For the first time in nearly a decade, the United States military has dramatically restructured how it classifies the religious identities of its service members, slashing the official list of recognized faith categories from 211 all the way down to 31.
The sweeping change came through a May 20 memo bearing the signature of Anthony Tata, who serves as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and it sets the stage for a significant shift in how the military’s chaplaincy operates on a day-to-day basis, reported by Military.com.
The policy being revised traces its origins back to 2017, when the first Trump administration oversaw an expansion of recognized faith codes that was endorsed at the time by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board.
That earlier effort aimed to bring greater uniformity to how religious preferences were identified and tracked across the various branches of the armed forces.
The board also intended the expanded system to support religious planning efforts and help commanders better understand the spiritual demographics of the troops under their charge.
But the system that grew out of those intentions eventually drew sharp criticism from Pentagon leadership, who argued it had become too bloated to be of any practical use.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made his position on the matter clear back in March, taking direct aim at the scale of the previous framework.
“The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes. … It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all,” Hegseth said, adding that 82 percent of religiously identifying service members drew from just six of those codes.
Tata’s memo framed the consolidation as a move toward smarter, more targeted support for troops, with the stated goal being to “streamline the DoD collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.”
Under the new structure, chaplains will work from a leaner, more defined set of categories that officials say will make it easier to anticipate and respond to the spiritual needs of those in uniform.
“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” Tata said.
Tata further specified that the revised affiliation codes carry no bearing on what a service member may choose to inscribe on their dog tags, preserving individual discretion in that area.
Major world religions retained their place on the updated roster, with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and Mormonism all continuing to receive formal recognition, alongside a range of Christian denominations including Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian traditions.
Agnosticism survived the cut as well, but atheism did not — a notable omission that marks a clear departure from the previous system’s broader inclusivity.
Gone entirely are categories that had previously carved out space for Deists, Druids, Heathens, Humanists, Pagans, Shamans, Spiritualists, Unitarian Universalists, and Wiccans, among others.
All branches of the military have been given 60 days from the date of the memo to bring their systems into compliance with the revised faith and belief codes.
