Why do Federal Clergymen Get Paid More Than Private Ones?

I’ve attempted to answer this three times. Turns out I’m in a cynical bad mood. Something about federal (tax money) and clergy in the same sentence that just sets me on edge.

i think they counted palin and bush as part of the fed paid clergy 🙂 ok jokes aside i think part of it could be the 10% tithe church goers
are supposed to pay,congressmen have allot more 10% then the average Joe.not to mention it seems to me the republicans seem to have a major amount of money to through around.but maybe that’s just me mistaking things.

Yeah, I’d have to assume that the majority of the federal clergy would be military clergy and thus they’d be receiving officer scale pay, benefits and such.

It would defintely be chaplains in the armed forces. I imagine that the US forces are much like the Canadian, which would mean that professiona generally requiring university degrees are classed as officers. Moreover, there will be a hierarchy. The head honcho (chief chaplain) will hold general officer rank and be paid accordingly, and under him will be colonels and so on.

Considering that the government employee gets paid more than the non-government employee in 85% of the items on that list, the fact that this is true for clergy becomes less surprising.

But, as for why it’s true, it has to do with market forces. In the public sector (i.e., the non-governmental sector often mislabeled the “private” sector), salaries are based on how valuable society thinks your contributions are, as determined through a market process of discovery.* In the governmental sector, salaries are based on legislation and no-competition bidding, and so are often driven up by the standard forms of corruption.

* Or, they would be in an ideal world. Government regulation of the economy tends to impose the same perversities that afflict the governmental sector onto the public sector too.

Yes, military chaplains (provided for by public law) and probably prisons, etc. Don’t know about the others, but in the military, most chaplains start out a captains (O3). You can look up federal pay scales to see what that means in $$$. On average, most Army chaps are 04-05 with a good handful of )6s.

Technically, they are there to support counseling and spiritual support missions for ALL faiths, and the better one, non-faith as well. The charter says they are there to support and enforce the 1st Amendment right of all troops to worship or NOT as they prefer.

In practice, as we all know, there are some variations …

I’ve experienced both kinds and have, actually, ‘converted’ one of two to a more open mindset.

Military Chaplains and combat pay would be my guess.

The military chaplain reason other’s have stated. Clergy is a pretty broad category, in the private sector it will include a wider swath of less schooled individuals than those serving in government. At my University we had a chaplain, who served to counsel students with religious and emotional concerns. He was an agnostic. Just because someone earns a degree in divinity doesn’t mean they are pushing a particular divine agenda. See also Unitarian clergy, who tend to be pretty god neutral.

It irritates me that we have chaplains in the military and in congress. Its so obviously an entanglement of church and state. It also irritates me that ministers get favorable tax treatment, including the ability to opt out of social security. I know these things first hand because I was a minister for over 10 years. You are allowed to deduct all of your housing expenses, including mortgage or rent payment, repairs, upgrades, maintenance, etc directly from your income and then on top of that if you have a mortgage you can deduct the interest in effect creating a double deduction for your interest. Finally, it irritates me that churches have tax exemption. With the huge need for additional revenue in this country, why doesn’t anyone suggest eliminating their tax exempt status?

More “perks” in private (ie non-declared items) that the Feds have to simply give cash for?

A quick glance looks like their pay is roughly similar to other federal workers who have the same (presumed) amount of education. e.g. My nephew was an associate pastor. He has a BA in Religious studies (or divinity, I don’t know what they call it). He is now back in school getting his Master’s degree.
I assume that federally employed clergymen would get paid based on the level of education required for that job. Similar to what another random federal job would pay that required a BA or BS.
HAH! I like the idea of issuing a BS in Religious studies. I crack myself up.

It’s nice that the federal laundry and dry clean workers get paid a decent wage.

This misses the point entirely. How in hell is it constitutional for the US government to being hiring clergymen in the first place? I don’t care what they earn. They shouldn’t be hired. This is an outrage.

I think the more important question is “why are there federal clergymen?” I think it’s absurd that any federal money is spent on hiring religious personnel, be they military chaplains or otherwise.

I have friends who are clergy in the military. All are considered employees of the federal government in the capacity of “soldier” first, “clergy” second. As such, they are paid the same amount as any officer of repute in the U.S. military. A man who goes into an enemy warzone, such as my friend who was in Operation Just Cause in Panama and is soon to be shipped to Afghanistan with a platoon, should not be penalized because he meets a spiritual need expressed by a large number of soldiers.

The military is not establishing a church. There is no official religion of the United States or the U.S. military established by the presence of a paid clergy member. In fact, there are scores of different types of clergy employed by the U.S. military, not just Christian.

Here is an interesting video illustrating the point in a humorous way: http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2009/12/10/separation-of-church-and-state/

The reason for federal chaplains in the military and in the prisons is the free exercise part of the first amendment. The government has limited the ability of prisoners and military (e.g., in combat zones) to find their own ministers outside the government and so needs to do something to provide that.

I can accept this given a few ground rules
1. No proselytizing (this is a given in the code of ethics for most hospital chaplains but most military chaplains are only restricted by their code of ethics from proselytizing people who are already religious[1])
2. Equal opportunity. In other words humanists should be allowed to be chaplains (Wisconsin had a fuss a few years back when a new state prison chaplain was Wiccan [some of the Christians were already upset that a Muslim was a chaplain]).

The free exercise reason does not apply to congressional chaplains.

[1] A smaller group has a code of ethics which allows proselytizing even people already in a religion and, I suspect, many (e.g., UUs) follow more closely the hospital chaplains’s code.

Why the hell we have Federal Clergyman, fire them all, wasting tax dollars on ppl who believe on fantasy….

C. E. –
Took a look at your website and I have to say I totally disagree with you. Batman would whoop Superman any day. I mean, come on – the dude can be taken out of action with a glowing rock.

C.E. Moore,

Seriously? The U.S. military has rules of conduct that limit what can and cannot be done while in the Armed Services. Offering porn and hookers is not something that meets the standards of an officer. Thus, it is not done. However, religious observance, something ingrained within the fabric of this country whether you like it or not, is acceptable. Even then, the U.S. military and U.S. government are very careful not to set up one official church that all military personnel MUST attend or a single religious code of conduct they must adhere to OR ELSE…like in, oh say Iraq or Afghanistan.

Also an establishment of religion. That’s not to say all religions have anything against porn, a lot do not. Porn and prostitution are pretty ingrained into the fabric of most societies. As a Christian obviously you have Christian standards and ideas about what is acceptable, but the military shouldn’t follow your standards. Establishing more than one religion isn’t better than establishing one, it’s worse. People believe in belief, so they want to promote religion, not every religion, but especially the monotheisms.

Furthermore, most religions, not just Christianity, are communal in nature. So, while Western ideals stress the individual over the community, MOST religions do not.

By communal you mean hierarchical and authoritarian, where western ideals promote individual liberty. If the US government sends people to a place without any Catholics, do they also have to send priests with any Catholics they send? They don’t, there’s no need, and they shouldn’t. This is only about establishing religion in the military.

Do those religions ask you to give up individual identity and become part of “group think.” No, despite those who use it as a means of getting people to do something or think a certain way so as to maintain a measure of control over them.

All the main religions ask people to become part of “group think”. They all have dogma and indoctrinate children, that’s a fact. Holy books are held up as authority by the majority of religious institutions. Catholics have canon law and Muslims have hadith. Smaller sects also have laws and dogma, some of them much more strict than the main religions. There are counter examples of course, but much of religion is authoritarian in nature, as are the fictional gods and holy books. Coercion and social pressure are used often in religion to get people to be part of “group think”.

Telling a Catholic who is compelled to fight for his country whilst simultaneously being used to being able to confess his sins to a priest to simply “get over it and think for yourselves like a good atheist” is a fundamentally flawed way of “getting your way” or “proving your point.”

That’s what you would tell an atheist if they felt the US military should pay for what they’re “used to”. Pastafarians need their hot tubs. Also, there’s plenty of Catholics fine with not confessing their sins. There’s plenty of Catholics that do not mind one bit that they won’t be able to contact a priest.

I’m just astounded that so many public positions pay better than private. I always thought people didn’t go into government because they could make more in the private sector.

Aside re: “Soldiers also have “sexual” needs…” It is interesting to note that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is worded so as to allow married heterosexuals to claim that gay thing that happened was just a fling and won’t happen again. See “Outrage” by Kirby Dick for an exploration of this religiously motivated hyprocrisy and how it has saddled the planet with AIDS.

@ecorona: As the data shows, quite the opposite in almost all cases. A government job is about the best thing you can get, if you don’t care about the morality of essentially being a parasite on the community. Government regulations make it almost impossible to fire most types of government employees, even if they consistently come to work late, leave early, and do an unbelievably sloppy job. Plus, since their salaries are set by legislation rather than by the market, they can effectively boost them by bribing some senators. This is why most unions these days are for government employees. Post Wagner, the union movement in the U.S has been neutered and limited to the most ineffective strategies and lamest goals imaginable*, which is why non-governmental union membership continues to spiral down towards zero. Government employee unions, on the other hand, can get what they want through elections.

* This statement should be universally accepted, but is unfortunately controversial among those who haven’t studied the issue. Current law for NLRB-affiliated unions prevents most forms of workplace activism other than striking, which is obviously the worker’s last choice as it involves not getting paid, especially since the law also makes it difficult for unions to provide mutual-aid for striking workers. These days, even following the orders of managers is illegal: google the phrase “malicious compliance.” (It’s worth noting that Wagner came about as a compromise between corporate leadership and union leadership: and it’s great for both of those groups; it’s just not very good for union members. This is why the principles of decentralization should be applied to all organizations, especially non-governmental ones.)

Why is the government paying clergy folk?

I will go you one better, and I am not an atheist, why is the Federal Government paying clergyman AT ALL. Let the individual churches pay their clergy for servicing the military and so forth.