Valuing the work of Christian chaplains

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 20 Apr 2014.

Friday is Anzac Day, when Australians honour those who served and gave their lives in war.  Christian lawyer Mark Fowler, writing in Eternity newspaper, tells the story of Scottish minister Oswald Chambers, who left a teaching post in London to serve as chaplain to troops in Egypt during the Gallipoli campaign.

Astralian soldier John D. Blight wrote of Chambers’ ministry:

A military camp is the last place to which one would willingly go for influences that touch the finer side of life and that speak of things that are age-abiding; but at the YMCA hut [in Egypt], in spite of the hampering influences of militarism, men were brought face to face with a greater reality than the grim reality of war.  The memory of days spent with Oswald Chambers surpasses in vividness all other memories, and eclipses the physical and mental nausea and discomfort of the campaign.

God bless all our defence chaplains this week.  I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.