{"id":8240,"date":"2010-11-24T00:30:53","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T05:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=8240"},"modified":"2011-03-23T22:49:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T03:49:37","slug":"american-pilot-soldiers-pray-with-locals-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/24\/american-pilot-soldiers-pray-with-locals-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"American Pilot, Soldiers Pray with Locals in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A British news report tells the story of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mod.uk\/DefenceInternet\/DefenceNews\/MilitaryOperations\/BritishImamLeadsEidCelebrationsInKandahar.htm\">British military Imam who led a 600+ member congregation<\/a> &#8212; including locals, American servicemembers, and others &#8212; in the celebration of <em>Eid ul Adha<\/em> while in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This service provided an opportunity for ISAF to demonstrate respect for the Muslim faith by providing a service for all Muslims on the base. One young American pilot told me of the <!--more-->sense of unity he felt being able to pray with fellow Muslim soldiers from other countries and with local Afghans, in a celebration that counters the insurgent messages that ISAF are at war with Islam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Demonstrating the virtue of religious freedom is, of course, a valuable lesson for the Afghan population.<\/p>\n<p>Funny, though, that when Americans assist and participate in <em>Islamic<\/em> religious association with <em>Islamic<\/em> locals, it&#8217;s considered an &#8220;opportunity.&#8221;\u00a0 When Americans do similar things with <em>Christians<\/em>, some <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/10\/chaplain-ministers-to-all-even-other-nations\/\">conspiracy theorists call it &#8216;illegal<\/a>.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Photos of the event are now included among many others demonstrating the wide range of religion in the US military on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/photogallery\/photogalleryindex.htm\">Resources page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/madpadre.blogspot.com\/2010\/11\/british-force-moslem-chaplain-leads.html\">Mad Padre<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A British news report tells the story of a British military Imam who led a 600+ member congregation &#8212; including locals, American servicemembers, and others &#8212; in the celebration of Eid ul Adha while in Afghanistan. This service provided an opportunity for ISAF to demonstrate respect for the Muslim faith by providing a service for all Muslims on the base. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,5284,96,4,1424,44,2,10,171],"class_list":["post-8240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-chaplain","tag-christian","tag-churchandstate","tag-conspiracy","tag-islam","tag-military","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240","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=8240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}