{"id":307,"date":"2009-04-21T03:12:32","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T10:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=307"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:51","slug":"military-national-prayer-breakfasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/21\/military-national-prayer-breakfasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Military National Prayer Breakfasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a variety of sources, the National Prayer Breakfast is an annual Washington, DC, event for Congressional and Executive leaders that has been ongoing for decades.\u00a0 President Obama spoke<\/a> at this year’s event in February.<\/p>\n

The tradition has spread across the country, with a variety of other locations holding similar breakfasts, luncheons, or other gatherings.\u00a0 Members of the Chaplain corps often sponsor Prayer Breakfasts at military installations.\u00a0 Prayers and speeches are often presented by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Chaplains, as well as notable personalities.\u00a0 Though they are non-denominational and inclusive, they are not without controversy.<\/p>\n

The 10th Mountain Division held theirs<\/a> in early March, with noted speaker Bobby Welch invited<\/a> to address the group.\u00a0 Welch is a Vietnam Veteran\u00a0and decorated former Army officer, as well as former President of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 He and his book, You, the Warrior Leader<\/a><\/em>, have frequently been mentioned by Michael Weinstein in his Military\u00a0Religious Freedom Foundation’s\u00a0“war”\u00a0against Christianity in the military.<\/p>\n

Air Force Chief Chaplain (Maj Gen) Cecil Richardson has made the rounds of many Air Force bases, including Dyess,\u00a0Maxwell<\/a>,\u00a0Edwards<\/a>, Vandenberg<\/a>, Peterson<\/a>, Pope<\/a>, and Charleston<\/a>, as well as Fort Meade.\u00a0 Encouraging servicemen and women to have faith, using the story of David and Goliath, Richardson said<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that nothing bad will ever happen to you.\u00a0\u00a0But if you put your faith in Him, whatever He authorizes, He will give you the grace to handle it. You see, we\u2019ve got air cover. God has a huge Air Force full of angels, and he\u2019s not downsizing. You\u2019ve got a wingman. And victory comes to those who step out and act on their faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like Army Chief Chaplain (Maj Gen) Carver<\/a>, the Air Force Chief of Chaplains has not been spared in Weinstein’s\u00a0criticisms of religion\u00a0in the military.\u00a0 Weinstein has\u00a0called the Chaplain a “Constitutional rapist”:\u00a0<\/p>\n

We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regardless, the annual National Prayer Breakfast or similar remembrance is a decades-old tradition, rooted even in civilian government, that allows men and women in service to their country to pause and pray, both for themselves, and for their country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a variety of sources, the National Prayer Breakfast is an annual Washington, DC, event for Congressional and Executive leaders that has been ongoing for decades.\u00a0 President Obama spoke at this year’s event in February. The tradition has spread across the country, with a variety of other locations holding similar breakfasts, luncheons, or other gatherings.\u00a0 Members of the Chaplain […]<\/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":[2,5218,7,10],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","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=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}