Tag Archives: Chaplain

Chaplains Group: Make the Military Great Again

Update: Now covered at the Stars and Stripes.

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty is calling on the new Acting Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Robert Speer, to reverse a last minute policy by outgoing Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning directing the Army to conduct “training on implicit or unconscious bias”:

“The military exists to protect our nation, not to be used as a laboratory for social engineering — and especially not from an outgoing official’s 11th hour order,” said Chaplain (COL) Ron Crews, USA (Retired)…“This directive does nothing to increase military readiness but wastes valuable training time just to promote a political agenda.”

The letter (PDF) notes that “implicit or unconscious bias” isn’t Read more

Todd Starnes: Lackland Air Force Base’s Politically Correct Agenda

by Sonny Hernandez

Todd Starnes reported a controversial story about an email that was sent by a senior Air Force leader to an untold number of personnel at Lackland Air Force Base, which should cause observers to wonder if it is a politically correct agenda that shows partiality toward those who care more about sensitivity than service.

Starnes alleges an incensed Airman sent him a copy of an email which did not address integrity, service before self, or excellence — instead, the email addressed issues that could be construed as offensive to others. It would be expected for the military to ensure compliance that sexual harassment, slander, and moral turpitude would not be tolerated. It is ironic that the email did not address any of the aforementioned compliances. Instead, the Air Force advised the Airmen to study a list of words, which should cause observers to be vexed:  Read more

Air National Guard Ignores FFRF Atheist Complaint

Not long after receiving a letter (PDF) from the First Liberty Institute, the New Hampshire Air National Guard at the Pease ANG Base has said they have chosen to ignore the previously reported complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

“We don’t plan on responding to the FFRF,” [Greg Heilshorn, spokesman for the New Hampshire National Guard] said. “We haven’t had any formal complaints from our airmen internally regarding any concerns with prayers being said at various ceremonies. We will continue as we’ve done before. It’s our tradition. We believe our chaplains…[are a] vital part of our organization.”

Well done. The US military is not obligated to respond to the FFRF — or any other third party complaint — at all. By declining to do so, they avoid the perception they are legitimizing the FFRF or its generalized accusations about religious expression in the US military.  Meanwhile, if there are any actual complainants who have an actionable grievance, they still have access to every grievance system within the military.

Part of the issue with Read more

New Air Force Chaplain: Race, Gender, but No Religion

The Air National Guard’s 177th Fighter Wing in New Jersey recently published an article announcing it had commissioned 1Lt Anita Morris as its new chaplain. Interestingly, the relatively short piece on the new unit’s religious representative managed to say nothing about religion; in fact, discounting the word “chaplain,” the only word remotely related to the chaplain’s field was one occurrence of “spiritual.” Otherwise:

History was made [when] Morris became the first African-American female to serve as chaplain in the history of the 177th Fighter Wing.

“It was met with great humility and gratitude to know I am the first,” Morris said.

The article was happy to communicate Lt Morris’ race and gender, but Read more

Harassed by Mikey Weinstein, Part 8: “DO SOMETHING!! PLZ”

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein learned early on that emailing threats to this site — a lot of emails — was ineffective. When his keyboard courage failed, Weinstein tried to have someone else do his work for him: His lawyers then threatened to sue ChristianFighterPilot.com. That, too, was futile, because — lawyer or not — Weinstein had no real argument beyond “Mikey doesn’t like you.”  Mikey Weinstein was doing little more than being a bully, and when his targets resisted, he quite naturally failed to follow through on his threats.

When his own courage failed, and when his lawyer subsequently failed, Mikey Weinstein then sought the aid of the US government to further his harassment.

Over the years, Mikey Weinstein has sent hundreds, if not thousands, of messages to the US military trying to get the military to join his attacks on ChristianFighterPilot.com. Most of his complaints have been passive-aggressive, as suits his style. A few have been demands.

One was a plea.

In 2013, the US Air Force censored an article written by an Air Force chaplain. The incident would ultimately come to represent one of the most effective stands against Mikey Weinstein by groups defending military religious freedom. The initial incident was covered here, in which this site noted the Air Force had chosen to publish an atheist article but prohibit a Christian one.

After the article went up on this site, Mikey Read more

Tom Carpenter, Gay Chaplains Group Takes on Tolerance of Islam

In a fascinating example of his tone deaf prejudice, Tom Carpenter of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy managed to, yet again, demonstrate his bias when he highlighted Chaplain (LtCol) Khallid Shabazz — the soon-to-be first Muslim Division chaplain in the US Army.  Carpenter said Chaplain Shabazz was

A real world example of how a chaplain of one faith provides support for troops and their family members who do not share his religion.

It is worth noting every military chaplain is tasked to provide support even for those who do not share his religion — and Carpenter has never provided a “real world example” of one who didn’t, though he has certainly made plenty of baseless accusations.

More tellingly, Carpenter made a fascinating assumption in Read more

Muslim Chaplain to Oversee 14,000 Troops in US Army Division

US Army Chaplain (LtCol) Khallid Shabazz has been all over the news the past few days in response to the recent revelation he — a Muslim chaplain — was being installed as the chaplain for the 7th Infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.

Given the social reaction to Islam in America, to an outsider it may sound a bit dramatic for a Muslim to become the “spiritual leader for more than 14,000 mostly Christian soldiers,” as he has been portrayed in the press, but it’s not quite the fuss it’s being made out to be.

For one thing, Shabazz is no more a “spiritual leader” (a term the media is using, not Shabazz or Read more

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