Paganism has always been hidden in the mix, however. Everyone knows the rituals of the Christian calendar are replete with homage to other gods; not least through Christmas trees and Easter eggs. Pagan elements within Christian practice are so common – most obviously astrology, divination, and the clutching of a rabbits foot, to name a few – that they constitute a focus for the scholarly study of religion, simply called “popular religion.”

The increasing softness of the barriers between contemporary Christianity and paganism are further illustrated by such movements as “Green Christianity” generally with its capitalized “Earth” and, more institutionally, the creation of the Covenant of UU Pagans within Unitarian Universalism. Hence, today’s situation reminds me of Gilbert and Sullivan’s warning: “Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.” The differences between pagan and Christian practice are not and perhaps have never been as great as some would have it.

So, let me rephrase the question. Assuming the constitutionality of a government sponsorship of sectarian religion within the U.S. military, is it permissible for the chaplaincy to not represent the sectarian diversity of its troops? No. As the Supreme Court has observed, whatever else the Establishment Clause may mean, it must mean that the government cannot privilege one religion over another. In the twentieth century, Paganism organized into discrete communities of belief and joined the panoply of America’s religious denominations. Their members among the U.S. military deserve and have a right to the same aid and comfort given their religious counterparts.