West Point cadet quits military academy because of pervasive Christian evangelism
When Blake Page announced this week that he was quitting West Point a few months before graduation, citing the overt religiosity on campus, he raised recurring questions about the pervasiveness and impact of evangelical Christianity within the ranks of the US military.
“I do not wish to be in any way associated with an institution which willfully disregards the Constitution of the United States of America by enforcing policies which run counter to the same,” Mr. Page wrote in his letter of resignation to the US Military Academy at West Point, in New York.
He cites, among other things, routine prayers at mandatory events for cadets and the practice of awarding off-campus passes and credit to students who take part in religious retreats and chapel choirs. These activities, in turn, foster “open disrespect of non-religious new cadets,” Page argued, adding that he had been told at West Point that it was not possible for people to have morals without believing in God.
This is not the first time such charges have been leveled within a military training academy. The US Air Force Academy came under similar criticism in 2005 for conferring preferential treatment on cadets who were evangelical Christians and promoting proselytizing in the ranks.
A survey commissioned by the Air Force Academy in 2010 showed some improvements in the climate of religious tolerance on campus, but also found that many cadets still felt pressured to take part in religious activities. Nearly half of the non-Christian cadets surveyed, for example, said their fellow students have a “low tolerance” for atheists, a 20 percent jump from a similar 2008 survey.
Charges of evangelism went international when the Pentagon came under fire in 2010 for using gun sights engraved with Bible verses, fueling concerns that the war in Afghanistan would be seen as a military crusade. Some Pentagon officials at first dismissed complaints against the gun sights, comparing them to US currency engraved with “In God We Trust,” but senior officers demanded that the military stop using them.
This came on the heels of reports that Air Force missileers were receiving Bible-centered ethics training, with the aim of helping them shake off lingering doubts about firing nuclear weapons. The training – which had been in place for almost two decades and was known jokingly among theairmen as “Jesus loves nukes” – was halted in 2011.
“God and country is a big part of the military culture,” says Page in a phone interview with the Monitor. “Anytime we have a ceremony of any type, there’s always prayer.”
During his time at West Point as the head of the Secular Student Alliance, Page helped to establish “nontheist chapel time,” an alternative for nonreligious cadets. “Before [that, if you didn’t go to chapel] you could either go back to your room or have cleaning detail,” Blake recalls. “A friend of mine was made to sing and dance and recite knowledge and do all sorts of embarrassing things while everyone else went to church.”
West Point spokesman Francis DeMaro Jr. told CNN that Page’s claim that prayer is mandatory is not true. “The academy holds both official and public ceremonies where an invocation and benediction may be conducted, but prayer is voluntary,” he said. “As officers, cadets will be responsible for soldiers who represent America’s great diversity in faith and ethnic background.”
Though Page says he occasionally felt targeted for his nonreligious views, he also reports that he came to admire many who went out of their way to understand his concerns. He recalls one professor, an evangelical Christian, who called him in for a talk. “He genuinely asked me, ‘Would you please explain to me where you get your morals if you don’t get them from God?’ ”
This professor also asked Page how he could help to prevent a climate of religious intolerance. “He has a moral character, and he really inspired me,” Page says.
Mikey Weinstein, a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, calls Page the “Rosa Parks” of his generation. “Blake is in every way, shape, and form an American hero,” he says, adding that “mandated religion has no place within the technologically most lethal creation of the US government.”
Page, for his part, says he decided to go public with his resignation after learning that he would not receive a commission for the US military. Because of his struggle with depression, he received a medical waiver.
“When I knew I couldn’t commission, I knew that there was something I could do. I had such limited time remaining in the system, I thought that by doing this I could get people to think about it as well,” he says.
Since then, Page says, he has received “many, many” letters of support from faculty members and fellow cadets.
That said, many other cadets “respected my decision but didn’t agree with my method,” he says. The way he wrote his public letter, which he released to the Huffington Post, “was very hostile and confrontational – I acknowledge that – but there’s no way to get attention in this country without being confrontational,” he adds.
His next step is to finish his degree at a state university – he’s thinking Georgia or Minnesota. Then he plans to write a book about his experience at West Point, likely focusing on the culture among the corps of cadets.
“There are many other organizational problems at West Point that need to be addressed,” Page says. “The cadets know it, and talk about it all the time – but we’re addicted to tradition.”
When Blake Page announced this week that he was quitting West Point a few months before graduation, citing the overt religiosity on campus, he raised recurring questions about the pervasiveness and impact of evangelical Christianity within the ranks of the US military.
“I do not wish to be in any way associated with an institution which willfully disregards the Constitution of the United States of America by enforcing policies which run counter to the same,” Mr. Page wrote in his letter of resignation to the US Military Academy at West Point, in New York.
He cites, among other things, routine prayers at mandatory events for cadets and the practice of awarding off-campus passes and credit to students who take part in religious retreats and chapel choirs. These activities, in turn, foster “open disrespect of non-religious new cadets,” Page argued, adding that he had been told at West Point that it was not possible for people to have morals without believing in God.
This is not the first time such charges have been leveled within a military training academy. The US Air Force Academy came under similar criticism in 2005 for conferring preferential treatment on cadets who were evangelical Christians and promoting proselytizing in the ranks.
A survey commissioned by the Air Force Academy in 2010 showed some improvements in the climate of religious tolerance on campus, but also found that many cadets still felt pressured to take part in religious activities. Nearly half of the non-Christian cadets surveyed, for example, said their fellow students have a “low tolerance” for atheists, a 20 percent jump from a similar 2008 survey.
Charges of evangelism went international when the Pentagon came under fire in 2010 for using gun sights engraved with Bible verses, fueling concerns that the war in Afghanistan would be seen as a military crusade. Some Pentagon officials at first dismissed complaints against the gun sights, comparing them to US currency engraved with “In God We Trust,” but senior officers demanded that the military stop using them.
This came on the heels of reports that Air Force missileers were receiving Bible-centered ethics training, with the aim of helping them shake off lingering doubts about firing nuclear weapons. The training – which had been in place for almost two decades and was known jokingly among theairmen as “Jesus loves nukes” – was halted in 2011.
“God and country is a big part of the military culture,” says Page in a phone interview with the Monitor. “Anytime we have a ceremony of any type, there’s always prayer.”
During his time at West Point as the head of the Secular Student Alliance, Page helped to establish “nontheist chapel time,” an alternative for nonreligious cadets. “Before [that, if you didn’t go to chapel] you could either go back to your room or have cleaning detail,” Blake recalls. “A friend of mine was made to sing and dance and recite knowledge and do all sorts of embarrassing things while everyone else went to church.”
West Point spokesman Francis DeMaro Jr. told CNN that Page’s claim that prayer is mandatory is not true. “The academy holds both official and public ceremonies where an invocation and benediction may be conducted, but prayer is voluntary,” he said. “As officers, cadets will be responsible for soldiers who represent America’s great diversity in faith and ethnic background.”
Though Page says he occasionally felt targeted for his nonreligious views, he also reports that he came to admire many who went out of their way to understand his concerns. He recalls one professor, an evangelical Christian, who called him in for a talk. “He genuinely asked me, ‘Would you please explain to me where you get your morals if you don’t get them from God?’ ”
This professor also asked Page how he could help to prevent a climate of religious intolerance. “He has a moral character, and he really inspired me,” Page says.
Mikey Weinstein, a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, calls Page the “Rosa Parks” of his generation. “Blake is in every way, shape, and form an American hero,” he says, adding that “mandated religion has no place within the technologically most lethal creation of the US government.”
Page, for his part, says he decided to go public with his resignation after learning that he would not receive a commission for the US military. Because of his struggle with depression, he received a medical waiver.
“When I knew I couldn’t commission, I knew that there was something I could do. I had such limited time remaining in the system, I thought that by doing this I could get people to think about it as well,” he says.
Since then, Page says, he has received “many, many” letters of support from faculty members and fellow cadets.
That said, many other cadets “respected my decision but didn’t agree with my method,” he says. The way he wrote his public letter, which he released to the Huffington Post, “was very hostile and confrontational – I acknowledge that – but there’s no way to get attention in this country without being confrontational,” he adds.
His next step is to finish his degree at a state university – he’s thinking Georgia or Minnesota. Then he plans to write a book about his experience at West Point, likely focusing on the culture among the corps of cadets.
“There are many other organizational problems at West Point that need to be addressed,” Page says. “The cadets know it, and talk about it all the time – but we’re addicted to tradition.”
Evangelist Video Shot at Air Force Academy Exposed
By Anna Schecter
A video made by a Christian ministry group shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to become “government paid missionaries when they leave” the academy, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week. MRFF president Mikey Weinstein says the video is unconstitutional and an outrage. “This is absolutely out of control. You cannot engage the U.S. government to propel your religion,” said Weinstein. THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS Blotter DOD Stops Plan to Send Christian Video Game to Troops in Iraq Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage. The video features former Academy Campus Crusade for Christ director Scot Blum saying, “They’re government paid missionaries when they leave here,” referring to graduates of the academy. “Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world,” said Blum on the video. Watch the Campus Crusade for Christ video here. Weinstein, whose organization has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense for violating service members’ right to religious freedom, said the video is one item on a “long menu” of unconstitutional evangelism going on in the military. A spokeswoman for Campus Crusade for Christ said her organization’s Military Ministry occasionally comes under attack from various groups which don’t agree with her organization’s Christian mission. “We are careful to comply with all government and Department of Defense policies and regulations which may apply to our ministry with government agencies and employees, and we will review the video in question to ensure continued compliance,” the spokeswoman said. An Air Force Academy spokesman said he has not seen the video, but that the Air Force Academy has pledged to defend religious rights. “We’ve worked actively to remind our people to respect others, and we make sure we offer a wide variety of [religious] services,” the spokesman said. Do you have a tip for Brian Ross and the Investigative Team?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2007/12/evangelist-vide/
THE THREAT OF AN EVANGELIZED US MILITARY
By
A. Hewitt Rose, III
Coercive evangelizing and official promotion of evangelical Protestantism is rife and systemic within the US military. Soldiers at Ft. Eustis who would not volunteer to attend a command-sponsored evangelical concert were marched to their barracks and punished with a lockdown until the concert ended. US taxpayers partially funded and Ft. Bragg chaplains co-sponsored an evangelical rally held on Fort Bragg’s Main Parade Field and intended to take “the Christian message to all of Fort Bragg and the surrounding community.” Officers gave evangelical missionaries from the Gideons both an introduction and preferential access to enlisted recruits. Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy face a gauntlet of evangelical professors, staff, chaplains, and upper class members, with command authority, who pressure them to attend worship services, receive evangelical instruction, and evangelize their fellow cadets. Commanders pressure soldiers to attend marriage conferences run by the evangelical Focus on the Family, which has a Department of Defense contract to host the conferences.
Some 60% of military chaplains are evangelical, while only 40% of active duty personnel are evangelical. Many of the evangelical chaplains see their mission not as meeting the diverse religious needs of those in the service, but rather converting those not yet “born again.”
Members of the US Military and civilian missionaries, backed and protected by the US military, also illegally evangelize foreign civilians at gun point. In Iraq, soldiers drove a Bradley fighting vehicle around in Samara with the phrase “Jesus killed Mohammed” painted on the side in Arabic. More than two million Arabic-language Bibles were distributed in Iraq by some 40 military chaplains. In Afghanistan, Colonel Gary Hensley, a division chaplain for the 101st Airborne and the chief Army chaplain for all of Afghanistan, was filmed in a service in Bagram’s main chapel surrounded by Bibles translated into Pashto and Dar and telling soldiers to get out there and “hunt people for Jesus.” The military allowed two civilian missionaries to be embedded with US troops in Afghanistan so they could evangelize Afghans.
Religious discrimination against non-evangelicals is also rife in the US military. Atheist Army specialist Jerry Hall, a turret gunner on his second tour in Iraq, was denied a promotion and then was hounded out of the Army by death threats and taunting soldiers chasing him and threatening to beat him up. A Mormon former Marine said that half of the eight chaplains he met while in the military tried to convert him and described his faith as “wicked” or “Satanic.” Army Specialist Zachari Klawonn, a Muslim, was harassed and taunted by fellow soldiers, had his Koran torn up, and was ordered not to fast and pray.
The USAF Chaplain of the Year explained to Air Force Academy cadets that those not “born again will burn in the fires of Hell.
Evangelical groups have explicitly targeted the US military in order to establish a base from which they can convert the US government and the rest of the world. For example, the Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with 15,000 members and active in 80% of military bases, has a vision of a “spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform.” The aim of the Military Ministry of the Campus Crusade for Christ, located at all the military academies and basic training centers, is to “Evangelize and Disciple All Enlisted Members of the US Military” so as to “[t]ransform our culture through the US Military” and to “[b]uild Christian military leaders and influence our nation for Christ …” Their ultimate vision is “[t]ranforming the nations of the world through the militaries of the world.”
Much of the military‘s coercive evangelizing, promotion of evangelical Protestantism, and discrimination against non-evangelicals is illegal. Military regulations bar religious discrimination and promote religious equal opportunity, but the regulations are often ignored or neglected by commanders and frustrated by the broken military complaint system. Military sponsorship of evangelical concerts and rallies, religion-specific public prayer by military chaplains at events with mandatory attendance, privileged access for evangelical missionaries, superior officers evangelizing their subordinates, chaplains evangelizing outside of worship services, and toleration of discrimination against non-Evangelicals are all an immoral and unconstitutional establishment of religion by government authority. Nevertheless, enforcement of the law is difficult, because civilian courts treat the military as a specialized society and defer to military necessity and judgment.
An evangelized military is also dangerous. A religiously co-opted military serving as armed warriors for Christ and formulating and following its own policies would destroy civilian control of the military and threaten a domestic religious tyranny. If we are propelled into foreign armed crusades for Christ, then the US in principle becomes no different than Radical Islam.
An evangelized military is militarily ineffective. If it limits itself to evangelical warriors, then it excludes needed personnel and talent and narrows military judgment. An evangelical US military cannot be trusted in non-evangelical countries, particularly in Islamic countries. Attempted conversions at gunpoint breed hatred and resistance.
Evangelicals argue that God comes before country. Their argument is either an argument for an evangelical theocracy or a vague and ill-thought-out argument for personal civil disobedience. By law, members of the armed services must take an oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution;” that is, country first. Otherwise, they would be paid vigilantes on their own mission, or worse, the organized means for a tyrannical ends. If a service member believes that they have a supervening duty to coercively evangelize, then they should exercise their moral choice by not serving in the military.
Evangelicals also argue that evangelizing is part of their religion, a moral duty, and so is protected by the free exercise of religion clause of the Constitution. For coercive evangelizing, courts disagree. More importantly, such a binary formulation of tolerance—the tolerant must tolerate the intolerant, because intolerance is wrong—is paradoxical. Tolerance is a matter of degrees. Respect tolerance—you don’t have to agree with my belief, but you must treat it as worthy of discussion—is necessary for a society that values religious freedom and pluralism. Those Evangelicals who see only their rights instead of societal values are opposed to these fundamental American values.
There is no easy, speedy, or sure solution to a problem that has become entrenched in the US military over six decades. Any solution must come from within the military and from public and governmental pressure. It is possible. Despite resistance, military culture has changed before on the integration of blacks, women, and homosexuals. Further, the ideal of an apolitical military under firm civilian control and loyal to the Constitution first and foremost remains a bedrock value in the military. In particular, the military must
(1) Change certain military guidelines and regulations.
(2) Investigate and publicize the problem of religious intolerance.
(3) Change the make up and nature of military chaplains.
(4) Reform the military culture.
(5) Dismiss some Evangelicals from the military.
For more information, follow this link.
http://instituteforscienceandhumanvalues.com/articles/religious%20discrimination%20military.htm
The Air Force Academy’s force-fed evangelism
By ROBYN E. BLUMNER
Published May 29, 2005
In my book, true heroism is defined by those who talk truth to power even to their own detriment. It includes people like Sherron Watkins, the former Enron vice president who blew the whistle on the financial manipulations that hid the company’s crushing debt. (Go see the movie Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for all the gory details.)
Watkins has become famous for her rectitude, but rarely do such acts lead to public accolades. Bad endings for the truth sayer are far more likely.
Capt. MeLinda Morton is a prime example. A chaplain at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Morton has been trying her mightiest to end the force-fed evangelism that is rampant on campus. Rather than thanks, her outspoken defense of the Constitution has gotten her booted from her job and a one-way ticket to exile in Japan – known as “reassignment” in military speak.
Her fight against proselytizing is taking place in Colorado Springs – control central for the most radical elements of the Christian Right. James “tolerance is a homosexual plot” Dobson’s Focus on the Family is based there – a concern so large that there is no need to use a street address on a letter. Also nearby is the Officers’ Christian Fellowship, an organization whose express purpose is to create “ambassadors for Christ in uniform.” Its slogan is: “Christian Officers Exercising Biblical Leadership to Raise up a Godly Military.” (That’s funny, the Taliban say something very similar.)
There is significant cross-pollination between the local evangelical groups and the Academy, to a point where cadets are reportedly cajoled, harangued and even bullied into being “saved.”
Mikey Weinstein, an attorney in Albuquerque, N.M., has been collecting complaints of this nature for more than a year and says he has about 150 of them. Weinstein is a graduate of the Academy, as is his elder son. But when his youngest son, who is a member of the class of 2007, was called a “f— Jew” and taunted as a Christ killer, Weinstein got involved.
“The Air Force Academy is suffering from a constitutional disease,” Weinstein said. “They are trying to tell people whose God is best.” He said his complaints have received little more than lip-service.
“I love and cherish the Academy,” he said, “but it’s been overtaken by the evangelical right.”
Morton, a 48-year-old Lutheran minister, has seen this up close over the past 2 1/2 years. She says the academy is sending cadets the message that adopting Christian conservative evangelical values is key to their success at the school.
“There’s nothing wrong with people reaching out to cadets,” Morton said. “But when the purpose is to proselytize and make the military into a godly force, then that’s inappropriate.”
Fisher DeBerry, the Academy’s head football coach, exemplifies the explicit sectarianism on campus. Two weeks after the academy had ostensibly begun religious sensitivity training, DeBerry posted a banner in the football locker room that read: “I am a Christian first and last *** I am a member of Team Jesus Christ.”
Challenging authority is difficult in any institution, but it’s career suicide within a military structure that maintains a strict hierarchy in which the way to advance is to parrot what those above you say. Morton, who was executive officer of the 16 chaplains, knew what she was risking when she started criticizing the religiously freighted climate and repudiating the Academy’s official stance that remedial steps were being taken.
Since coming forward, Morton has been removed from her administrative position and has orders to transfer to Okinawa by the end of July. The Academy has said in news reports that the posting is a routine reassignment. (It will no longer discuss her case with the media.) Morton says the move is to get rid of her.
“I spent 2 1/2 years putting in 16-hour days,” Morton said. “Now I have no specific duties.”
The recent publicity over the religious atmosphere has put pressure on the Pentagon. Forty-five members of Congress joined a letter this month telling the Air Force, in effect, “we’re watching.” A Pentagon task force was dispatched to investigate the allegations. But the group didn’t even bother to contact Weinstein (who calls it a “mask force.”) As to Morton, she said the group spoke with her just hours before briefing the Air Force’s acting secretary – giving it no time to investigate her claims.
It looks like a classic whitewash in the making.
The Academy has just recently emerged from a scandal over the insensitive way the rapes of female cadets were handled. Now it’s accused of conversion by intimidation. The leadership either has the sense of a flea or is seeking to dissuade women and non-evangelicals from attending the Academy. I wonder which?
[Last modified May 27, 2005, 23:45:03]
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/29/Columns/The_Air_Force_Academy.shtml
Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought
Friday, 21 December 2007 02:10by: Anonymous
Also see:
AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications [
Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 21 December 2007
For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure. That’s the message directed at Fort Jackson soldiers, some of whom appear in photographs in government issued fatigues, holding rifles in one hand, and Bibles in their other hand.
Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that “government authorities, police and the military = God’s Ministers,”
Bussey’s teachings from the “God’s Basic Training” Bible study guide he authored says US troops have “two primary responsibilities”: “to praise those who do right” and “to punish those who do evil – “God’s servant, an angel of wrath.” Bussey’s teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format.
The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement’s meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic “End Times” evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution.
Perhaps no other fundamentalist Christian group is more influential than Military Ministry, a national organization and a subsidiary of the controversial fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Military Ministry’s national web site boasts it has successfully “targeted” basic training installations, or “gateways,” and has successfully converted thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity.
Military Ministry says its staffers are responsible for “working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries” – which appears to be a clear-cut violation of federal law governing the separation of church and state.
“Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways,” the group has stated on its web site. “The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the ‘good news.’ We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB [Air Force base] and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals.”
Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry’s activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using “the machinery of the state” to promote any form of religion is “not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order.”
A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry’s staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base’s top commanders.
“I’ve said it before and I will say it again,” Weinstein said. “We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now.”
Weinstein points out that on Fort Jackson’s Military Ministry web site, the basic training battalion commander, Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, and the battalion’s chaplain, Maj. Scott Bullock, who appear in uniform in a photograph with Bussey, is a clear-cut violation of Military rules. MRFF contacted Bussey via email on Wednesday to request information about the “similar programs” he claimed Fort Jackson has for soldiers of other faiths. Bussey, responding to MRFF via email, did not provide an answer to the watchdog group’s question, but, instead, he fired back a query of his own asking MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda to direct him to the place in the Constitution where it states there is a “separation of church and state.”
Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution forbids a religion test for any position in the federal government, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion.
A spokesperson for the Fort Jackson Army base did not return calls for comment. Earlier this week, after MRFF exposed the potential constitutional violations between Military Ministry and the Fort Jackson Army base, Bussey added language to Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site in the form of a “notice to MRFF and ACLU types” in bold red letters that says the Bible study classes are strictly voluntary, not command directed in any way, allows soldiers to exercise for themselves the right of freedom of religion … and similar programs exist on Fort Jackson for Soldiers of all faiths.”
In July, the Pentagon’s inspector general (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by MRFF that accused Pentagon officials of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. The IG did not address the church/state issue, but he issued a 45-page report admonishing several high-level Pentagon officials for participating, while in uniform and on active duty, in a promotional video sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ’s Christian Embassy group. The IG report quoted one high-ranking military official as saying he believed his participation in the video was acceptable because Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon’s day-to-day operations that he viewed the organization as a “quasi federal entity.”
The IG report recommended the military officials who appeared in the video be disciplined, but the Pentagon would not say whether it has in fact punished the military officers who appeared in the video.
MRFF uncovered another recent Campus Crusade for Christ promotional videofilmed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that would appear to violate the same military rules detailed in the IG report. Cadets and academy officials appear in uniform discussing how Campus Crusade for Christ helped strengthen their bonds with Jesus.
Scot Blom, the Campus Crusade for Christ director assigned to work at the Air Force Academy, says in the video the organization “has always been very intentional about going after the leaders or the future leaders” and that’s why Campus Crusade for Christ picked the Air Force Academy to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. Every week, according to the video, cadets are encouraged to participate in a Bible study class called “cru” short for “crusade.”
“Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world,” Blom says in the video. “They’re government paid missionaries when they leave here.”
Weinstein said the recent promotional video for Campus Crusade for Christ, and the photograph of US soldiers holding Bibles in one hand and rifles in the other posted on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry web site, gives the impression the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization and underscores that the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan appears to be more of a modern-day fundamentalist Christian crusade. That message, Weinstein said, could lead to more “jihads” against the United States.
Indeed. Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an “unexpected” telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him “to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military” because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way.
Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named.
Fundamental Christianity’s Influence on the Bush Administration
While Weinstein has worked tirelessly the past four years exposing the Christian Right’s power grab within the military, he says the White House continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state.
Indeed. This week a US District Court judge ruled the White House must disclose its visitor logs showing White House visits by nine fundamentalist Christian leaders.
The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and could very well show how much influence fundamental Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell have had on the Bush’s administration.
“We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. “The White House doesn’t want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have.”
Bush has been vocal about his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and how God has helped him during his presidency. A couple of weeks ago, the White House sent out Christmas cards signed by President Bush and his wife Laura that contained a Biblical passage from the Old Testament:
“You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.”
The inclusion of the Biblical passage caught the attention of longtime broadcaster Barbara Walters, who was a recipient of the presidential Christmas card.
Walters said she doesn’t recall receiving “religious” holiday cards from past presidents and she wondered how non-Christians would receive such an overtly religious greeting.
“Usually in the past when I have received a Christmas card, it’s been ‘Happy Holidays’ and so on,” said Walters. “Don’t you think it’s a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card? Does this also go to agnostics, and atheists, and Muslims?”
The Biblical passage inside the Christmas card did not amount to a constitutional violation because it was paid for by the Republican National Committee, but Weinstein said it’s intolerable, nonetheless, because military officials believe they have the approval of the White House to allow fundamentalist Christian organizations and their leaders to proselytize in the military.
Recently, Bush nominated Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, to replace the outgoing Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and is in line to be promoted to Major General. Richardson was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right “to evangelize the unchurched.” The distinction, Richardson said at the time, “is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel.”
Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson’s comments were published alleging “severe, systemic and pervasive” religious discrimination within the Air Force. Weinstein is a 1977 graduate of the Academy. His sons and a daughter in law are also academy graduates. Weinstein’s book, “With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against An Evangelical Coup in America’s Military,” details the virulent anti-Semitism he was subjected to while he attended the academy and the religious intolerance that has permeated throughout the halls over the past several years.
The federal lawsuit Weinstein filed was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military. Still, Weinstein said MRFF would lobby senators to oppose Richardson’s nomination because of his past statements Richardson has refused to retract.
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will do everything in our power to convince the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson to become the chief of Air Force chaplains and his promotion to the rank of major general,” Weinstein said in an interview. “We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military.”
In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall’s an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall’s atheist beliefs.
“When You Join the Military, Then You Are Also in the Ministry”
The executive director of Military Ministry, retired US Army Major General Bob Dees, wrote in the organization’s October 2005 “Life and Leadership” newsletter, “We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation – through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens….”
Moreover, Military Ministry’s parent organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been re-distributing to military chaplains a DVD produced a decade ago where Tommy Nelson, a pastor at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, tells an audience of Texas A&M cadets and military officers when they join the military “then you are also in the ministry.”
“I, a number of years ago, was speaking at the University of North Texas – it happens to be my alma mater, up in Denton, Texas – and I was speaking to an ROTC group up there, and when I stepped in I said, “It’s good to be speaking to all you men and women who are in the ministry,” and they all kind of looked at me, and I think they wondered if maybe I had found the wrong room, or if they were in the wrong room, and I assured them that I was speaking to men and women in the ministry, these that were going to be future officers,” Nelson says in the DVD.
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/75184:military-evangelism-deeper-wider-than-first-thought
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http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/stan-goff-a-christian-soldier-at-60-on-veterans-day/
http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/i-learned-about-flying-from-that-2/
https://sttpml.org/they-died-in-vain-deal-with-it/
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Goff
Stan Goff: ‘Hold On To Your Humanity: An Open Letter To GIs In Iraq’ By Stan Goff (US Army Retired 11/15/13: (CounterPunch) Dear American serviceperson in Iraq, I am a retired veteran of the army, and my own son is among you, a paratrooper like I was. The changes that are happening to every one of you–some more extreme than others–are changes I know very well. So I’m going to say some things to you straight up in the language to which you are accustomed. In 1970, I was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, then based in northern Binh Dinh Province in what was then the Republic of Vietnam. When I went there, I had my head full of shit: shit from the news media, shit from movies, shit about what it supposedly mean to be a man, and shit from a lot of my know-nothing neighbors who would tell you plenty about Vietnam even though they’d never been there, or to war at all. The essence of all this shit was that we had to “stay the course in Vietnam,” and that we were on some mission to save good Vietnamese from bad Vietnamese, and to keep the bad Vietnamese from hitting beachheads outside of Oakland. We stayed the course until 58,000 Americans were dead and lots more maimed for life, and 3,000,000 Southeast Asians were dead. Ex-military people and even many on active duty played a big part in finally bringing that crime to a halt. When I started hearing about weapons of mass destruction that threatened the United States from Iraq, a shattered country that had endured almost a decade of trench war followed by an invasion and twelve years of sanctions, my first question was how in the hell can anyone believe that this suffering country presents a threat to the United States? But then I remembered how many people had believed Vietnam threatened the United States. Including me. When that bullshit story about weapons came apart like a two-dollar shirt, the politicians who cooked up this war told everyone, including you, that you would be greeted like great liberators. They told us that we were in Vietnam to make sure everyone there could vote. What they didn’t tell me was that before I got there in 1970, the American armed forces had been burning villages, killing livestock, poisoning farmlands and forests, killing civilians for sport, bombing whole villages, and commiting rapes and massacres, and the people who were grieving and raging over that weren’t in a position to figure out the difference between me–just in country–and the people who had done those things to them. What they didn’t tell you is that over a million and a half Iraqis died between 1991 and 2003 from malnutrition, medical neglect, and bad sanitation. Over half a million of those who died were the weakest: the children, especially very young children. My son who is over there now has a baby. We visit with our grandson every chance we get. He is eleven months old now. Lots of you have children, so you know how easy it is to really love them, and love them so hard you just know your entire world would collapse if anything happened to them. Iraqis feel that way about their babies, too. And they are not going to forget that the United States government was largely responsible for the deaths of half a million kids. So the lie that you would be welcomed as liberators was just that. A lie. A lie for people in the United States to get them to open their purse for this obscenity, and a lie for you to pump you up for a fight. And when you put this into perspective, you know that if you were an Iraqi, you probably wouldn’t be crazy about American soldiers taking over your towns and cities either. This is the tough reality I faced in Vietnam. I knew while I was there that if I were Vietnamese, I would have been one of the Vietcong. But there we were, ordered into someone else’s country, playing the role of occupier when we didn’t know the people, their language, or their culture, with our head full of bullshit our so-called leaders had told us during training and in preparation for deployment, and even when we got there. There we were, facing people we were ordered to dominate, but any one of whom might be pumping mortars at us or firing AKs at us later that night. The question we stated to ask is who put us in this position? In our process of fighting to stay alive, and in their process of trying to expel an invader that violated their dignity, destroyed their property, and killed their innocents, we were faced off against each other by people who made these decisions in $5,000 suits, who laughed and slapped each other on the back in Washington DC with their fat fucking asses stuffed full of cordon blue and caviar. They chumped us. Anyone can be chumped. That’s you now. Just fewer trees and less water. We haven’t figured out how to stop the pasty-faced, oil-hungry backslappers in DC yet, and it looks like you all might be stuck there for a little longer. So I want to tell you the rest of the story. I changed over there in Vietnam and they were not nice changes either. I started getting pulled into something–something that craved other peole’s pain. Just to make sure I wasn’t regarded as a “fucking missionary” or a possible rat, I learned how to fit myself into that group that was untouchable, people too crazy to fuck with, people who desired the rush of omnipotence that comes with setting someone’s house on fire just for the pure hell of it, or who could kill anyone, man, woman, or child, with hardly a second thought. People who had the power of life and death–because they could. The anger helps. It’s easy to hate everyone you can’t trust because of your circumstances, and to rage about what you’ve seen, what has happened to you, and what you have done and can’t take back. It was all an act for me, a cover-up for deeper fears I couldn’t name, and the reason I know that is that we had to dehumanize our victims before we did the things we did. We knew deep down that what we were doing was wrong. So they became dinks or gooks, just like Iraqis are now being transformed into ragheads or hajjis. People had to be reduced to “niggers” here before they could be lynched. No difference. We convinced ourselves we had to kill them to survive, even when that wasn’t true, but something inside us told us that so long as they were human beings, with the same intrinsic value we had as human beings, we were not allowed to burn their homes and barns, kill their animals, and sometimes even kill them. So we used these words, these new names, to reduce them, to strip them of their essential humanity, and then we could do things like adjust artillery fire onto the cries of a baby. Until that baby was silenced, though, and here’s the important thing to understand, that baby never surrendered her humanity. I did. We did. That’s the thing you might not get until it’s too late. When you take away the humantiy of another, you kill your own humanity. You attack your own soul because it is standing in the way. So we finish our tour, and go back to our families, who can see that even though we function, we are empty and incapable of truly connecting to people any more, and maybe we can go for months or even years before we fill that void where we surrendered our humanity, with chemical anesthetics–drugs, alcohol, until we realize that the void can never be filled and we shoot ourselves, or head off into the street where we can disappear with the flotsam of society, or we hurt others, esepcially those who try to love us, and end up as another incarceration statistic or a mental patient. You can ever escape that you became a racist because you made the excuse that you needed that to survive, that you took things away from people that you can never give back, or that you killed a piece of yourself that you may never get back. Some of us do. We get lucky and someone gives a damn enough to emotionally resuscitate us and bring us back to life. Many do not. I live with the rage every day of my life, even when no one else sees it. You might hear it in my words. I hate being chumped. So here is my message to you. You will do what you have to do to survive, however you define survival, while we do what we have to do to stop this thing. But don’t surrender your humanity. Not to fit in. Not to prove yourself. Not for an adrenaline rush. Not to lash out when you are angry and frustrated. Not for some ticket-punching fucking military careerist to make his bones on. Especially not for the Bush-Cheney Gas & Oil Consortium. The big bosses are trying to gain control of the world’s energy supplies to twist the arms of future economic competitors. That’s what’s going on, and you need to understand it, then do what you need to do to hold on to your humanity. The system does that; tells you you are some kind of hero action figures, but uses you as gunmen. They chump you. Your so-called civilian leadership sees you as an expendable commodity. They don’t care about your nightmares, about the DU that you are breathing, about the lonliness, the doubts, the pain, or about how you humanity is stripped away a piece at a time. They will cut your benefits, deny your illnesses, and hide your wounded and dead from the public. They already are. They don’t care. So you have to. And to preserve your own humanity, you must recognize the humanity of the people whose nation you now occupy and know that both you and they are victims of the filthy rich bastards who are calling the shots. They are your enemies–The Suits–and they are the enemies of peace, and the enemies of your families, especially if they are Black families, or immigrant families, or poor families. They are thieves and bullies who take and never give, and they say they will “never run” in Iraq, but you and I know that they will never have to run, because they fucking aren’t there. You are They’ll skin and grin while they are getting what they want from you, and throw you away like a used condom when they are done. Ask the vets who are having their benefits slashed out from under them now. Bushfeld and their cronies are parasites, and they are the sole beneficiaries of the chaos you are learning to live in. They get the money. You get the prosthetic devices, the nightmares, and the mysterious illnesses. So if your rage needs a target, there they are, responsible for your being there, and responsible for keeping you there. I can’t tell you to disobey. That would probably run me afoul of the law. That will be a decision you will have to take when and if the circumstances and your own conscience dictate. But it perfeclty legal for you to refuse illegal orders, and orders to abuse or attack civilians are illegal. Ordering you to keep silent about these crimes is also illegal. I can tell you, without fear of legal consequence, that you are never under any obligation to hate Iraqis, you are never under any obligation to give yourself over to racism and nihilism and the thirst to kill for the sake of killing, and you are never under any obligation to let them drive out the last vestiges of your capacity to see and tell the truth to yourself and to the world. You do not owe them your souls. Come home safe, and come home sane. The people who love you and who have loved you all your lives are waiting here, and we want you to come back and be able to look us in the face. Don’t leave your souls in the dust there like another corpse. Hold on to your humanity. Stan Goff US Army (Ret.) Stan Goff is the author of “Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti” (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book “Full Spectrum Disorder” (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He is a member of the BRING THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee, a retired Special Forces master sergeant, and the father of an active duty soldier. Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org. |