Hail to the Chaplain

By Chris Horn

Never let it be said there is no politics in religion, or that religion never enters politics.

George E. Meetze, chaplain of the S.C. Senate since 1950, knows better.

“If anybody says there’s no politics in the church, he’s badly mistaken,” said Meetze, a 1930 USC graduate who half jokingly refers to himself as “the priest, rabbi, and protestant pastor to 46 people.”

Talk about a tightrope. “Anything religious or political can become controversial in the twinkling of an eye,” he said.

Yet the 95-year-old Meetze has flourished as the Senate chaplain (and been re-elected every two years) for the same reason his selection for the job by acclamation of the Senate thrilled him when Harry S Truman was president. In his heart, he said, he’s a pastor who has strived to encourage brotherhood and advance an understanding of others’ viewpoints.

He gives the invocation at the start of every Senate session, and is the body’s official researcher for information the Senate needs on the philosophy, psychology, or history of religion. He also has confidential pastoral consultations with senators grappling with voting decisions and sometimes will pray with them. But he assiduously avoids the debates and politics of the Senate, striving instead to create consensus.

“To have the confidence of 46 senators is the thing that has motivated and kept me going all these years,” he said. “I really don’t know Democrat from Republican.”

Meetze became the Senate chaplain on a part-time basis while he was still pastor of Columbia’s Incarnation Lutheran Church on Devine Street after serving as pastor at the St. Barnabas Lutheran Church in Charleston and the Grace Lutheran Church in Prosperity.

He also has served the state as a board member, past president, and national delegate of the S.C. Division of the American Cancer Society, and as a colonel and headquarters chaplain of the S.C. State Guard, the reserve of the National Guard. A raft of other honors, from USC’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award to legislative resolutions of appreciation, the Order of the Palmetto, and the naming of an interdenominational chapel in his honor, all reflect the esteem in which he is held.

It’s been a remarkable journey, one that he says he owes in large part to USC. Born in Lexington County, Meetze received his bachelor’s degree from the University cum laude in three and a half years before winning a scholarship designated for the University by the New York Theological Seminary where he “was exposed to the finest theological education available in the world.”

He returned to Columbia for a fourth year of study at the Lutheran Southern Seminary and was ordained in 1934, arriving at the Incarnation Lutheran Church in 1942 where he stayed until his retirement in 1974 at age 65.

It was at USC, said Meetze, where he felt blessed by his exposure to a “fabulous” faculty who imparted a love of learning and the pursuit of truth. “There was an air of godliness on campus then [chapel attendance was mandatory] that was a virtue,” Meetze said. “It was during the Depression and faculty sacrifices were extraordinary.”

He was manager of the USC Glee Club, a member of the Clariosophic Literary Society, and particularly loved his courses in Latin, psychology, philosophy, and English. Today, Meetze calls himself a “solid Gamecock” devoted to the University in a way that prompted the gift of his papers to the South Caroliniana Library.

“I owe to the University my real educational support,” he said. “I learned how to think and was challenged by the faculty there. I realize it was providential that I was given the opportunity to prepare to be chaplain of the state Senate there, and the sense of gratitude I have for USC is almost beyond comprehension.”