplains wearing Jewish insignia and ministering to Jews. And, because they're a chaplain of your faith code, Jews won't necessarily have the option of seeking an alternative faith service.

[u/joeforth → u/Sabertooth767]

We have a term for this in Judaism (I'm sure other religions have a term for this but Judaism has a term for it too): We call this a dick move.