{"id":14713,"date":"2011-12-14T01:29:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T04:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=14713"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:22","slug":"article-usafa-dogged-by-michael-weinstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/14\/article-usafa-dogged-by-michael-weinstein\/","title":{"rendered":"Article: USAFA “Dogged” by Michael Weinstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unusually pointed article from the Baptist Press summarizes some of the recent events at the US Air Force Academy — and minces few words on the cause of “anti-Christian pressure” at USAFA<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Recent actions by the U.S. Air Force Academy could appear as if commanders are on a mission to rid the institution of Christian influence, but a nearby pastor says the actions are the result of intense pressure from one man…<\/p>\n

Mike Routt, pastor of Circle Drive Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., told Baptist Press the hostility toward Christianity at the Air Force Academy is not the result of the leadership there but is in response to pressure from Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As to the environment at USAFA, “hypersensitivity” may be more appropriate than “hostility.”\u00a0 USAFA may have taken some unnecessary actions that targeted Christian conduct — because of public perceptions — but the overall environment is not yet derogatory toward the Christian faith.\u00a0 Routt was referring in part to the controversy over Operation Christmas Child<\/a>, to which Daniel Heimbach of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary said<\/p>\n

the Operation Christmas Child reversal is understandable because the program genuinely does promote Christianity and should be handled by the chaplains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, that displays a slight ignorance of the military, and it makes what\u00a0is likely an unrealized assumption.\u00a0 As noted previously, the OCC effort was inspired by individual cadets, not the military institution.\u00a0 Thus, handing the program to the chaplains actually created <\/em>the institutional involvement with the charity.\u00a0 On the second point, Heimbach is inadvertently buying into the meme that faith in the military must be restricted to the chapel grounds<\/a>.\u00a0 This was a weakness of the USAFA decision to say Operation Christmas Child should have been given to the chaplains — which\u00a0Weinstein astutely observed and is now trying to exploit.<\/p>\n

Rather than demanding the removal or end of something religious, Weinstein will simply demand it be restricted to the chapel or chaplaincy.\u00a0 That has the advantage of sounding “reasonable” to\u00a0an outside observer, while the actual restrictive effect on faith in the military — in the form of targeted government action based on religion <\/em>— will be significant.\u00a0 And Weinstein knows that.<\/p>\n

For his part, Pastor Routt has Weinstein pretty much nailed:<\/p>\n

Routt…described Weinstein as a person who angrily threatens lawsuits <\/em><\/strong>and pushes unsubstantiated claims <\/em><\/strong>on his foundation’s website…<\/p>\n

“He even says the Constitution is to guarantee both freedom of religion and freedom from religion,” Routt said, adding that he suspects <\/em>part of Weinstein’s motivation for making outlandish claims is financial gain <\/em><\/strong>from those who support his viewpoint. [emphasis added]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems the cat is out of the bag.\u00a0 Despite the validity of his suspicion<\/a>, think Pastor Routt will be getting a nasty gram from Weinstein’s lawyers<\/a>…?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unusually pointed article from the Baptist Press summarizes some of the recent events at the US Air Force Academy — and minces few words on the cause of “anti-Christian pressure” at USAFA: Recent actions by the U.S. Air Force Academy could appear as if commanders are on a mission to rid the institution of Christian influence, but a nearby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,38,5284,96,4,2617,82,2618,19,2616,85,2,5218,7,2398,11,17,10,171,65],"class_list":["post-14713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-christian","tag-churchandstate","tag-circle-drive-baptist-church","tag-constitution","tag-daniel-heimbach","tag-government","tag-mike-routt","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-operation-christmas-child","tag-prayer","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-usafa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713","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=14713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}