A rather benign article about US Army Chaplain (LtCol) Kenneth Sorenson attending the US Air Force Air War College (a somewhat rare chaplain cross-service opportunity) had an interesting photo:
Rumor has it that Chuck Norris (who was an Airman himself, at one point) proficiency advanced Air War College. Turns out “roundhouse kick” is an incontestable and inimitable grand strategy. Read more
As previously noted, retired SMSgt Phillip Monk recently appeared at a religious freedom forum for GOP presidential candidate and US Senator Ted Cruz (video here). SMSgt Monk spoke briefly about his experience of discrimination in the military as a result of the conflict between homosexuality and religious faith.
SMSgt Monk’s story was criticized on a Facebook page called “Team Perry,” which cited an official military investigation to claim his allegations were “nonsense.” The raison d’être of the “Team Perry” page is to defend former Lackland AFB squadron commander LtCol Craig Perry: Perry was fired under controversial circumstances last year, and the posts on the page claim to reveal details proving the Air Force treated him unjustly (despite military investigations and reports to the contrary). It took a surprising degree of intellectual inconsistency (or simple hypocrisy), then, for Team Perry to cite an Air Force investigation to criticize Monk while simultaneously claiming similar investigations were unjust when they dealt with Perry.
That Monk’s story would be criticized on the Team Perry page may seem odd until you realize Perry and Monk were stationed at Lackland AFB together. Further, it turns out LtCol Craig Perry was fast friends with then-fellow squadron commander then-Maj Elisa “Liz” Valenzuela, SMSgt Monk’s commander and the target of his complaints.
There’s nothing wrong with them being friends. But clearly Team Perry is judging SMSgt Monk not just on public reports or even insider information, but also from the viewpoint of a close family friend of his ‘antagonist.’
As if to prove the point, now-LtCol Valenzuela is Read more
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s research assistant Chris Rodda has taken the MRFF attacks on military Christians to a new level. Weinstein and company have previously railed against Christians who expressed their religious beliefs, even if they did so in a church service. They’ve also blasted Christians for nothing more than having certain beliefs.
Mikey Weinstein’s research assistant, Chris Rodda.
Now, Chris Rodda has gone a step further, holding up for derision not expressed beliefs or even the beliefs of any particular service member. Instead, Rodda attacked cherry-picked (and misrepresented) policy statements from a chaplain’s endorsing agency, as if that implicated either a service member or religious freedom in general. Rodda’s characteristically rambling article at the Huffington Post is entitled “Ranger Chaplain’s Endorsing Agency: Women in Combat ‘Contrary to Nature,’ ‘Biblical Duty of Man to Defend Woman’.”
It’s worth noting that Rodda’s headline isn’t even true. Her quotes on nature and the duty of man came from the assemblies of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 2001 and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in 2002. The OPC and PCA are two of seven member denominations of the endorsing agency known as the Presbyterian and Reformed Commission on Chaplains and Military Personnel. Those assemblies are not any chaplain’s endorsing agency. Rodda appears to have chosen sensationalism over integrity, which is ironic for someone who focuses so much on debunking “liars.”
Regardless, Rodda writes as the representative of Read more
A religious freedom rally hosted by GOP Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz last week in Iowa was focused largely on businesses who were sued or driven out of business by homosexual activists intent on forcing others to support their lifestyle choices.
However, there were two notable inclusions whose antagonist was actually the US government:
Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who was fired for his views in what Dr. Al Mohler said was evidence of “erotic liberty” superseding religious liberty; and Read more
Over the past few months a significant number of Christian leaders have cautioned that God may judge the United States of America for its flaunting of sin, including the open support for and advocacy of the homosexual lifestyle and the epidemic of abortion.
Scoffers have roundly criticized and dismissed such statements, with one going so far as to ask why God would destroy America for homosexuality but not slavery:
If God were going to destroy America why didn’t he do it when we enslaved, brutalized, and murdered thousands of his children shipped over from Africa?
To be accurate, most mainstream faith leaders have said God will judge America, not (necessarily) destroy it. Is such a pronouncement really that fringe?
Ask President Abraham Lincoln.
Though less so today, years ago, many Read more
The National Organization for Marriage, one of the primary groups that tried to defend traditional marriage in the United States, has become the latest non-military group to recognize the attacks on Christians in the military occurring because of the rise of socially endorsed ‘sexual freedom.’ Importantly, they noted these attacks are coming despite constant reassurances that acceptance of homosexuality would have no impact on those who didn’t agree:
Some radical activists who champion support for gay ‘marriage’ in the military have demanded that military chaplains who stand up for traditional marriage be dismissed from military service, told by the government to “get the hell out of the military chaplaincy” and calling Read more
Update: The creator of the monument explained the reason for his design here:
Al Larsen intended the small Latin cross in each silhouette to mark a grave — like the rows of white crosses at the Normandy American Cemetery in France, where more than 9,000 American World War II troops are buried.
“This is what it means to me,” Larsen said in an interview Wednesday. “It don’t mean no church thing.”
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State claims otherwise.
Todd Starnes at FoxNews highlights an effort by the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to have a war memorial removed from a park in Knoxville, Iowa:
“It was clear to us it was a memorial to fallen veterans,” Mayor Brian Hatch told me. But it wasn’t clear to everyone.
About a month ago a citizen filed an anonymous complaint — arguing that the memorial was promoting Christianity and therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Mayor Hatch told me the city council ignored the complaint.
“We didn’t take any action because it (the memorial) did not have any religious ties to us at all,” he said. “I only see it as a memorial to the veterans and it shocked me that someone could see it otherwise.”
The offended party apparently called the AU, and the fight was on.
Americans United has since published a snarky reply, noting Read more
“There’s a saying that ‘there’s no atheists in foxholes,'” Staff Sgt. Matt Jensen said. “And perhaps the reason why religion is so central to the military is because many face their deaths on the battlefield. So providing a venue for them to continue to worship their God is, I think, the responsibility of the U.S. military.”