{"id":1272,"date":"2009-09-30T00:45:05","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T08:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2009-11-21T21:20:16","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:20:16","slug":"letters-reveal-perceptions-of-religion-in-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/30\/letters-reveal-perceptions-of-religion-in-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters Reveal Perceptions of Religion in Military"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As noted previously, a letter to the editor of the <em>Stars and Stripes<\/em> touched a nerve, with another contributor <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/14\/chaplain-should-search-the-bible-not-google\/\">scolding\u00a0a Chaplain<\/a> about relying on the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>The publication sparked a surprisingly blunt tit-for-tat, demonstrating that feelings about culture and religion present in American society are, indeed, also prevalent in the military.<\/p>\n<p>A Captain stationed in Iraq <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/article.asp?section=125&amp;article=64984\">decried the letter writer&#8217;s suggestion<\/a> that modern Americans should rely on the Bible and its &#8220;Bronze Age morality.&#8221;\u00a0 Another\u00a0<!--more--><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/article.asp?section=125&amp;article=64945\">seemed to demonstrate<\/a> a hypersensitivity to public expressions of (Christian) faith:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Who has ever had to ask a Christian about his opinion? No one. Ever. Christians wear their opinions on their sleeves: bumper stickers; fish magnets; 20-inch mag wheels with crosses (sweet!); cute little Bible quotes at the bottom of their e-mails; &#8220;amens&#8221; and &#8220;godblessyous&#8221; strewn haphazardly about; young Earth creationism taught in public schools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While religion is certainly a legitimate topic, and members of the military do retain (to some degree) the freedom of speech, it&#8217;s debatable whether it is appropriate for members of the military (in the case of the Captain) to <em>denigrate<\/em> another military member&#8217;s religious beliefs.\u00a0 Regardless of which side one is on, respect is still the operative word.<\/p>\n<p>As these letter writers demonstrate, the military environment is not a haven of\u00a0evangelical Christian supremacy.\u00a0 Just as American society has the gamut of ideological and religious beliefs, so too does the military that reflects it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As noted previously, a letter to the editor of the Stars and Stripes touched a nerve, with another contributor scolding\u00a0a Chaplain about relying on the Bible. The publication sparked a surprisingly blunt tit-for-tat, demonstrating that feelings about culture and religion present in American society are, indeed, also prevalent in the military. A Captain stationed in Iraq decried the letter writer&#8217;s [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23,4,19,2,17,10],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-bible","tag-churchandstate","tag-government","tag-military","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}