Fundamentalist orgs mixing 'church and state'
By Henry Clark
Most Americans know about the scandal that rocked the US Air Force Academy a few years ago. Very few are aware that the same tactics used to proselytize members of the armed forces are still being carried out today in military facilities all over the world.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is a private watchdog organization that tracks the use of tactics such as bullying (including physical beatings), denial of promotion and punitive duty assignments to force military personnel who are not evangelical Christians to declare themselves as such. The MRFF has filed lawsuits on behalf of dozens of atheists. Jews, Roman Catholics
According to MRFF, our military ranks do contain a small but impassioned cadre of evangelical Christians who seek theocracy. They have made it clear that, in their view of human destiny, the ultimate mission of all those who regard themselves as true believers in Christ are charged with the work of Christianizing the armed forces in this country and abroad.
The God-and-Country ideology emerging today is especially alarming for two reasons. First, it is not just an underground activity carried out here and there by a few individuals, but rather a quasi-official position being taken by high-ranking officials with positions of great authority and prestige. Second, it receives a certain amount of support from a number of politicians and media celebrities who audaciously violate the doctrine of Church and State separation enshrined in the Constitution.
It was Major General William Boykin who gained instant notoriety by taunting a Somali warlord, boasting, "My God is bigger than his." And it was Major General, Pete Sutton and former Secretary of the Army Pete Geren who appeared in uniform promoting a video produced for Campus Crusade for Christ by Christian Embassy, a fundamentalist ministry based in Washington DC that is known to make presentations during military basic training sessions.
A video called "Red, White and Blue Spectacular" prepared by the Trinity Broadcasting Network featured Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp—the same General appeared in a 2003 Billy Graham rally—televised around the world on the Armed Forces Network where the baptisms of 700 soldiers under his command were used as evidence of the Lord’s plan to "raise up a godly army," proclaimed Van Antwerp at the event.
Political endorsement of the God-and-Country ideology comes from elected officials such as Robin Hayes (R-NC), who defended Boykin for proclaiming that stability in Iraq ultimately depends on "spreading the message of Jesus Christ." As Hayes put it in a speech to the Concord, North Carolina Rotary Club, "Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior." Pat Buchanan praised the general for believing that "Christianity is the true faith, that Jesus is God and that God is guiding America in this war against Satan." Buchanan went on to declare that Boykin "seems to be exactly the kind of warrior America needs to lead us in battle against the kind of fanatics we face."
Pentagon spokesmen have denounced such rhetoric and seek to exercise damage control in its wake. Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona responding stating, "in the age of the internet, remarks like these do reach Iraq and the rest of the Middle East" and when they are heard in the light of photos showing "soldiers posed with their rifles and Bibles" that appeared in the Fort Jackson Campus Crusade for Christ "God’s Basic Training" website, Iraqis can hardly be blamed for thinking that the invasion of their country really is part of a new crusade aimed at Islam.
American military commanders have equated God and country in a number of violent attacks which conflate religion and war. One such operation is described in a scary article by Jeff Sharlet in the May 2009 issue of Harper’s, which reports that a Special Forces unit of the First Infantry Division in Iraq was ordered to send an impregnable Bradley Fighting Vehicle into the Muslim holy city of Samarra with the slogan "Jesus Killed Mohammed" blatantly displayed on its armor "in giant red Arabic script." Some of the Iraqis who reacted to this inflammatory incursion were annihilated by firepower so massive that it destroyed the buildings in whose windows they dared to appear.
The MRFF is deeply concerned about the legal and constitutional issues posed by these developments. Mikey Weinstein, head of the MRFF, condemns such activity as "a national security threat internally to America every bit as formidable as the external threat challenging America from a revitalized Taliban and an al Qaida that is now at least as strong as it was on 9/11." Weinstein claims that the MRFF has acquired "a ton of irrefutable proof" of how our Islamic fundamentalist enemies are using, to their full advantage, the multiplicity of disgraceful instances of unconstitutional proselytizing within the US Armed Forces. More than one senior national security official has thanked the MRFF for the job it is doing to expose and denounce the complicity of the US military in massively forcing fundamentalist Christianity upon its own members as well as the foreign populations.
Every citizen who believes in the importance of Church and State separation, and everyone who understands the enormous boomerang effect of attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity must see the problem with linking fundamentalist ideology with the military. This isn’t fiction. What we are dealing with here are grim, real-life fanatics who see themselves as defenders of God, implacably determined to shove their tragically misconceived understanding of Christ down the throats of everybody in the world. It is a threat which truly patriotic Americans must acknowledge, expose and oppose as resourcefully as possible.
Find more information at
www.militaryrelegiousfreedom.org.
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