Episode 116 - Make Chaplains Great Again

In December 2025 the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth released a video and accompanying policy to rescind the DoD’s chaplain doctrine and replace it with a more Christian-centric framework. In this episode, I’m joined by Libby Alders to examine the “Make Chaplains Great Again” theme and what it suggests about rolling back religious pluralism in the military. We discuss how the chaplaincy has evolved to serve a diverse force; and why that evolution is now under political fire. The conversation explores what this debate means for service members, institutional neutrality, and the future of faith inside the ranks.