Gord's Notebook : Evangelical Fundamentalist Using U.S. Military To Achieve A Theocracy

UPDATE: 11:20 AM, July 22, 2009

"First we get the military, then we get the nation," Lt. Carey Cash Chaplain at Camp David

"I'm here today to testify that we have found the weapons of mass destruction. It is Satan's artillery," and, "...the reality is, too many of our troops are prisoners of war still. Prisoners of war to the master of deceit, these troops do not yet know liberty in Jesus Christ."

"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..."

Quote by Bob Dees Executive Director of Campus Crusade for Christ's (CCC) Military Ministry (2005)

"...a growing culture of militarized Christianity in the armed forces. It is influenced in part by changes in outlook among the various branches' 2,900 chaplains, who are sworn to serve all soldiers, regardless of religion, with a respectful, religiously pluralistic approach. However, with an estimated two thirds of all current chaplains affiliated with evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, which often prioritize conversion and evangelizing, and a marked decline in chaplains from Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches, this ideal is suffering. Historian Anne C. Loveland attributes the shift to the Vietnam War, when many liberal churches opposed to the war supplied fewer chaplains, creating a vacuum filled by conservative churches. This imbalance was exacerbated by regulation revisions in the 1980s that helped create hundreds of new "endorsing agencies" that brought a flood of evangelical chaplains into the military and by the simple fact that evangelical and Pentecostal churches are the fastest-growing in the U.S."

Quote from Kathyrn Joyce June 19,2009 Newsweek Cover Story

"During the current decade conspiracy theories, wrapped in a veneer of Biblical prophecy, alleging that "Illuminati" and "world bankers" control the US and world economy and are scheming to set up a satanic "New World Order" police-state system, have been globalized and are now distributed by Christian media over broadcast networks that can reach hundreds of millions worldwide." Bruce Wilson at Huffington Post June 23, 2009

Today's Menu:

"Affirmative Action" for Evangelical Fundamentalists in U.S. military ?

Christian Embassy Proselytizing to the Pentagon and the US armed Forces and ultimately to the world. Conversion or death

US Military Chaplains predominately Evangelical Fundamentalist who believe that because of their higher purpose in spreading the Word of God to US soldiers and to foreign countries that US military regulations or US laws do not pertain to them-

Note Evangelical Fundamentalists do not believe that the US Constitution calls for a Separation of Church and State-

Military Religious Freedom Foundation insists that Obama needs to take action against these religious extremists in the US military- there are already military regulations and US statutes plus the Constitution which defend the Principle of the Separation of the Church and State-

Anyway when it comes to reports of Evangelical Fundamentalists proselytizing in the Pentagon and the U.S. armed services the official response is one form of denial or another. Officials claim it is not happening or it is an isolated incident or a misunderstanding or the response is "So What?". Some officials argue that even if there is widespread proselytizing by Evangelical Chaplains or by other Military personnel these individuals including Chaplain's have the right to do so guaranteed by the Constitution etc. But critics argue that the Chaplains have a right to hold religious services and provide counseling but they are prohibited from proselytizing.
Over the last thirty years or so the make up of the military Chaplaincy has changed as there has been a a drastic decrease in "Liberal and mainstream " protestant chaplains combined with a dramatic increase in the numbers of Chaplains who are Evangelical Fundamentalists".Traditionally military Chaplains were trained to provide religious services and counseling to various Christian denominations as well as for those of other faiths.

But this has changed as Chaplains representing evangelicals in the military has risen from approximately 25% in 1980 to the present level of 60 to 80% of the Chaplaincy. The other issue is that it is a basic principle of Evangelical Fundamentalism to encourage proselytizing to other military personnel and to proselytize to non-Christians in the countries in which U.S. troops are posted.So given this basic principle of vigorous and somewhat militant proselytizing on the part of Evangelical Fundamentalism it is difficult for Evangelicals to adhere it appears to military regulations against proselytizing. In a similar manner Evangelical Fundamentalist are also dismissive and rather critical of non-evangelical fundamentalists Christians. Again this apparent intolerance of other Christian sects is seen as another fundamental belief of all Evangelical Fundamentalism.

Since the majority of Chaplains in the military are Evangelical Fundamentalists and that now the majority of the U.S. military commanders identify themselves with Evangelical Fundamentalism when complaints about proselytizing or sermons are given attacking Christian denominations or sects which are not Evangelical Fundamentalists the complaints are often ignored or dismissed out of hand and complaints are not encourage but in fact discouraged . Those who do make complaints find that themselves ostracized and are passed over for promotions or are encouraged to leave the military. So the Chaplaincy and the top brass as it were adhering to their beliefs as Evangelical Fundamentalists do not take such complaints seriously and in public will downplay such complaints. One officer claims for instance to have only received some fifty such complains over several years for the entire U.S. armed services of some two million personnel while the watchdog organization Military Religious Freedom Foundation founded by Mikey Weinstein says they get upwards of five-hundred 500 such complaints a month. This is quite a discrepancy. So the question how big or how widespread is the problem of proselytizing in the U.S. armed services?

Christian Embassy Part I Sept 2007-from Meloco

"We are the aroma of Jesus Christ" says a Pentagon employee
while another asserts essentially that ...It is more important to take part in prayer circles and Bible studies than doing one's job.

Has the Pentagon and United States armed services been taken over by Evangelical Fundamentalist who see the War on Terror as part of the Cosmic war between God and Satan and Good and Evil. Do they truly believe that Islam is an evil religion created by Satan to attempt to destroy Jesus' true religion of Christianity. In a form of affirmative action military personnel are rewarded with promotions for their faithfulness and proselytizing efforts for Jesus . Those in the military who are not Evangelical Fundamentalists appear to get passed over for promotions or are relegated to less important or influential positions.

This attitude forces one to question if these leaders in the Pentagon are doing their jobs . The impression one gets from Christian Embassy and the former Bush regime is that since one is a member of the righteous one therefore relies not on study of intel or military history and such but one makes decisions by praying and believing that what ever one decisions those decisions are the result of Jesus or God's guiding hand. So when Bush invaded Iraq this was a matter of divine interference or guidance. So one need not spend a great deal of time and effort studying an issue on foreign policy for example since one need not know for instance about the country one is invading. So talk about studying the culture and religion and the language or even the history or geography of that country is unnecessary since God ultimately helps one to make the right decision. And even though the decision may appear to be wrong after the fact this is just considered cynical anti-Christian nonsense. The argument is that a situation appears to be mishandled this is merely a short term impression because the action taken as such is in the end part of God's ultimate plan which we as mere mortals do not understand.

This helps explain why Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq didn't seem to have much in the way of a strategy to rebuild Iraq after the initial "Shock and Awe ". No wonder Bush had no exit strategy for Iraq . If these Generals at the Pentagon rely on prayer and the Divine Hand of God who knows what they might do next. If God tells them to obliterate Iran or Syria etc. then they will just say so be it and do the job God told them to. But what if the voice they hear is just an hallucination or is a symptom of mental illness.

Many of the leaders of the Military Chaplains are militant in their proselytizing and are dismissive of other religions and of "liberal protestant churches"
They believe that the military is one of the major US institutions which they need to control in order to make America into a Godly Christian state as intended they believe by Jesus.

Camp David Chaplain: "First we get the military, then we get the nation" By: Chris Rodda at Military Religious Freedom.org, June 29,2009

...Cash made this statement via video in 2005 to the congregation of Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The event was an Independence Day weekend service at which Campus Crusade for Christ's (CCC) Military Ministry Executive Director Bob Dees delivered the sermon, a sermon during which Dees made statements such as:

"I'm here today to testify that we have found the weapons of mass destruction. It is Satan's artillery," and, "...the reality is, too many of our troops are prisoners of war still. Prisoners of war to the master of deceit, these troops do not yet know liberty in Jesus Christ."

During the service, Lt. Cash came up on a video screen, reiterating Dees's CCC talking points, and making the statement, "First we get the military, then we get the nation," a statement that echoes CCC's mission:

"Evangelize and Disciple All Enlisted Members of the US Military. Utilize Ministry at each basic training center and beyond. Transform our culture through the US Military."

According to Dees:

"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..."

According to CCC's Military Ministry, in a statement referring to their "gateway" strategy of preying on new recruits and cadets while they are worn down by the rigors of training:

"Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways. 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 and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals."

CCC's goal, which appears again and again in their literature and videos is to transform the U.S. military into "government paid missionaries for Christ," and, with the organization's already prodigious presence at our military's basic training installations, military service academies, and ROTC campuses, they are well on their way to achieving this goal.

As commander in chief, President Obama, rather than giving his tacit endorsement to a chaplain who subscribes to the goals of CCC's Military Ministry by choosing to attend his services, should be ridding the military of such chaplains and organizations.

And those who are sounding the alarm on the chaplains who have crossed the line in their militant proselytizing besides breaking military regulations and contravening the US Constitution they are creating the impression that the U.S. War on Terror is in fact a Crusade against Islam.

"Christian Soldiers :The growing controversy over military chaplains using the armed forces to spread the Word." by Kathyrn Joyce,at Military Religious Freedom, & Newsweek Cover Story & at MSNBC June 19, 2009

Ever since former president George W. Bush referred to the war on terror as a “crusade” in the days after the September 11 attacks, many have charged that the United States was conducting a holy war, pitting a Christian America against the Muslim world. That perception grew as prominent military leaders such as Lt. Gen. William Boykin described the wars in evangelical terms, casting the U.S. military as the "army of God." Although President Obama addressed the Muslim world this month in an attempt to undo the Bush administration's legacy of militant Christian rhetoric that often antagonized Muslim countries, several recent stories have framed the issue as a wider problem of an evangelical military culture that sees spreading Christianity as part of its mission.

A May article in Harper’s by Jeff Sharlet illustrated a military engaged in an internal battle over religious practice. Then came news about former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Scripture-themed briefings to President Bush that paired war scenes with Bible verses. (In an e-mail published on Politico, Rumsfeld aide Keith Urbahn denied that the former Defense secretary had created or even seen many of the briefings.) Later in May, Al-Jazeera broadcast clips filmed in 2008 showing stacks of Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari at the U.S. air base in Bagram and featuring the chief of U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Gary Hensley, telling soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus.”

In the aftermath of that report, the Pentagon responded that it had confiscated and destroyed the Bibles and said there was no effort to convert Afghans. But while the military dismissed the Bagram Bibles as an isolated incident, a civil-rights watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), says this is not the case. According to the group's president, Mikey Weinstein, a cadre of 40 U.S. chaplains took part in a 2003 project to distribute 2.4 million Arabic-language Bibles in Iraq. This would be a serious violation of U.S. military Central Command's General Order Number One forbidding active-duty troops from trying to convert people to any religion. A Defense Department spokeswoman, in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK, denies any knowledge of this project.

The Bible initiative was handled by former Army chaplain Jim Ammerman, the 83-year-old founder of the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), an organization in charge of endorsing 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates for the armed services. Ammerman worked with an evangelical group based in Arkansas, the International Missions Network Center, to distribute the Bibles through the efforts of his 40 active-duty chaplains in Iraq. A 2003 newsletter for the group said of the effort, "The goal is to establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world."

J. E. Wadkins, vice president of student life at Ecclesia College who oversees the International Missions Network Center, says they have worked with Ammerman for 20 years and reached out to him as part of their "Bibles for the Nations" mission. He estimates that in the end, between 100,000 and 500,000 Arabic Bibles were distributed in under one year, beginning not long after Saddam Hussein's ouster. "It was a really early effort there," says Wadkins, "when things first opened up.

...The effort is an example of what critics call a growing culture of militarized Christianity in the armed forces. It is influenced in part by changes in outlook among the various branches' 2,900 chaplains, who are sworn to serve all soldiers, regardless of religion, with a respectful, religiously pluralistic approach. However, with an estimated two thirds of all current chaplains affiliated with evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, which often prioritize conversion and evangelizing, and a marked decline in chaplains from Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches, this ideal is suffering. Historian Anne C. Loveland attributes the shift to the Vietnam War, when many liberal churches opposed to the war supplied fewer chaplains, creating a vacuum filled by conservative churches. This imbalance was exacerbated by regulation revisions in the 1980s that helped create hundreds of new "endorsing agencies" that brought a flood of evangelical chaplains into the military and by the simple fact that evangelical and Pentecostal churches are the fastest-growing in the U.S.

The chaplains minister to flocks that are, on the whole, slightly less religious than the general population and slightly less evangelical. According to a 2008 Department of Defense survey, 22 percent of active-duty members of the military described themselves as evangelical or Pentecostal (although the actual number of evangelical-minded believers is likely higher when encompassing personnel who follow more evangelical expressions of mainline Protestant denominations, as well as a sizable percentage of the additional 20 percent that describe themselves simply as "Christian").

Among the "endorsing agencies" is CFGC, which represents a conglomeration of independent Pentecostal churches outside established denominations. The group was accepted as a chaplain-endorsing agency by the Department of Defense in 1984, two years after it first applied. Since 1984, MRFF charges, Ammerman's agency has violated numerous codes that govern chaplaincies, including a constant denigration of other religions, particularly Islam, Judaism, mainline Protestantism and Catholicism, but also non-Pentecostal evangelical churches. In a 2008 sermon, Ammerman described a CFGC chaplain at Fort Riley, Kans., who demanded the 46 chaplains below him "speak up for Jesus" or leave his outfit. In a 1999 video, CFGC chaplain Maj. James Linzey called mainstream Protestant churches "demonic, dastardly creatures from the pit of hell," that should be "[stomped] out." But the primary target of CFGC's ire is Islam. A 2001 CFGC newsletter asserted that the real enemy of the U.S. wasn't Osama bin Laden, but Allah, whom the newsletter called "Lucifer." A 2006 issue argued that all Muslim-Americans should be treated with suspicion, as they "obviously can't be good Americans." In a 2008 sermon, Ammerman called Islam "a killer religion" and Muslims "the devil."

...Department of Defense policy says that chaplain-endorsing agencies should "express willingness" for their chaplains to cooperate with other religious traditions. But Schulcz claims that Ammerman, who is not a paid government official, and his chaplains, who are, are entitled to say whatever they want unless they're advocating insurrection.

On this point, MRFF charges they come close. Ammerman and chaplain Linzey have espoused conspiracy theories about "Satanic forces" at work in the U.S. government facilitating a military takeover by foreign troops; Ammerman even appears in a video favored by militia groups titled The Imminent Military Takeover of the USA. In 2008, Ammerman implied that four presidential candidates should be "arrested, quickly tried and hanged" for not voting to designate English America's official language, and speculated that Barack Obama would be assassinated as a secret Muslim.

Among the Pentagon directives MRFF charges CFGC or its chaplains have violated are the command that chaplaincies express willingness for interfaith cooperation; that they be bona fide religious organizations with a primary mission beyond the military; that they not join organizations with religious or nationalist supremacist causes or that espouse violence; and that active military personnel not utter disloyal or contemptuous statements about officials or the country.

"Defense Department-Certified Agency Newsletter Suggests Killing Democrats" by Bruce Wilson at Huffington Post, June 23, 2009

...From the late 1990's and up into the 2008 presidential election, Retired Colonel Jim Ammerman has engaged in a pattern of anti-government agitation and, along with one of his top chaplains ... James F. Linzey, has gone on national speaking tours to promote a class of New World Order and Federal Reserve conspiracy theory which has been widely credited with helping inspire acts of right wing violence and also the rise of the militia movement in the 1990's. But these conspiracy narratives are not secular; they are interwoven with apocalyptic Biblical narratives and presented as "Bible prophecy."

...James F. Linzey's conspiracy theories, which Major Linzey promoted in 2005 during a Prophecy Club speaking tour and through appearances on Christian media venues in 2005 and 2006, had an overtly racialist, anti-immigrant slant and both Ammerman and Linzey have each publicized a conspiracy theory, long ago debunked, claiming that foreign Jewish banking concerns, including "The Rothschilds," control the American economy through the Federal Reserve. The Anti-Defamation League identifies that class of conspiracy theory as A Classic Anti-Semitic Myth." Holocaust Museum shooter James W. von Brunn promoted that particular conspiracy theory in his writings.

Experts who study the relationship between conspiracy theory and right wing violence, such as Political Research Associates Senior Analyst Chip Berlet, suggest such conspiracy theory feeds a cultural climate that can provoke acts of violence against targeted, demonized groups in society.

...During the current decade conspiracy theories, wrapped in a veneer of Biblical prophecy, alleging that "Illuminati" and "world bankers" control the US and world economy and are scheming to set up a satanic "New World Order" police-state system, have been globalized and are now distributed by Christian media over broadcast networks that can reach hundreds of millions worldwide.

San Antonio Cornerstone Church pastor John Hagee, criticized during the 2008 election when apparently anti-Jewish comments by the pastor surfaced after Hagee had endorsed GOP presidential hopeful John McCain, Jr., had by the middle of the current decade achieved a broadcast capability which could reach into the homes of up to 100 million families worldwide.

As with Jim Ammerman and James F. Linzey, Hagee has promoted, wrapped in a pretense of "Bible Prophecy", New World Order and Federal Reserve conspiracy theories which identify the Rothschild banking family as the chief foreign financial power controlling the US economy and scheming to undermine American patriotism and bankrupt the middle class by devaluing the dollar.

...GodTV, which broadcasts from Jerusalem and claims its networks can reach several hundred million worldwide, has recently aired a series featuring New World Order/Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists including Gary Kah and Paul McCguire. Kah's list of Jewish banking concerns he claims control the US economy is extremely similar to the lists cited by Jim Ammerman and James Linzey.

Such conspiracy theories have diffused widely through American society. A search of YouTube videos using the terms "New World Order" and "Obama" produces over 90,000 results, many of which are videos claiming President Obama is part of an alleged, grand New World Order conspiracy.

Fused with Christian supremacist narratives claiming America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, New World Order conspiracy narratives have permeated American government and politics, and the United States military. Because the theories are disguised as Biblical prophecy they can be spread readily, to little notice from secular society.