{"id":5899,"date":"2010-06-18T01:14:20","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T07:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=5899"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:09","slug":"michael-weinsteins-mrff-is-at-war-with-quakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/michael-weinsteins-mrff-is-at-war-with-quakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Weinstein’s MRFF is “at war”…with Quakers."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week saw the government of Afghanistan restrict the conduct of two Christian aid groups<\/a> accused of attempting to convert locals.\u00a0 A protest ensued<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This particular\u00a0controversy was also highlighted by\u00a0Michael Weinstein’s “religious freedom” organization.\u00a0 The response of his organization\u00a0was typical, as communicated by board member Leah Burton:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Burton\u00a0connected\u00a0the US military to this controversy, despite the lack of any evidence to support such a connection:<\/strong><\/p>\n

How dangerous it is to have our military members proselytizing to Muslims in a country that belongs to them?\u00a0 This is outrageous and puts our troops at much greater risk than they are already in…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contrary to Burton’s rant, no one has made any assertion that “our military members” were “proselytizing to [sic<\/em>] Muslims” in this incident.\u00a0 That didn’t stop Burton from making the association, however; she even illustrated her post with a picture of Lt Carey Cash holding a Bible…as if that had something to do with the story.\u00a0 Neither of the aid groups has been accused of anything<\/em> regarding the military.<\/p>\n

The MRFF’s Leah Burton assumed the accusations were correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burton gave\u00a0no evidence to support the accusations against the aid groups,\u00a0and ignored\u00a0the fact the accusing TV station admitted it had no proof.\u00a0 This lack of evidentiary support is standard fare for the MRFF, because the shocking accusation is more interesting than the truth.\u00a0 When someone else pointed this out, Burton played the “we’re not telling you all we know” card, a common MRFF tactic and\u00a0convenient excuse absolving her\u00a0of any responsibility to\u00a0defend her assertion.\u00a0 The problem with her excuse is that she based her argument on a publicly available news article, and nothing more.<\/p>\n

The MRFF defines religions, assigns followers…again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burton\u00a0apparently used her zen to determine the theology of those accused of the crime of “proselytizing.”\u00a0 She said they were “dominionists,”\u00a0despite the fact that neither of the two organizations espouses a “dominionist” theology.\u00a0 Like Weinstein himself<\/a>, Burton assigns religious beliefs to those whom she sees fit, regardless of what those people or organizations actually believe.\u00a0 This enables her to continue the MRFF\u00a0contention they are only “at war” with a “specific sect” of Christians; it’s just that the MRFF<\/em> gets to determine who is actually in<\/em> that sect.\u00a0 To date, it has\u00a0been any Christian they felt like being “at war” with, regardless of their actual beliefs.<\/p>\n

For the record, the aid groups represented African Methodists, Catholics, Coptics, PC(USA), and even the Friends, among others.\u00a0 It is likely those faith groups would take issue with being described as “dominionist.”\u00a0 Less than 30 seconds of research would have prevented Burton from putting her foot in the MRFF’s mouth by\u00a0potentially offending a host of Christian denominations, as well as revealing that the “sect” they are “at war” with includes the Quakers (who, in Burton’s words, are apparently “willing to use force” to achieve “world domination.”\u00a0 Who knew?).<\/p>\n

Burton says this “endangers” America, requiring action to restrict liberty.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, this “religious freedom” board member thinks since “deaths will occur” because of the accusations of “proselytizing,” then the accused should be subject to “criminal charges.”<\/p>\n

Think about that.\u00a0 Even if the accusations are true, those organizations\u00a0violated no US law; the only criminal charge they could face is a violation of Afghan law (on conversion), for which the penalty may be death.\u00a0 So Burton, on behalf of Weinstein’s MRFF, is advocating the potential\u00a0execution of Christian aid workers, some of whom are American citizens,\u00a0accused of attempting to convert local nationals in Afghanistan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The MRFF, a “religious freedom” organization, is supporting the criminalization of…religious freedom.\u00a0 And the MRFF board member goes 0 for 2 in portraying her own organization in a positive light.\u00a0 She deserves credit, though, for shining light on her organization’s true objectives.<\/p>\n

On a larger scale, Burton is advocating cowardice: America should acquiesce<\/a> every time a crowd chants “death to America” over its protection or expression of a human liberty.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, there may be some factual basis for Burton’s claim that “deaths may occur” as\u00a0a result of this.\u00a0 One Afghan government official has reportedly called for the public execution of the converts<\/a>\u00a0to Christianity.\u00a0 Neither Burton nor Weinstein have come to the defense of the converts’ religious freedom; instead,\u00a0they are focused on the punishment of those who supported the converts’ human rights.<\/p>\n

Despite her sensationalized assertions, it is unlikely\u00a0Burton or Weinstein\u00a0actually want to live in a world where it is illegal to change one’s religion.\u00a0 It’s just that in this case they get to make Christians the “bad guys,” and it is the opposition of Christianity, not religious freedom, that is the MRFF objective.\u00a0 The government of Afghanistan is not necessarily a friend to “religious freedom.”<\/a>\u00a0 That the MRFF would take their side, rather than the side of religious liberty, may simply be a marriage of convenience, or perhaps\u00a0an example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week saw the government of Afghanistan restrict the conduct of two Christian aid groups accused of attempting to convert locals.\u00a0 A protest ensued. This particular\u00a0controversy was also highlighted by\u00a0Michael Weinstein’s “religious freedom” organization.\u00a0 The response of his organization\u00a0was typical, as communicated by board member Leah Burton:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,4,615,85,2,5218,7,17,10],"class_list":["post-5899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-churchandstate","tag-leah-burton","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899","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=5899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}