Law Commons^™

The Congressional Chaplaincies, Christopher C. Lund

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Roughly twenty-five years ago, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court considered the congressional chaplaincies, and concluded that they were not "an 'establishment' of religion or a step toward establishment," but instead were "simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country."' That latter phrase has been repeated hundreds of times in cases and law review articles; it suggests that the chaplaincies are uninteresting and uncontroversial and that they have been so throughout our history. The Court in Marsh looked only briefly at the history of the chaplaincies.2 A deeper look at that history reveals …