Sect Manual

For Army chaplains

What church claims to have 6 million U.S. clergy but only one article of faith, a belief in "that which is right and every person's right to interpret what is right"? Answer: the Universal Life Church, which was "born out of the vision of its Founder Kirby S. Hensley" in 1962. Universal Life is only one of 37 groups catalogued in a fascinating new manual entitled Religious Requirements and Practices. Its earnest notes on Hensley's "church" neglect to mention that it is the notorious ordination-by-mail mill that for the past decade has conferred a doctor of divinity degree upon virtually anyone who asks and can pay $20.

Both the solemnity of style and the curious lacunae are explained by the fact that the manual is published by the U.S. Army, which this month is dispatching copies to its 1,433 chaplains. Many sects were included because military commanders and chaplains had already asked headquarters for guidance about them.

Why the book? Army chaplains might some day need to confirm that, yes, Sikhs must never shave, that WACs who are strict Muslims must wear ankle-length garments or that Seventh-day Adventists may indeed require a vegetarian diet at the mess hall. The Department of the Army takes pride in its ecumenical new publication and notes that college teachers are requesting copies.

Well they might. R.R.P. is a remarkable index of new-age creeds. In the Church of Satan, worship equipment includes candles, a bell, a chalice, elixir, a sword, a gong, parchment and "a model phallus." (Not that Army chaplains are likely to have to supply them, since ritual secrecy is also part of Satanism.) There is also the Native American Church, an Indian group that has won court approval to get high on peyote during weekly or monthly rituals that run all night. The Army does not state whether the peyote rites must end in time for reveille.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.