Can Bergdahl’s Faith Explain His Actions?

Were it not for the political wrangling over whether he is a hero or a traitor, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who arrived in San Antonio early Friday, might well be held up as a classic example of the religious seeker: the deeply spiritual quester after truth, light and justice. 

Yet the news media have been curiously silent on the question of his religious background. Aside from vague references to his belonging to a Calvinist church, no one has taken a serious look at how that church might have played a role in his decision to join the Army, and subsequently to leave his unit behind. 

Philip Proctor, the Bergdahls’ pastor at Sovereign Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Boise, told The Huffington Post that Bowe had “grown up in a conservative Christian home, and he was trying to figure out if this was his faith or his parents’ faith.” 

Maybe. But in young Bergdahl’s case — unlike that of the more typical Catholic or Jewish or mainline Protestant adolescent — the devil had to have been in the details. His family’s faith, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, makes extraordinary demands on a sensitive young person’s conscience and conduct.

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