{"id":34114,"date":"2015-12-08T00:45:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T03:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=34114"},"modified":"2016-11-24T22:25:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T01:25:12","slug":"chaplains-shinto-priests-bless-air-force-fire-trucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/08\/chaplains-shinto-priests-bless-air-force-fire-trucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaplains, Shinto Priests Bless Air Force Fire Trucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an interesting &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.yokota.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123464405\">multicultural blessing<\/a>,&#8221; local Japanese Shinto priests and an Air Force wing chaplain conducted a &#8220;dedication and blessing ceremony&#8221; for a new fire truck at Yokota Air Base, Japan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The rituals featured a formal reading of prayer and a food and drink offering to the Shinto gods&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>After the Shinto priests&#8217; ritual, Maj. Oscar Fonseca, 374th Airlift Wing chaplain, offered up prayers for the fire engine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Mission Support Group commander &#8220;offer[ed] prayers&#8221; during <!--more-->the Shinto blessing:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/shintocommander.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"814\" height=\"280\" \/>The Airmen&#8217;s views on the mixed-blessings were interesting. From the chaplain:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I believe that the dual blessing here today is a sign that we are all one big family,&#8221; Fonseca said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From one of the Airmen fire fighters:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I feel that any blessing that you receive, regardless of religion, is a good thing,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For entertainment and cultural exposure, the ceremony was interesting. From a theological perspective, though, the chaplain isn&#8217;t correct in saying &#8220;we are all one big family.&#8221; And it is disappointing to see an Airman say &#8216;any blessing will do.&#8217; There are stories and urban legends of people who try to claim bits of every religion &#8212; on the off chance that one of them might be the magic pill to do the job.<\/p>\n<p>God isn&#8217;t a security blanket, get out of jail free card, nor a magic omen. There is only One Way &#8212; and few there be that find it.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Repeated at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/shinto-priests-air-force-chaplain-bless-new-engine-firefighters-at-yokota-air-base-1.381475\">Stars and Stripes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an interesting &#8220;multicultural blessing,&#8221; local Japanese Shinto priests and an Air Force wing chaplain conducted a &#8220;dedication and blessing ceremony&#8221; for a new fire truck at Yokota Air Base, Japan: The rituals featured a formal reading of prayer and a food and drink offering to the Shinto gods&#8230; After the Shinto priests&#8217; ritual, Maj. Oscar Fonseca, 374th Airlift Wing [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,5284,5415,1263,2,5416,17,10,171,5414,40,1214],"class_list":["post-34114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-chaplain","tag-fire-truck","tag-japan","tag-military","tag-oscar-fonseca","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-shinto","tag-tradition","tag-yokota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34114","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=34114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}