Tag Archives: Religion

President Addresses Jerry Falwell’s Baptist Fundamentalism

If you’ve never heard President Ronald Reagan’s address to the Baptist Fundamentalism conference in April of 1984, it’s worth 20 minutes of your time.  Reagan reads Jewish Navy Chaplain Arnold Resnicoff’s report from the Beirut barracks bombing the year prior.  Reagan’s reactions, as well as his handling of hecklers as he reads, is fascinating.

It’s a real pleasure to be with so many who firmly believe that the answers to the world’s problems can be found in the Word of God.

– President Ronald Reagan

Think a US President would address a 20,000 strong Baptist audience today and say that on TV?

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A Chaplain’s First Deployment

Chaplain (Capt) Joseph Wright describes how he and his family prepared for his first deployment, six months after he arrived at his first assignment:

We prayed, and we prepared. We read a book about preparing for deployment. It advised not to simply survive deployment, but thrive during it. Two retired colonels authored the book and emphasized the importance of trusting God and His plan. They shared the conviction that God is directing my family’s time of separation, because through it, He would be growing, maturing, and developing all of us in ways impossible if we stayed together.

Read more.

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DADT Non-Event: West Point Hosts Homosexual Wedding

The repeal of DADT in the US military was such a non-event that these non-events keep making the news:

Two graduates of West Point are set to become the first men to marry each other at the storied military academy. Larry Choate III, class of 2009, will marry Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, on Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel.

Homosexual women previously did so, though the “first” event wasn’t as newsworthy as the second.

United Church of Christ Chaplain Cynthia Lindenmeyer, a 1990 West Read more

Flightline Chapel Serves Airman in Afghanistan

An Air Force article highlights the opening of the first US Air Force Chapel on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

The location chosen for the most recent worship space was specific:

The non-denominational Christian worship service’s unique characteristic is its location inside the entry control point where it can reach airmen who otherwise may not be able to attend a worship service.

“The other chapels on base do an outstanding Read more

MRFF Changes Narrative on “So Help Me God”

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s discombobulated responses to the Air Force Academy decision to make “so help me God”  optional in the Cadet Honor Oath (he both welcomes it and threatened to sue) may have been his flailing efforts to regain the narrative in a losing effort.  His research assistant, Chris Rodda, seems to indicate the MRFF is trying to point the narrative in a different direction.  In a local news report on the Academy decision (original here):

Air Force Academy cadets are no longer required to say “so help me God” at the end of the Honor Oath. The change was made in response to complaints from a group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation…

Chris Rodda, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said…”The people we are battling on this will say that nobody’s forced to say ‘so help me God.’ That actually is not true. The cadets received an email that said that they must say it for their commissioning oath to be legal.”

Rodda’s response is noteworthy because the Cadet Honor Oath has nothing to do with the commissioning oath, and nothing to do with the MSgt’s email.  Whether the MRFF is intentionally trying to alter the debate or if Chris Rodda is incompetently Read more

US Army Orders Halt to Christian Extremist Briefings

The Liberty Institute, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, and the Family Research Council — all members of the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition — successfully waged a campaign to have the US Army order an end to briefings which labeled mainstream Christian groups “extremist.”

As reported by Todd Starnes at FoxNews:

“On several occasions over the past few months, media accounts have highlighted instances of Army instructors supplementing programs of instruction and including information or material that is inaccurate, objectionable and otherwise inconsistent with current Army policy,” Army Sec. John McHugh wrote to military leaders in a memorandum I obtained.

McHugh “directed that Army leaders cease all briefings, command presentations or training on the subject of extremist organizations or activities until that program of instruction and training has been created and disseminated,” Army spokesman Col. David Patterson, Jr., tells me.

Multiple briefings were presented as evidence of a widespread Read more

USAFA Says “So Help Me God” is Optional

In an anticlimatic but optimistically predicted result, LtGen Michelle Johnson declared that the “so help me God” portion of the USAFA Cadet Honor Oath is optional:

“Here at the Academy, we work to build a culture of dignity and respect, and that respect includes the ability of our cadets, Airmen and civilian Airmen to freely practice and exercise their religious preference – or not.” said Lt. Gen. Michelle D. Johnson, Academy Superintendent. “So, in the spirit of respect, cadets may or may not choose to finish the Honor Oath with ‘So help me God.'”

The current USAFA Athletic Director, Dr. Hans Mueh (BGen, Ret), was part of the faculty that decided on “so help me God” in 1984, when it was created in response to a cheating scandal:

“To add more seriousness to the oath, we decided to mirror the commissioning oath and add the words, ‘so help me, God,'” Dr. Mueh said.

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, the “religious freedom” advocate who Read more

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