{"id":16559,"date":"2012-03-07T00:47:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T03:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=16559"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:04","slug":"ltgen-ronnie-hawkins-and-the-religious-rights-of-those-in-uniform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/07\/ltgen-ronnie-hawkins-and-the-religious-rights-of-those-in-uniform\/","title":{"rendered":"LtGen Ronnie Hawkins and the Religious Rights of those in Uniform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think the issue of LtGen Ronnie Hawkins and his “Ronnie’s Rules”<\/a> is new?\u00a0 Military commanders have a long tradition of introducing themselves to their units and including personal biographies and life philosophies when they do so, and there are other current examples<\/a>\u00a0of military leaders doing exactly that — and mentioning their faith in Jesus Christ as they did so.\u00a0 A few critics have complained, naturally, but their vicarious or self-imposed offense has been\u00a0insufficient to force the military to restrict the mention of “God” in similar military events — and rightly so.<\/p>\n

Supporters have also weighed in with well-researched articles, not just passionate press releases.\u00a0 The Religious Rights of Those in Uniform<\/a>, which was also printed in an official Air Force publication<\/a> that also featured the MRFF’s Chris Rodda, was written by Robert Ash (USA, Retired), who\u00a0is a West Point graduate, served 22 years in the Army, and teaches law at Regent University.\u00a0 He co-authored the lengthy piece with Dr. Jay Sekulow,\u00a0chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (and debated Michael Weinstein<\/a> at the US Air Force Academy in 2007).\u00a0 From their essay [emphasis added]:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There is no legitimate reason why commanders cannot mention their educational, professional, and religious backgrounds when introducing themselves to their subordinates. The Army Leader Transitions Handbook<\/em>, a book for leaders based on the \u201cbest practices and proven techniques from military and civilian sources,\u201d139<\/sup> declares, for example, that \u201ctalking to all your subordinates . . . about what is important to you and what you value<\/em><\/strong> as their leader will help establish trust.\u201d140<\/sup> The handbook recommends that military leaders discuss the following topics with their subordinates:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the leader\u2019s background<\/em><\/strong>;141<\/sup><\/li>\n
  2. the leader\u2019s expectations and standards;142<\/sup><\/li>\n
  3. the leader\u2019s values<\/em><\/strong>;143<\/sup><\/li>\n
  4. the leader\u2019s view of ethics;144<\/sup><\/li>\n
  5. the leader\u2019s objectives for the unit;145<\/sup><\/li>\n
  6. the leader\u2019s thoughts on integrity;146<\/sup><\/li>\n
  7. the leader\u2019s priorities<\/em><\/strong>;147<\/sup><\/li>\n
  8. the leader\u2019s standards of discipline;148<\/sup><\/li>\n
  9. the leader\u2019s thoughts on training, education, and safety;149<\/sup><\/li>\n
  10. the leader\u2019s thoughts on leadership;150<\/sup><\/li>\n
  11. the leader\u2019s thoughts on caring for Soldiers and their families.151<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sharing such thoughts is essential to informing one\u2019s subordinates of what is expected of them from the leader\u2019s perspective and what they can expect from the leader in return.152<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Footnotes are available in the original document.<\/p>\n

    As has\u00a0been previously noted<\/a>, criticisms of LtGen Hawkins — primarily by Michael Weinstein, frequent critic of all things remotely resembling religious freedom in the US military\u00a0— have been woefully out of context.\u00a0 Weinstein called for Gen Hawkins’ court-martial, saying Gen Hawkins “violated his oath to the Constitution.”\u00a0 Weinstein’s researcher Chris Rodda made the asinine assertion Gen Hawkins had made a “clear endorsement of religion in a command setting” because he said he lived by the rules that he<\/p>\n

    Always put God first, and stay within his will.
    \nAlways remember that God is good — all the time!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He expressed his personal life philosophy and the rules he has lived by — nothing more.\u00a0 Doing so is not only common, it may actually be helpful<\/em>, as the quoted Army handbook says, because it helps the unit’s members ‘know where the boss is coming from.’<\/p>\n

    The fact Gen Hawkins’ slides even made the news is an indicator of the hypersensitivity in the US military of even so much as mentioning <\/em>the word “God.”\u00a0 When Weinstein received the slides from the “offended” members of the unit, the appropriate thing to do would have been to explain the concept of freedom, noting a personal\u00a0expression of faith is not an illegal act.<\/p>\n

    If he was honest, Weinstein would also admit that continuously excoriating individuals and the military for permissible conduct may actually result in an unofficial restriction <\/em>of religious freedom, as people self-censor — or their leaders encourage them to do so — to avoid controversy at the expense of liberty.\u00a0 But Weinstein won’t admit that (despite the fact the Colorado Springs Gazette has accused him of causing that very thing) because that’s what he wants <\/em>to happen.\u00a0 He claims to run a “religious freedom” charity — yet he advocates against <\/em>that very thing.<\/p>\n

    Weinstein saw the opportunity to\u00a0get publicity (thus, fundraising<\/a>) and drag the US military through the mud one more time, even if he had to misrepresent LtGen Hawkins in the process.\u00a0\u00a0So he took it.\u00a0 It’s little more complicated than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Think the issue of LtGen Ronnie Hawkins and his “Ronnie’s Rules” is new?\u00a0 Military commanders have a long tradition of introducing themselves to their units and including personal biographies and life philosophies when they do so, and there are other current examples\u00a0of military leaders doing exactly that — and mentioning their faith in Jesus Christ as they did so.\u00a0 A […]<\/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":[458,134,88,175,96,82,2915,277,85,2,5218,7,17,2343,10,171,1949,2916,2917,65,101],"class_list":["post-16559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-aclj","tag-air-force","tag-army","tag-chris-rodda","tag-christian","tag-constitution","tag-disa","tag-jay-sekulow","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religious-expression","tag-regent-university","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-robert-ash","tag-ronnie-hawkins","tag-ronnies-rules","tag-usafa","tag-west-point"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559","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=16559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}