There are more than 3,800 military chaplains serving in the US armed forces. The largest of the services, the Army, recognizes 120 endorsing bodies - faith organizations that sponsor chaplains. The endorsing bodies with the most chaplains across all three services are the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Methodist Church. These churches endorse 30 percent of chaplains across all three services.

The remaining 70 percent of endorsing bodies include many denominations, the bulk of which are evangelical Christian churches. These evangelical chaplains, as well as the handful from such faiths as Judaism and Islam are represented in percentages larger than the percentages of service personnel who identify themselves as part of those faiths.

For example, explains an Army chaplain spokesman, Muslim imams make up 0.4 percent of that branch's chaplaincy, while 0.3 percent of Army personnel overall identify themselves as Muslim. Meanwhile, Buddhists are a recent addition and are still not proportionately represented in the chaplain corps while other faiths, such as Wicca, are recognized by the military but have as yet no representation in the chaplaincy.