as paragons of goodness and niceness. Culture has a fairly high regard for pastors as custodians of moral order. We are viewed as persons who provide a background of social stability, who are useful in times of crisis and serve as symbols of meaning and purpose. But we are not necessary in any of those ways. Several years ago, I was invited to the Pentagon to meet with the chaplains of the various services—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines—to talk about their difficult position. We’d been in a peacetime