Professionally I was a Christian, practically I was an atheist
By: Humanists Australia
Tags: Religion, Military, Atheism, Leadership, Humanism

Collin Acton was a Chaplain in the Royal Australian Navy for 23 Years. Collin spent much of his time at odds with the religious half of his role and how it affected the support aspects of chaplaincy. This eventually led to Collin undertaking the Herculean task of modernising the Navy’s chaplaincy branch to serve the increasingly less religious workforce.

By Collin Acton

I was a Chaplain in the Royal Australian Navy for 23 years, almost a quarter of a century. Before I was a Chaplain, I had also served in the Navy as an engineering sailor for nine years when I left the Navy to become an Anglican minister in Sydney. I was not in the slightest bit religious when I joined the Navy as a 16-year-old, and my family had little interest in religion. Over time, I became interested in religious faith and was encouraged by a supportive chaplain who I connected with when I was going through a challenging time. He gave me space and listened to me and that was a precious gift. I would not have used terms like wellbeing or even mental health — but I saw several chaplains, like the guy who was there for me in action, and I thought that it was a good model for helping people.

Personally, I liked the smell of oil, fuel, and tinkering with machinery, but I liked people even more and felt a natural affinity for reaching out to care for others. This was what attracted me to religion. It also set my mind to becoming a Navy chaplain. To do that, I needed to be an ordained minister. So off I went; I finished year 12, completed a degree in theology, and was accepted for ordination. No one is as surprised as I am that doors opened, and I managed to get through each of those steps to get ordained.

I was a sincere believer before and during college and continued to be so for several years as a Chaplain in the Navy. However, I have always harboured doubts about the existence of God, the truth of the bible, and the painfully artificial nature of the church. Increasingly, I found myself professing one thing and yet living my life as if religious faith just wasn’t relevant. Professionally, I was a Christian; practically, I was an atheist. I recall on one deployment being quite annoyed at having to prepare to run a church service each Sunday because it got in the road of rolling my sleeves up and supporting people in more practical ways.

“Professionally, I was a Christian; practically, I was an atheist.”

When the ship I was serving in returned from its deployment to East Timor in December 1999, I enrolled in an undergraduate Psychology course. I did so because I was acutely aware that the theological training I had received at college was largely irrelevant and inadequate to equip me to deal with the plethora of mental health and wellbeing issues people were dealing with. Additionally, most ship’s companies I have served with are utterly uninterested in religious solutions to their problems.

Deploying to some of the more challenging and god-awful places, like East Timor (during the INTERFET days), the Middle East, and Afghanistan, also undermined what faith I did have. Where was this all-powerful, all-knowing God when we’re surrounded by so much misery and human suffering? The classical theological answers to these questions are so hollow.

I lived in this grey zone for years. I read Hitchens, Harris, Grayling, and Dawkins and found that these authors made a lot of sense. How did I live with this dissonance, you might ask? Well, the day-to-day role of a chaplain in the ADF has very little to do with religion. It focuses on pastoral care (which is almost entirely devoid of any religious elements) and contributes to individual and community wellbeing. I also believe that a good life can be built on reason, empathy, and concern for others, which has always been an essential part of who I am. We have one life, and it’s up to us to look out for ourselves and help others to flourish. The whole god thing is redundant and unhelpful. My experience is that it can be pretty harmful when dominant belief systems, like Christianity, struggle to hold onto their position of privilege.

In 2016 I was posted to the Defence Strategic Studies Course for twelve months. The course prepares selected high performing officers and officials for senior appointments in Defence and the national security environment. It also provided an opportunity to mix with Defence leaders from other foreign Defence Forces across the Asia Pacific region and Europe, and from Australian civilian agencies like DFAT, APF ABF. For me, it was also a time to consider the future direction of Chaplaincy in the ADF. I had been selected to be the next Director-General Chaplaincy — Navy, and I could clearly see that significant change was necessary to ensure the chaplaincy capability remained relevant to the current and future workforce. Not only was religion in significant decline in the ADF, but chaplaincy was dominated by older male clergy. The ADF needed more women, younger practitioners, and a secular caring option.

Coming out to a few close friends was precipitated by my experience with the Australian Defence Force’s Religious Advisory Committee to the Services (RACS). RACS is a high-level committee appointed by the government to provide religious advice to Defence. As the Director-General Chaplaincy — Navy, I began the task of modernising the chaplaincy branch so that it would be more relevant to the increasingly non-religious workforce. RACS dug in and refused to give any ground. They used their access to senior levels within Defence to stifle any change and repeatedly attempted to shut the Navy’s innovation down. At one point, I was pressured by my bishop and questioned as to why I was putting the Navy and the Chief of Navy before God. This was over-reach on steroids. The Navy senior leadership never intended to remove religious Chaplaincy. Instead, it was looking to expand the range of people and qualifications who could provide that role.

“I began the task of modernising the chaplaincy branch so that it would be more relevant to the increasingly non-religious workforce.”

Making those changes to Navy chaplaincy took four years. It transformed me from being a soft humanist into a hard atheist. Where was God in all that? Nowhere because there is no god — only self-interest, jealousy, petty mindedness, privilege, and greed.

A large number of Defence Chaplains are kind humans and are extremely good at caring for others. Increasingly though, others may not wish to receive any assistance from these well-meaning religious professionals. However, in the same way, that I had to contend with RACS, there were significant numbers of Defence Chaplains who also fought tooth and nail against giving ground to secularism. They honestly believe that there is a cosmic battle between good and evil, God and Satan — and maintaining numbers of gospel ministers is key to winning the fight for the souls of the many lost defence personnel. All power to them if they want to go back to their churches and believe this. However, when the Commonwealth is funding chaplaincy in the ADF, it has to be about wellbeing, not converting the lost.

Ordained ministers of the Christian religion are the most accessible and numerous wellbeing support available to defence personnel. The ADF has situated Chaplaincy as an essential first step in ADF’s mental health and wellbeing strategy. We know from research that Defence personnel are increasingly reluctant to use the services of a religious person when seeking help. A survey conducted by Dynata shows that 66% of those who did not identify as religious said that they would be reluctant, or very reluctant, to use the services of a religious chaplain when seeking help. Chaplains counter this by stating that those who don’t want to see a chaplain can see a Defence Social Worker. Compared to the large numbers of religious chaplains employed by Defence (140 full time and another 100 part-time), the ADF only employs around 35 Social Workers. In addition to this disparity, a number of these Social Workers are also contractors rather than APS employees. It is known that 60% of the ADF have no religious affiliation, and when considered with the Rationalist Society of Australia’s Religiosity report, it is likely that only a very tiny fraction of ADF personnel believe religious faith to be an integral part of their life.

“66% of those who did not identify as religious said that they would be reluctant, or very reluctant, to use the services of a religious chaplain when seeking help.”

The current model makes no sense. It makes no sense if the primary goal is the wellbeing of ADF people and their families. It’s time for the Army and Air Force to follow the Navy and change the model to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and secular Australian Defence Force.