Tag Archives: Religion

Roll Call: AF Religious Guidelines

This week’s Airman’s Roll Call, as announced in this article and published as a PDF, summarizes the Air Force religious guidelines as originally published in February of 2006.

The re-publication of the guidelines is interesting because the guidelines were ordered rescinded by act of Congress last year (see the Congressional Conference Committee report, which resulted in the passage of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007).

Addressing the confusion, one Chaplain reported that the Congressional direction was confused to begin with: it directed the rescinsion of the guidelines and the “reinstatement” of AFPD 52-1, which governed the Chaplaincy program.  However, the guidelines had nothing to do with AFPD 52-1, and 52-1 had never been superseded or replaced.  Finally, the religious guidelines were not a regulation, but a “statement” on the intended atmosphere of the Air Force.  Thus, with this latest release, it appears the Air Force is continuing to operate under the revised guidelines, as published in 2006.

High points from the Roll Call (emphasis added):

The religious guidelines…protect the constitutional right of all Airmen to practice their beliefs while respecting the beliefs of others.

Leaders at every level enjoy the same freedom of expression as all Airmen, but must ensure their words and actions are not construed as official, nor endorsing or disapproving of a particular belief.

Airmen are entitled to practice and freely discuss their personal faith beliefs. There is no restriction on voluntary discussions of religion or the exercise of free speech where it is reasonably clear the discussions are personal, not official or coercive.

South Korean Christians Released

An interesting article covers the South Korean response to the homecoming of the 19 remaining hostages held by the Taliban.  Notably, there seems to be a backlash to apparent “overzealous proselytizing,” even though

Both Saemmul Presbyterian Church, to which the hostages belong, and the government insisted that the hostages had not been proselytizing, just providing aid. But many religious experts here consider such a distinction meaningless, since South Korean churches provide aid to gain converts.

Why does this matter to the military Christian?  There is a growing movement in America that is reflected here by the quoted “many religious experts:”  the supposition that Christians can’t separate their “overtly proselytizing ways” from their other actions–whether they be charitable or governmental.  That is, Christians can’t help but proselytize, and they must be treated as if they will.

Some people seem to think that if the military forbids proselytizing in its ranks then it must restrict the actions of Christians, because Christians cannot help but proselytize.  The cultural view of Christianity bears significant impact on the religious freedom of Christians in the military.

Another Pentagon Complaint

As previously reported on the Religion Clause, TruthOut is reporting that Weinstein’s MRFF is again complaining about an outside Christian organization having access to the Pentagon.  This time it was David Kistler’s HOPE ministries.

The article makes it unclear whether it is the theology that is the issue (since much of the article is a mockery of Kistler’s views) or the fact it was a religious organization.

While the writer makes it appear that it is “intuitively obvious” that the Pentagon again violated the ‘Constitutional separation of church and state,’ that is not the case.  Chaplains routinely host outside visitors of varied religious persuasions for the spiritual benefit of their servicemen, which is their legal duty.

While Weinstein may disagree, the Constitution and the courts have supported the religious influence of the chaplaincy and its programs in the military.

Air-Dropped Soccer Balls Offend Afghanis

The Best Intentions… 

According to the International Herald Tribune, the US military apologized for offending Afghani Muslims when it gave them soccer balls that had the Saudi flag on it.  The Saudi flag has the words Allah and Muhammad on it; those names in any form are considered sacred to Muslims.  The thought of kicking those sacred names was apparently offensive.

Soccer (or football, outside the US), is wildly popular in most other parts of the world, and has even been a source of national pride in an otherwise sometimes fractious Iraq.

National Review: CNN Espousing “equivalency of ideology”

Joe Carter of the National Review wrote an article on CNN’s “God’s Warriors” in which he noted that while many people are concerned about CNN juxtaposing assassins and Falwell, what CNN is really doing is proposing “equivalency of ideology.”  That is, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are “equal.”  He notes, for example, that while “theocracy” is a theology most aligned with Islam, it is more often attributed to Protestant Christians.  In fact, 

more than half of American evangelicals are either Baptists or nondenominational — groups that don’t even want a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church.

The Culture and Media Institute also wrote an article on the CNN series.  It contains some positive and negative things about the shows, including Amanpour’s comparison of Christian calls for “modest dress” as equivalent with the Taliban calls for burkas.

“God’s Warriors” on CNN, 21-23 August 2007

As previously posted, CNN’s special on “God’s Warriors” runs this week.

The CNN site lists the topics as:

Judaism: Murder in Hebron and Settler vs. Soldier
Islam: Holy Killing and Martyrdom
Christianity: Christians and Falwell and The Culture War

With murder and holy killing juxtaposed with Falwell and a culture war, it is fairly easy to see why some are worried that CNN will equate evangelical Christians with radical Islam.

Their “objectivity” remains to be seen.

1 369 370 371 372 373 378