{"id":279,"date":"2009-01-05T23:39:52","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T06:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=279"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:53","slug":"mrff-targets-army-suicide-prevention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/05\/mrff-targets-army-suicide-prevention\/","title":{"rendered":"MRFF Targets Army Suicide Prevention"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation recently “amended<\/a>” its lawsuit<\/a> against the Department of Defense.\u00a0 It made one substantive addition, saying Army Specialist Chalker had<\/p>\n

sought relief for his claims by invoking an intra-army administrative process. He has exhausted this alternative remedy but has obtained no substantial relief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The premise of the cryptically vague statement (that Chalker used the Army’s in-place grievance systems) was already included in the lawsuit, so it does not appear\u00a0that an amendment was judicially required.\u00a0 The announcement of the changes to the lawsuit–which was only filed approximately three months earlier–did highlight the suit in the press for a short time.<\/p>\n

The other changes, upon which the MRFF has focused attention, have been additions to the long list of allegations (unrelated to the primary complaint) of Christian endorsement in the US military, which founder Michael Weinstein says is a “national security threat:”<\/p>\n

The military command and control of our nation’s nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional and laser-guided weapons has been unconstitutionally compromised by a tsunami of unbridled fundamentalist Christian exceptionalism, triumphalism and proselytizing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer, errs in that the US has declared it has no offensive biological weapons.]\u00a0 One of the primary additions in the amended suit, repeated nearly verbatim on fellow advocate Jason Leopold’s website<\/a>,\u00a0is so misleading as to nearly be dishonest.\u00a0 From the lawsuit:<\/p>\n

The 2008 Army Suicide Prevention Manual…promotes religion over no religion, Christianity over other religions, and instructs both chaplains and behavioral health providers to promote “religiosity” as a necessary element of suicide prevention. The manual…states that “Chaplains also need to openly advocate behavioral health as a resource,” but then adds that “Behavioral health providers need to openly advocate spirituality and religiosity as resiliency factors.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the article, Weinstein said:<\/p>\n

the PowerPoint presentation \u201cis not only an unconstitutional promotion of Christianity for the soldiers who are mandated to attend it, but for the behavioral health providers and non-Christian chaplains who must present it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The suit, and Leopold’s commentary, carefully edit out the surrounding sentences.\u00a0\u00a0The referenced text (which is publicly available<\/a>, despite not being authorized for distribution outside the US Army) within its context follows:<\/p>\n

Chaplains can certainly speak from their own\u00a0faith traditions, but need to remember to be inclusive of the different beliefs of the audience. Chaplains also need to openly advocate behavioral health as a resource.\u00a0 Behavioral health providers need to openly advocate spirituality and religiosity as resiliency factors. This briefing\u00a0will be more effective if both providers are present during the briefing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than advocating a specific religion, then, the manual specifically advises Chaplains to be inclusive of different beliefs (notice, it does not say faiths<\/em>; the implication is that a different belief<\/em> may include no religious faith<\/em>).<\/p>\n

In addition, even a superficial reading of the next three sentences demonstrates that the emphasis is not<\/em> that health providers should promote religion.\u00a0\u00a0It is evident that\u00a0the intent is for each presenter to validate the suicide prevention methodology of the other — emphasizing the number of legitimate, varied options available to the soldiers and reducing the stigma associated with seeking help.\u00a0 This is one of the Army’s stated goals: emphasizing a “multidisciplinary approach” to suicide prevention.\u00a0 The briefing communicates that\u00a0a soldier, at his discretion,\u00a0can go to a health provider or a Chaplain, both of which may be able to provide legitimate means of\u00a0help.<\/p>\n

The US Army has faced a significant increase\u00a0in suicides over the past few years.\u00a0 In response<\/a>,\u00a0it has expanded\u00a0the variety of suicide prevention programs, advertised those programs to soldiers, and has also emphasized that leaders should work to reduce the potential stigma of prevention resources.\u00a0 A short list of activities that Army units may have conducted during the Suicide Awareness Week\/Month (September 2008) included:<\/p>\n

Static displays by local helping agencies; screening services by VA Mental Health personnel; family picnics with special speakers hosting a community health fair; ACE suicide prevention classes; chaplain presentations to unit leadership on leadership responsibilities and stigma reduction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Chaplaincy is but one tool in a wide array of resources that soldiers have to combat the rise in the suicide rate in the US Army.\u00a0 (In the Army’s “A Leader’s Guide to Suicide Prevention<\/a>,” a Chaplain is mentioned only once; the pamphlet instead focuses\u00a0on mental and medical health professionals.) \u00a0The Army has not been foisting Christianity or religion on soldiers; it has been foisting suicide prevention<\/em> on them, and it has acknowledged religious resources\u00a0as one<\/em> potential suicide prevention measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even so, there are reputable, non-religious, non-activist organizations<\/a> that recognize\u00a0for some people, “religiosity” may be a tool in suicide prevention.\u00a0 It is unconscionable that some would seek to deny soldiers the ability to hear about what some believe may be a valid suicide prevention resource.<\/p>\n

In addition, Chaplains\u00a0act\u00a0not only as counselors but also\u00a0spiritual advisors to those military members who desire them.\u00a0 In a group forum, a Chaplain and a behavioral health provider (the Army’s recommended setup for the presentation) can speak to the theistic and the a-theistic without demeaning or promoting any faith or non-faith system.\u00a0 And again, the religious undertones of the Chaplaincy’s role in suicide prevention are but one of a variety of resources the Army promotes. “Religiosity” is presented as neither the sole nor superior solution to the Army’s suicide problem.<\/p>\n

In perhaps the greatest irony, the MRFF press release indicates they filed the amended suit on 29 December 2008.\u00a0 The allegations over the Suicide Prevention Manual became moot a mere two days later, as the Army manual specifically says it is valid only for the calendar year and is to be revised annually.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the implications of the\u00a0allegations, the military (and Chaplains) can use religious terminology,\u00a0religious references, and\u00a0can speak to the virtues of belief systems–even when they are addressing groups or mandatory formations.\u00a0 In fact, this very methodology is used to train military members on religion and religious sensitivity, with respect to both\u00a0internal military procedures and\u00a0relationships with both adversaries and allies.\u00a0 (Also,\u00a0an official, mandatory-attendance military formation recently\u00a0relied heavily on Taoism, though it is unlikely anyone will complain.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

These actions are permissible under military regulations and the Constitution; they do not establish a religion nor demonstrate that one is favored over another (or none).\u00a0 Instead, the\u00a0allegations demonstrate the lengths to which opponents may\u00a0go\u00a0to remove any hint of Christian presence in the military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation recently “amended” its lawsuit against the Department of Defense.\u00a0 It made one substantive addition, saying Army Specialist Chalker had sought relief for his claims by invoking an intra-army administrative process. He has exhausted this alternative remedy but has obtained no substantial relief. The premise of the cryptically vague statement (that Chalker used the Army’s in-place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[88,5284,4,125,929,85,2,5218,7,917],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-army","tag-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-dustin-chalker","tag-jason-leopold","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-suicide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","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=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}