“All that was, I was speaking in reference to inner-city problems and whatnot. I said that the irony is that it would be better for a black to be a slave in America—I’m thinking now historically—and know Christ, than to be free now and not know Christ.”
“In the military, homosexuality is illegal. I don’t want to get into all the particulars of ‘Don’t ask,’ but you can’t act on homosexual feelings. And adultery is illegal. Really, arguably, the military is the last American institution that tries to uphold Christian values. It’s the easiest place in America to be a Christian.”
Quote by Lieutenant Colonel Bob Young from: "Jesus Killed Mohammed"The Crusade For A Christian Military By Jeff Sharlet, May 2008 Issue Courtesy Of Harpers Magazine at Free Thought Manifesto .blogspot.com, May 5, 2009
Pentagon Evangelicals/ Christian Embassy (John MacArthur)-2008 CNN
DN! "The Crusade (1\2) for a Christian Military"-May 6, 2009
"The Crusade for a Christian Military": Are US Forces Trying to Convert Afghans to Christianity?
DN! "The Crusade (2\2) for a Christian Military"- May 6, 2009
Is Obama sympathetic to the Proselytizing Mission of the U.S. Military or are they just too powerful for him to oppose ?
It appears Obama for instance in continuing the military policy on Gays and Lesbians of Don't ask Don't tell is in fact perpetuating inequality for Gays and Lesbians in the military.
So Obama appears to be concerned that the military understands that he is not out to attack their policies or their culture that is the status quo. Obama has also reassured the C.I.A.( even those who took part in torture and abuse of detainees) and the F.B.I.( and no matter what laws they broke during the Bush era) that he believes in their work and that they are an honorable and patriotic group and he will not interfere in their affairs. ( does this mean if they secretly continue to torture and abuse detainees Obama will if they are found out then defend them ? ).
It also appears that Obama is uninterested in taking to task the Christian Evangelical Fundamentalists who against army regulations and in breach of the Separation of Church and State proselytize and try to convert non-Christian military personnel and he seems indifferent to their attempts to proselytize to the peoples of Iraq or Afghanistan.
For all we know Obama and his administration also believe that the War on Terror no matter how he tries to re-brand or re-label it is an apocalyptic Biblical struggle of Cosmic proportions of Good Versus Evil.
Now this could be considered primarily a domestic political issue but when U.S. military personnel are operating in foreign countries and use their positions to proselytize to non-Christians this becomes a problem that goes beyond American borders.
In the matter of The War On Terror after 9/11 this becomes a more pressing issue. If members of the U.S. military in Iraq or Afghanistan attempt to proselytize to civilians who are for the most part non-Christians this may be a minor issue if these individuals are operating on their own and could then be disciplined by the U.S. military for their actions.
Unfortunately what you have in the U.S. military is a culture in which the Chain of command not only defends but also is taking part in encouraging these Christian Evangelical Fundamentalists military personnel to proselytize to the peoples of Iraq or Afghanistan.
To the people of Iraq or Afghanistan the Americans are then seen as invaders who wish to convert them to their brand of Christianity and are not there as liberators to oust what are considered oppressive forms of government whether the dictatorship of Saddam or the Taliban. These American and NATO invaders are perceived by the peoples of these countries as invaders and occupiers who wish to destroy their respective religions and cultures.
How would Americans or Brits or Canadians or the other members of NATO act if they were invaded by foreign armies who told the people of these countries that their religion ie Christianity is evil and is really a form of idolatry or is essentially a form of demon worship or basically Satanic. What if Westerners in Christian countries were further told that Christianity in fact is according to the invaders beliefs that their religion of Christianity is anti-God and is Evil and must be wiped out.
If the invading army which claims to be a liberating army attacks the indigenous culture and religion then it shows no respect for that religion and culture. These Evangelical Fundamentalist tell the non-Christians ie Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan that their religion is a "False Religion" which is in fact according to these Christians anti-God and is in essence the work of the devil. This is not the way to win hearts and minds but rather may further alienate the peoples of Iraq or Afghanistan. So what are they to think when they American soldiers desecrating Mosques or just blowing them up without having a military purpose or because of military necessity. What are they to think when American or British soldiers show them no respect by bashing in the doors of their houses at 3am and then proceed to trash their homes and to insult their children and their women and the head of the household. What are they to think when family members are dragged away kept in prisons for months or years and are abused, humiliated and tortured and possibly are released without any real explanation or apology .
According to Jeff Sharlet the U.S. military has been infiltrated by evangelical fundamentalists who reject the notion of separation of church and state even though this is supposed to be a cornerstone of America's system of governance. Further these Christians believe that it is their duty as Christians to evangelize and convert their fellow soldiers . It is not merely that they wish to preach to non-Christians but they want all personnel in the military to convert or be purged from the military.
As a result this evangelizing leads to trouble within the military as those who are not evangelical Christians resent being preached to. But pressure is put upon those who are not Christians and they are harassed by other soldiers and especially by officers who want these non-Christians to convert or to leave the military.Those who speak out are given a hard time sometimes beaten and their homes vandalized and they receive death threats etc. from these Bible-Thumping Holier Than Thou Christians.
But it goes deeper as we see that the Evangelical Fundamentalists make up a large portion of the Chain of Command within the U.S. military. Again that would be their private business but they insist on proselytizing and preaching that the U.S. military is primarily a Christian institution which has a duty to proselytize to the world as in the Great Commission.
To far too many leaders in the U.S. military then their religious view affect their interpretation of the so called War on Terror . To them the War on Terror and the events of 9/11 are a sign from God for America to take its rightful place among nations to fulfill its destiny as God's Chosen Nation. And what is America's role but as God's messengers to spread God's word to the rest of the world and to bring the world to Christ. These misguided Christians believe that they are involved in a Cosmic Battle between Good and Evil - the Good being Evangelical Fundamentalists and the evil being Non-Christians and at the moment especially Islam. So for the moment since 9/11 Islam has been the target of these Christian Proselytizers.
One of the other issues this brings up is how this affects the attitude of the U.S. personnel towards the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. If these Evangelical Fundamentalists truly believe that Islam is a False Religion which is under direct control of the Devil or Satan then those who refuse to convert to Christianity are themselves acting in a perverse manner by worshiping "the Father of Lies " ie Allah or Muhammad and are doing so willingly or are in effect Possessed by Demonic Forces.
In this way these Christian soldiers can then characterize all Muslims as being agents of Satan and are therefore out to destroy Christianity and to undermine God's authority. So the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan who fight against the Americans and the NATO forces are in effect evil agents who must be converted or killed. Having demonized the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan we can then see how it becomes easier for U.S. soldiers to kill these people because by doing so they the U.S. soldiers are killing agents of the devil and are therefore doing God's work. This also helps explain why the U.S. military personnel or C.I.A. agents and even private contractors would be able to rationalize abusing and torturing large numbers of people in Iraq or Afghanistan without having their conscience being troubled by it.
These Evangelical Fundamentalist soldiers could also rationalize their actions by believing that if these people are made to suffer and if that suffering makes them question and eventually give up their Islamic Faith and to then convert to Christianity then their suffering would be justified and if these individuals did not convert then by continuing to keep their Islamic Faith they are therefore Enemies of God and so deserve to suffer and die. Those who converted would be "Saved" and those who did not their souls would be condemned to ever-lasting Hell-Fire.
US Military Evangelicals who believe that America is a Christian Nation which has a duty Evangelize throughout the world. They believe that there is not supposed to be a Separation of Church and State. They believe that they are involved in Spiritual Warfare and that the "War on Terror " is just an extension of that Spiritual War against Muslims and all non-believers. These are soldiers who believe “In this world, there are forces of good and evil. There’s angels and there’s demons, you know? And Satan hates what’s holy.” And further like other evangelical fundamentalists they believe in Angels and Demons and in Demonic possession and that even their war against the Taliban is God ordained and each battle fought is watched over by God and that even the weather is controlled by God-one officer claimed that a drought in Afghanistan is the result of God's interference because of the rise of the Taliban. They present America to the people of Afghanistan & Iraq as being a Christian nation founded by men who were not just inspired but were being directed by God as America was to be The New Israel and so God they claim has given America a mission to evangelize to the world.
From:"Jesus Killed Mohammed"
The Crusade For A Christian Military By Jeff Sharlet, May 2008 Issue Courtesy Of Harpers Magazine at Free Thought Manifesto .blogspot.com, May 5, 2009
"Today, fundamentalism, based as it is on a vigorous assertion of narrow and exclusive claims to truth, can no longer justify common cause with secularism. In its principal battle, the front lines are not in Iraq or Afghanistan but right here, where evangelical militants must wage spiritual war against their own countrymen. In a lecture for OCF titled “Fighting the War on Spiritual Terrorism,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg E. Metz gar explained that Christian soldiers must always consider themselves behind enemy lines, even within the ranks, because every unsaved member of the military is a potential agent of “spiritual terrorism.” Even secularists with the best intentions may be part of this fifth column, Air Force Brigadier General Donald C. Wurster told a 2007 assembly of chaplains, noting that “the unsaved have no realization of their unfortunate alliance with evil.” What is the nature of this evil? Some conservative evangelicals call it “postmodernism.” What they mean is the very idea of diversity, its egalitarianism—the conviction that my beliefs have as much right to speak in the public square as do yours; that truth, in a democracy, is a mediated affair."
...What men such as these have fomented is a quiet coup within the armed forces: not of generals encroaching on civilian rule but of religious authority displacing the military’s once staunchly secular code. Not a conspiracy but a cultural transformation, achieved gradually through promotions and prayer meetings, with personal faith replacing protocol according to the best intentions of commanders who conflate God with country. They see themselves not as subversives but as spiritual warriors—“ambassadors for Christ in uniform,” according to Officers’ Christian Fellowship; “government paid missionaries,” according to Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry...
and military personnel who complain about the aggressive proselytizing which is condoned by U.S. commanders: "soldiers, sailors, and airmen who spoke of forced Christian prayer in Iraq and at home; combat deaths made occasions for evangelical sermons by senior officers; Christian apocalypse video games distributed to the troops; mandatory briefings on the correlation of the war to the Book of Revelation; exorcisms designed to drive out “unclean spirits” from military property; beatings of atheist troops that are winked at by the chain of command."
" When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own soul. On one side are the majority of military personnel, professionals who regardless of their faith or lack thereof simply want to get their jobs done; on the other is a small but powerful movement of Christian soldiers concentrated in the officer corps...
...Within the fundamentalist front in the officer corps, the best organized group is Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with 15,000 members active at 80 percent of military bases and an annual growth rate, in recent years, of 3 percent. Founded during World War II, OCF was for most of its history concerned mainly with the spiritual lives of those who sought it out, but since 9/11 it has moved in a more militant direction. According to the group’s current executive director, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, the “global war on terror”—to which Obama has committed 17,000 new troops in Afghanistan—is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness,” an OCF Scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq War.
...But another OCF Bible study, “Mission Accomplished,” warns that victory abroad does not mean the war is won at home. “If Satan cannot succeed with threats from the outside, he will seek to destroy from within,” asserts the study, a reference to “fellow countrymen” both in biblical times and today who practice “spiritual adultery.”
...So it is today, “Mission Accomplished” continues, proposing that before military Christians can complete their wall, they must bring this “Lord of all” to the entire armed forces. “We will need to press ahead obediently,” the study concludes, “not allowing the opposition, all of which is spearheaded by Satan, to keep us from the mission of reclaiming territory for Christ in the military.”
...If the fundamentalist front were to have a seminary, it would be the Air Force Academy, a campus of steel and white marble wedged into the right angle formed by the Great Plains and the Rockies. In 2005, the academy became the subject of scandal because of its culture of Christian proselytization. Today, the Air Force touts the institution as a model of reform. But after the school brought in as speakers for a mandatory assembly three Christian evangelists who proclaimed that the only solution to terrorism was to “kill Islam,” I decided to see what had changed. Not much, several Christian cadets told me. “Now,” Hrabak said, “we’re underground.” Then he winked.
also see: The Myth Of Talibanisation
By Pepe Escobar May 1, 2009 at Free Thought Manifesto.blogspot.com,Courtesy Of Asia Times Online
and:
WaterBoard An A-Rab For Jesus By Laurence M. Vance Courtesy Of Lew Rockwell,May 5, 2009 at Free Thought Manifesto
"When the Spanish did it, it was torture. When the Japanese did it, it was torture. When the Germans did it, it was torture. When the Khmer Rouge did it, it was torture. But when waterboarding was done by Americans under a Republican administration, it suddenly became an "enhanced interrogation technique."
Such has not always been the case. Waterboarding-like techniques used by American soldiers during the Philippine Insurrection and the Vietnam War were condemned. But that was before the "war on terror" where anything goes in the name of "national security."
and:
"US Military Yields to AlJazeera, destroys Afghan Bibles" at Persecution.org in the article the writers just take this case as being another incident of Christians being persecuted by the the US government at the beheast of AlJazeera and Islamic Extremist. They don't bother to respond to Jeff Sharlet's article "Jesus Kill Muhammad" in which he provides how evangelicals have infiltrated and taken over much of the command structure in the US Military.
Persecution.org International Christian Concern
Making Torture Beautiful by Jeff Sharlet at The revealer, June 11 2005
"Torture is not a subtle perversion, one we all share. It is not a coded language with which empire and rebel whisper to one another. It is something some people do to other people. It comes about through a series of decisions. It is not inevitable, it's chosen. The torturer must choose; his or her bosses must choose; the media must choose; and the rest of us must choose. And we have chosen. We chose torture."
also check out:
Frank Schaeffer Official Website
Rapture Forums
Christian Embassy, Washington, D.C.
The Christian Post.com
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
The Fifth Column in Our Military
Monday May 4, 2009 at " A Pagan's Blog byGus diZerega
Rights Group Uncovers Other Cases Of Military Proselytizing Christianity to Muslims by Chris Rodda
, 08 May 2009
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