{"id":178,"date":"2008-04-30T19:50:15","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T23:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=178"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:58","slug":"the-military-and-the-national-day-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/30\/the-military-and-the-national-day-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Military and the National Day of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

As previously noted<\/a>, the National Day of Prayer is May 1st, by virtue of Presidential declaration and in accordance with US law.\u00a0 According to the Christian Science Monitor<\/a>, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has complained that the NDP “task force<\/a>” (associated with Focus on the Family) has coordinated with military bases and Chaplains for the observance.\u00a0 Using his oft-repeated hyperbolic and alliterative\u00a0talking points, Weinstein promised<\/a><\/p>\n

that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation fully [intended] to include this despicable collusion in [their] current Federal litigation against the Department of Defense as yet another stunning example of a pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of unconstitutional rape [of] religious liberties…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jason Leopold, a former journalist and frequent voice for the MRFF, took issue<\/a> with the fact that coordinators for the task force were required to sign a statement that ‘confirmed their commitment to Christ.’<\/p>\n

Leopold’s concern, though, and the MRFF\u00a0agreement with it, reveal an interesting, and problematic, demand:\u00a0 the “declaration” of Christianity required by the task force is no different than the “public declaration of faith” at a Christian baptism, or, for that matter, the public declaration of any faith.\u00a0 Would the MRFF prefer that no military member be permitted to interact with his fellow servicemembers after making a “declaration of faith?”<\/p>\n

There is no legal or Consitutional prohibition against military members having\u00a0an “exclusive” faith, nor is there one against professing or exercising those beliefs.\u00a0 Anyone who would suggest that military members not be allowed to publicly declare their belief in an exclusive faith–whether that be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or even\u00a0an “exclusive” brand of atheism–would gut the very Constitutional freedoms they claim to be “protecting.”<\/p>\n

The concern over the National Day of Prayer is ex nihilo.\u00a0 The Presidential declaration called\u00a0for prayer “each according to his own faith.”\u00a0 The military serves the needs of all the faiths of its members, including those of “exclusive” faiths and those without any.\u00a0 The fact that it receives community support from religious organizations–of many faiths–does not mean that the government therefore “establishes” any particular one.<\/p>\n

Military members are\u00a0free to participate (or not)\u00a0in the observance of the National Day of Prayer in whatever association they choose.\u00a0 (There is even a push for an “inclusive” NDP, which offers itself as an alternative.)\u00a0 As the NDP task force noted,<\/p>\n

All Americans are free to exercise their First Amendment rights to organize events that observe the National Day of Prayer in a manner that reflects their religious perspective.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those that claim the NDP is another “evangelical coup” see conspiracy where none exists.\u00a0 The Constitutional guarantees of religious liberty preserve freedom for all<\/em>, including those with whom one may disagree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As previously noted, the National Day of Prayer is May 1st, by virtue of Presidential declaration and in accordance with US law.\u00a0 According to the Christian Science Monitor, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has complained that the NDP “task force” (associated with Focus on the Family) has coordinated with military bases and Chaplains for the observance.\u00a0 Using his oft-repeated hyperbolic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,25],"tags":[4,1424,2,5218,7,10],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","category-military-regulations","tag-churchandstate","tag-conspiracy","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","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=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}