Gatlin Gunnery

The Christian Beacon, weekly publication of the fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian Church again trained its guns on the U.S. Navy. Four of its eight tabloid-size pages were spattered with editorials, copies of official letters, affidavits concerning a Southern Baptist Navy chaplain who was relieved of active duty "because of his extremely zealous evangelistic inclinations [which were] embarrassing and disquieting to the associates in the Navy."

Hell-Fire. The overzealous chaplain was Kentucky-born Laurel Garnett Gatlin, 44. In the four Southern pastorates he has held, Preacher Gatlin has pounded out straight hellfire & damnation. After each service he would make a last-minute appeal to any sinner not to leave church without embracing the Lord Jesus and being saved. To Preacher Gatlin the Navy seemed like a field ripe unto the harvest. So he became a Navy chaplain, served nearly eight tumultuous months. By the end of that time, the Navy asked Chaplain Gatlin to resign. He refused, was thereupon relieved from active duty because of "a definitely narrow and sectarian religious view and background . . . a disqualification for effective service-in the Navy's chaplaincy." He is now pastor of the First Baptist Church, Pulaski Tenn. (pop. 5,314).

During his Navy service Chaplain Gatlin converted 31 sailors. But many things about his work disturbed him. He did not like to baptize by sprinkling ("Contrary to Baptist belief and practice") or "to administer the Lord's Supper to any but baptized believers." He did not like Navy orders "not to tell the men what the Bible teaches concerning salvation," but to tell the men "character stories and that they must be willing to die for their country." He was stunned by rumors about "several chaplains who had gotten drunk," and he was shocked that some chaplains swear.

Damnation! He cited a Presbyterian chaplain who "never taught a class at the Chaplains' School but what he used profanity. On one occasion [when] one of the students was giving a sermon before the class, the student happened to say 'I think,' and at this [the chaplain] blurted out 'Hell! We don't give a damn what you think!' This was much to the amazement of the class."

Chaplain Clinton A. Neyman, reported Chaplain Gatlin, "reprimanded me for my zeal in winning men to Christ, saying that there were other duties more important . . . told me ... that I did not have the Navy picture." Chaplain Gatlin added 'but I knew how to show a man who was dying how to go to Heaven." The Beacon termed the Navy chaplaincy situation "most deplorable," said "it concerns definitely every true Christian in the United States of America." The case of Chaplain Gatlin might be extreme. It was not new. Last year the Navy forced Chaplain Norbett G. Talbott to resign because of scruples about serving beer at entertainments for sailors or giving them talks on venereal disease (TIME, Feb. 7).

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