Tag Archives: army

Chris Rodda Denigrates Beliefs of Chaplain Endorser

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s research assistant Chris Rodda has taken the MRFF attacks on military Christians to a new level. Weinstein and company have previously railed against Christians who expressed their religious beliefs, even if they did so in a church service. They’ve also blasted Christians for nothing more than having certain beliefs.

Mikey Weinstein’s research assistant, Chris Rodda.

Now, Chris Rodda has gone a step further, holding up for derision not expressed beliefs or even the beliefs of any particular service member. Instead, Rodda attacked cherry-picked (and misrepresented) policy statements from a chaplain’s endorsing agency, as if that implicated either a service member or religious freedom in general. Rodda’s characteristically rambling article at the Huffington Post is entitled “Ranger Chaplain’s Endorsing Agency: Women in Combat ‘Contrary to Nature,’ ‘Biblical Duty of Man to Defend Woman’.”

It’s worth noting that Rodda’s headline isn’t even true. Her quotes on nature and the duty of man came from the assemblies of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 2001 and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in 2002. The OPC and PCA are two of seven member denominations of the endorsing agency known as the Presbyterian and Reformed Commission on Chaplains and Military Personnel. Those assemblies are not any chaplain’s endorsing agency. Rodda appears to have chosen sensationalism over integrity, which is ironic for someone who focuses so much on debunking “liars.”

Regardless, Rodda writes as the representative of Read more

Inspector General Releases Report on Military Religious Freedom

As part of the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress required the DoD Inspector General to report to Congress on the US military’s promulgation of religious liberty protections. This was presumably due to perceptions the military was being unresponsive to the wording in laws passed by Congress.

As a result of that requirement, the DoD IG released an initial report (3MB PDF) last week more notable for what it did not say than what it did. Despite specific congressional attention on “individual expressions of belief,” the IG report almost completely ignored that topic — though it admitted why [emphasis added]:

Virtually all…events in a service member’s career involve subjective, discretionary decisionmaking on the part of leaders and commanders. Identifying examples of discrimination based on conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs was unrealistic because those reasons would almost never be cited as the basis for the decision…Further, denials of promotion, schooling, training, and assignment are a subset of adverse personnel actions.

To summarize:  Read more

Mikey Weinstein Confuses, Contradicts Self in Debate with Ron Crews

Update: Chaplain Crews reports Mikey Weinstein plans to send “clients” into military chapel services to “monitor sermons.”  Crews also reports that groups are ready to defend chaplains subject to Weinstein’s attacks.

Last week TheBlaze posted a podcast from The Church Boys that included what they called a “heated” debate between Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and retired US Army Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews. The nearly 45-minute broadcast is largely Weinstein monologuing with his normal talking points to, or over, the hosts and Crews. (The audio is available below.)

For those that want the Bottom Line Up Front, the “debate” made clear that Mikey Weinstein doesn’t have a clear position, but he holds it very strongly and with great animus toward Christians.

“Perverts” and Marching Orders

For nearly half the show Weinstein railed against chaplains who would issue “anti-LGBT marching orders” and scream “perverts!” from the pulpit. No one seemed to really understand what he was talking about, and he never explained himself. It would seem he was attempting to set up a straw man that never really got going.

Strong Bonds and Marriage Retreats

Weinstein said it would be a “declaration of war” if a chaplain Read more

Heathens Continue Push for Military Recognition

Along with Sikhs, Humanists, homosexuals, and transgenders, another group seeking “official” US military recognition is heathens. Writing at Religion News Service, Kimberly Winston — normally RNS’s atheist hired writer — recounts the stories of self-described military heathens who want to put “heathen” on their dog tags:

Jeremiah McIntyre wants to be called a Heathen.

The 38-year-old Army sergeant follows the old Norse religion Asatru, in which the god Thor swings his hammer in the sky and Odin rules a heavenly place called Valhalla. Should McIntyre die, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would allow a hammer of Thor on his tombstone.

But the Army does not otherwise currently recognize the active-duty soldier’s faith…

That much is true, as has been previously discussed more than once. Winston then digresses into what she perceives as affronts to the unrecognized heathen masses:  Read more

Book Review: The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

Winston Groom
National Geographic, 2013.

The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight is a combined overview-biography of three of the most famous and influential aviators of the early 20th century. The book essentially follows each man chronologically through his life, but it does so by intertwining their periods of life so that, in some cases, they almost seem to grow up together — which, as contemporaries, they essentially did. This somewhat unique style can be slightly confusing to some readers, as the famous aviator might change from one chapter to the next, but it also provides a very enlightening and important context to what each of those famous pilots did.

There is an interesting contrast, for example, between Lindbergh’s cross-Atlantic voyage, accomplished solely by visual lookout in 1927, with Doolittle’s experimentation with flight instruments and totally “blind flight” two years later in 1929. The varying political views of each aviator through the interwar period and World War II are also interesting when viewed essentially side-by-side and understanding that they came about in the same cultural context.

The Aviators is not a minutely-detailed Read more

US Army Rebuffs Jason Torpy’s Atheist Complaint about Prayer (Video)

Jason Torpy, the perpetually (and vicariously) offended atheist and former US Army Captain, complained last week that a US Army Air Assault graduation ceremony included a prayer:

MAAF has obtained a video showing enforced Christian prayer at Air Assault training at Ft Campbell. Trainees are directed to bow their head to graduation prayer and to give a response that sounds like “Amen”.

The 36-second prayer is in the video above.

Torpy complained Read more

Chaplain: Military Double Standard on Religion, Homosexuality

Retired US Army Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews penned a blog at The Hill decrying the “double standard” in the US military between religion and sexuality:

I cannot help but reach the conclusion that, since the repeal of the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, homosexual advocacy has become a sort of “religious” force, and the American military gives it preferential treatment to established faiths in violation of its very own regulations…

Crews’ primary example is the recent decision by the Army to not support an Independence Day event at a church, while it did participate in the DC Capital parade celebrating sexual “pride.” Crews cites Army Regulations 360-1, saying

Section 3.2(a) specifically states, “Army participation must not selectively benefit (or appear to benefit) any person, group, or corporation (whether profit or nonprofit); religion, sect, religious or sectarian group, or quasi-religious or ideological movement; fraternal organization; political organization; or commercial venture.”

…The movement to advance homosexual legal and social demands within the military has taken on every hallmark of a “quasi-religious or ideological movement.”

It is by definition at least an ideological movement. But, Read more

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