In this groundbreaking volume, theologians and scholars of religion criticize and refine new materialist views, to advance debate about the role of religious experience in social and political change.

Religion in Uniform argues powerfully that Americans must reform their military’s chaplaincy. Americans fund this public project to serve all persons in the armed forces, but the chaplaincy currently fails to do so. Waggoner shows that Americans’ support for keeping chaplain positions in the military has always rested on a mix of political, military, and religious rationales that continue to evolve. He argues political, military, and theological reasons to eradicate bias, gender discrimination and sexual violence in the chaplain corps and to stop the use of chaplains in strategic roles abroad. Acknowledging that Christian groups are providing the strongest support for the chaplaincy’s status quo, Waggoner contests the specific theological claims that underwrite their policies. He launches a new, critical and constructive discussion about US military religion for the twenty-first century.