{"id":300,"date":"2009-04-01T03:00:04","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T07:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=300"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:52","slug":"military-religious-freedom-the-torah-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/01\/military-religious-freedom-the-torah-in-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Religious Freedom: The Torah in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Air Force news published\u00a0articles<\/a> and pictures (see below the fold) of a Torah dedication ceremony\u00a0in Balad, Iraq, on March 23rd, as well as the accompanying<\/a> adult Bar Mitzvah of an enlisted Airmen.<\/p>\n

Contrary to some assertions, such\u00a0public displays of faith do not demonstrate an institutional favoritism of a religion (in this case, Judaism) by the military or by the government.\u00a0 Such expressions–even in a region of the world that has elements hostile to both Judaism and America–are not only permitted but also encouraged, just as the free exercise of other faiths is also supported.<\/p>\n

Such displays are also wholly permissible in uniform, as these Airmen were.\u00a0 The Airmen\u00a0wore yarmulkes\u00a0in place of their military covers, which is explicitly permitted by DoDD 1300.17<\/a> when military headgear is not required (other similar guidance can be found here<\/a>).\u00a0 Many of the\u00a0Airmen involved in the uniformed religious\u00a0celebration\u00a0were also armed, but such a display did not militarize the spiritual event.<\/p>\n

Also, the presence of mixed ranks is evidence of neither coercion nor improper command influence.\u00a0 The Air Force picture includes men and women, both senior officers and junior enlisted.\u00a0 The resulting relationships among the varied ranks who share and celebrate a common faith are neither coercive nor illegal.<\/p>\n

The ability of these Airmen to publicly celebrate their faith is evidence of the lengths to which the military goes to accomodate religious faith, even while its troops are in a combat zone in\u00a0a region sometimes hostile to America and its varied faiths.\u00a0 It also demonstrates the freedom of religion American troops\u00a0continue to enjoy even while in the military–even when they are uniformed and armed officers and enlisted.<\/p>\n

However, Michael Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has previously described public expressions of faith by military personnel in theatre, like this Torah dedication,\u00a0as<\/p>\n

a noxious national security threat that would embolden a fundamentalist Islamic opponent and maim and kill our own soldiers<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and has equated photos of religious soldiers with their weapons with those of Islamic extremist suicide bombers.\u00a0 He has called American military members of faith a “Taliban” that must be stopped, and has claimed that public displays of faith in the military embolden our adversaries and serve as “recruiting tools” for al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Notably, however, Weinstein has restricted his criticism to only those of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Department of Defense<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Air Force news published\u00a0articles and pictures (see below the fold) of a Torah dedication ceremony\u00a0in Balad, Iraq, on March 23rd, as well as the accompanying adult Bar Mitzvah of an enlisted Airmen. Contrary to some assertions, such\u00a0public displays of faith do not demonstrate an institutional favoritism of a religion (in this case, Judaism) by the military or by the […]<\/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":[4,52,39,2,5218,7,10],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-iraq","tag-jewish","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","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=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}