Command Chaplain Col. Donald W. Holdridge of the 200th Military Police Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, the Army Reserves top chaplain for MPs, believes faith in Jesus can cure Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He wrote an 11,000-word essay, “Spiritual Resiliency: Helping Troops Recover from Combat.” In it he says:
“Combat vets need to know that most of these [PTSD symptoms] do fade in time, like scars. They will always be there to some degree, but their intensity will fade. What will help them fade is the application of the principles of Scripture.”
He then goes on to list some resources to help combat vets with PTSD. Four out of 10 are evangelical organizations whose mission, at least to some degree, is evangelizing to members of the military. Not everyone shares Holdridge’s views. Mikey Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, responded with:
“This is a carefully calculated, base, evil, vile, filthy and despicable perversion of the United States Constitution which, at once, heinously divides and demoralizes military unit cohesion while concomitantly lubricating and accelerating soldier suicides.”
Whether you think the chaplain is on the right track or obliterating the boundary between Church and State, you can learn more here.
Tags: Donald Holdridge, Jesus Christ, Mikey Weinstein, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, PTSD
There are many God fearing, God believing people in this world. The forefathers of our constitution believed in God and His influence in everything they did. Those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior have no better place to turn to, along with professional, monitored instruction for help with PTSD. I 100 percent agree with Col. Holdridge.
A larger question it seems to me is whether Christians should be in the military in the first place, either as soldiers or as chaplains. The call of Christians to be peacemakers by taking up their cross, aided by the grace of baptism, precludes the intentional killing and slaughter of other persons. Rather than worrying about counseling for PTSD or about military chaplaincy, the Church is called to help Christians be formed into a community of peace, a community of disciples who through nonviolent love and self-sacrifice can help bring the seed of peace into the world. Peace was won by Christ on the cross. We are called to share in this gift of peace through “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22), not through military might.