FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — American society may be less religious than it was a few generations ago, but its religious diversity has greatly increased. That change has dramatically impacted the Army, which must now offer religious services not only for Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants but also for a wide variety of different Christian denominations and minority faiths. That’s far different from what Lt. Col. John Bjarnason, Fort Leonard Wood’s family life chaplain, saw when he joined the Army in 1969. “We have a wide range of all kinds of different choices for our trainees to go to church. When I first came into the military, we had a choice: Catholic or Protestant,” Bjarnason said. “Actually there were three choices: drill sergeant time, Catholic time, or Protestant time, but who would ever choose drill sergeant time if they could choose Catholic time or Protestant time?” That diversity includes Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. “Today is Friday, Friday is the Muslim day of worship,” Bjarnason said. “Today there are two groups of Muslims meeting and one of them is right here in this (chaplain’s office) building.”
Click here to read more on Pulaski County Daily News ...By Darrell Todd Maurina
