Tag Archives: Religion

Yes, You Are a Government-Paid Missionary in Uniform

David Plummer, a chaplain-endorser with the liberal leaning Coalition of Spirit-Filled Churches, responded to the DoD’s decision to publish a new “Faith and Belief” list by making an aside that the

military chaplaincy is NOT about being a “government-paid pastor or missionary in uniform.”

Plummer is making a reference to a phrase made famous by Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s MRFF, which copied (and slightly edited) a video from a 2004 chapel assembly at Dallas Theological Seminary by US Army Chaplain (Maj) Douglas Duerksen*. Chaplain Duerksen described the military society as “amoral” and “unchurched” — making it a “magnificent mission field.” He followed Read more

Are You a Christian Supremacist? Maybe You Should Be.

For the past few years, critics of Christians in America have been searching for a label that would catch on and advance their message of opposing Christian values and those who hold them.

For some time they’d tried “Christian extremist,” borrowing from Islamic extremists, but it faltered largely because few people see Christians strapping on suicide vests and blowing up shopping malls. Besides, what’s a Christian extremist going to do? Tell you Jesus really, really loves you?

More recently, activists have tried to label Christians as “supremacists,” presumably borrowing from the more commonly heard term “white supremacists”. Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has been using the term for quite some time to malign Christians in the military, and Tom Carpenter of the homosexual activist Forum on the Military Chaplaincy recently used it to criticize Ron Crews and the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

But what does it actually mean?

If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, it has been that words have meaning — at least, they’re supposed to, until such time as the culture starts to skew what the words were meant to say (see: discrimination).

So what is a “supremacist”?

Well, it depends.

According to Read more

Davis Monthan Does Diversity Differently

Apparently attempting to avoid the sometimes common stigma of “dial a special interest” month, Davis Monthan Air Force Base opted to have a “cultural awareness festival” that combined the celebrations of a variety of “diversities” normally held in different months:

The festival, titled Strengthening Resiliency through Diversity, was held as an alternative to the Department of Defense supported-observances by combining all monthly observances into a family-friendly, annual event…

The article listed some of the represented “diversities” as Read more

Report: Air Force to Review Terrorism Course after CAIR Complaint

Writing at FrontPageMag, Paul Sperry reports the US military has agreed to review a course at the Air Force Special Operations School taught by Patrick Dunleavy, following a complaint from CAIR about Dunleavy’s outside associations. (Michael “Mikey” Weinstein had tried to hitch his wagon to CAIR’s complaint.)

Sperry’s piece cites no sources but does quote Dunleavy’s reaction, leading to the conclusion Dunleavy is the source of the information.

The portrayal of the Air Force’s action is a bit odd. For one thing, the article makes the (accurate) point that Dunleavy’s course was already reviewed, when the DoD did a (controversial) broad sweep of its programs for material that might be offensive to Muslims some time ago.

Further, the article says the Air Force went out of its way to assign a Muslim chaplain to Read more

Mikey Weinstein Admits Ignorantly Attacking Special Ops Instructor

On 31 March 2017, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein sent a message (PDF) to LtGen Marshall Webb, Commander of Headquarters Air Force Special Operations Command, complaining about Mr. Patrick Dunleavy, an instructor at the Air Force Special Ops School. Weinstein claimed Dunleavy was “a known promoter of anti-Muslim propaganda”:

Mr. Dunleavy is a senior fellow with Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), an anti-Muslim propaganda organization, and has also made intolerant bigoted statements against Islam and Muslims…Mr. Dunleavy also wrote a book in which he argues that the role of a prison chaplain is used by Muslims as a cover to “serve terrorism.”

Mr. Dunleavy has been closely associated with other anti-Muslim hate groups such as the Clarion Project and the Center for Security Policy. He has interviewed with Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project and makes regular appearances on Secure Freedom Radio, a radio show hosted by Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, another recognized anti-Muslim hate propaganda tool.

(The IPT responded in Dunleavy’s defense.)

In the long list of things Mikey doesn’t like, he fails to mention Read more

US Military Updates Recognized Faith Groups, with Some Controversy

In 2012, then-US Army Major Ray Bradley complained that he was a humanist but was unable to put “humanist” in his military records as his “religion” in his military records (and reflected on his dog tags).

In 2014, the US Army added “humanist” to the list of faith codes.

In a new memo dated 27 March 2017 (PDF), the DoD Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs published a change that established standardized DoD-wide faith codes across the force — including “Humanist.”

For his part, Bradley had originally envisioned the recognition as the first step to achieving “lay leader” status as a humanist (with humanist “chaplain” to follow). That’s the same conclusion for which Jason Torpy pined when his MAAF reported on this new memo.

Kimberly Winston of the Religion News Service — sitting Read more

Navy School Changes Command Under Divine Authority

As reported by the Navy, aptly named US Navy CAPT Steve Moses took over the Naval Chaplaincy School and Center at the end of March.  (Last year, it was CAPT Moses who said requiring US Sailors and their families to mirror Islamic customs during Ramadan “support[s] religious freedom.”)

The Navy Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain (RAdm) Margaret Kibben, was the guest speaker, and she had the notable quote for the day [emphasis added]:

She challenged Capt. Moses to, “Wear the mantle, and do so with authority, with the responsibility that has been granted to you by the One who is the author of all these things.”

Had Chaplain Kibben been a white male Southern Baptist (as Read more

Hollywood and the Cultural Normalization of Homosexuality

At The Federalist, Eric Van Gorden writes on recent movies that “Subtly Destroy Kids’ Understanding Of Family And Reality.”

Lest we jump the cliff too soon: Movies can be what families make of them. Some families may watch material with potentially objectionable content or storylines for the purpose of using them as educational tools for their children. Others may not, others may not even stop to think about what they (and their children) are watching — while still others may simply not care.

But near the end of his article Van Gorden does make a very good point about the recent and controversial live-action version of Beauty and the Beast:

Disney has written only a handful of new elements into the movie to make it more progressive. There is no actual homosexual activity or conversation (this would still be too offensive to most parents).

However, there is a specific objective to normalize homosexual activity so that, one day very soon, the God-ordained family structure will be so undermined they will be able to promote openly this LGBT agenda to our children.

In other words, homosexuality was inserted just enough to be noticeable without Read more

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