Marines have less than two months to select a religious affiliation from a newly condensed list of 30 options the service announced Tuesday, as part of a Pentagon-wide overhaul to reduce the number of faith designations.
The new list replaces more than 200 affiliation codes that were previously available to service members, grouping many individual identities into expansive categories. The move comes amid sweeping changes to the military’s religious programs and chaplaincy under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Marines have until Sep. 30 to update their personnel records to reflect the slimmed-down options, the service said in an administrative message.
When the Pentagon announced the overarching changes earlier this year, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said the shift was designed to help chaplains understand the composition of their units, not delegitimize religious beliefs.
The Marine Corps’ administrative message addressed the intention Parnell described, but said: “as a result of this change, some previously authorized faith and belief designations are no longer individually represented and have been consolidated into broader religious affiliation categories.”
Marines are instructed to choose “the most appropriate” identity when making their selection.
This is not the only recent change to the military’s approach to faith and chaplaincy under the current administration. In March, Hegseth announced that chaplains would no longer wear rank on their uniforms, instead displaying symbols of faith. Last December, he railed against “new age notions” in the Army Spiritual Fitness Guide and said in a video posted on social media that he signed a directive to scrap it.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.