{"id":18024,"date":"2012-06-07T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=18024"},"modified":"2012-06-03T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T01:40:12","slug":"shock-scandal-military-hosts-secular-day-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/07\/shock-scandal-military-hosts-secular-day-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Shock, Scandal: Military Hosts Secular Day Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year military atheist Justin Griffith created a fuss over a military chapel community’s Vacation Bible School — something virtually every military chapel community<\/a> does, by the way.\u00a0 He claimed the chapel VBS was a US government-funded “religious summer camp.”<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Naturally, he continued the militant atheist tradition of latching on to Christianity by demanding a “me, too” ability to have such an event. He failed to acknowledge\u00a0military facilities already <\/em>host non-religious events of a similar nature<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Approximately 40 Army Reserve children from all over the southeast region ranging from the ages of six to 14 attended a \u201cUp, Up, and Away\u201d day camp hosted by the 81st Regional Support Command\u2019s Child Youth & School Services and the Mad Science organization…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll note, of course, this was hosted by the Youth and School Services organization, which is a natural fit for a non-religious activity.\u00a0 By contrast, Griffith went to the chaplains <\/em>to demand his non-religious counter “bible school.”<\/p>\n

As is the case in almost every instance, faith groups within the chapel communities often host events of a religious nature and open access to anyone who would like to attend.\u00a0 This is a natural part of the military community, and an expression of the religious freedom that the US military protects within its ranks.\u00a0 Likewise, the military frequently hosts similarly-themed non-religious events.<\/p>\n

These events occur every year, on almost every base, and all without incident.\u00a0 Contrary to Griffith’s insinuations, members of the military community are happy to let each other participate in these events — or not — as they choose.<\/p>\n

It’s really not that complicated.\u00a0 And, despite some melodramatic accusations, it’s not a big deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year military atheist Justin Griffith created a fuss over a military chapel community’s Vacation Bible School — something virtually every military chapel community does, by the way.\u00a0 He claimed the chapel VBS was a US government-funded “religious summer camp.”\u00a0 Naturally, he continued the militant atheist tradition of latching on to Christianity by demanding a “me, too” ability to have […]<\/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":[88,20,1802,38,5284,1023,434,1055,2,36,171,1800,1801],"class_list":["post-18024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-atheism","tag-camp-quest","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-fort-bragg","tag-fort-jackson","tag-justin-griffith","tag-military","tag-navy","tag-religious-freedom","tag-vacation-bible-school","tag-vbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18024","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=18024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}