Tag Archives: Government

Air Force Times: Prayer Should be Private

The Air Force Times has editorialized that

Before the Air Force can move past its reputation for religious intolerance, it must do one more thing: Eliminate prayers from official events.

Beginning an editorial with such a statement certainly reveals the tone.  After all, while the Air Force has been accused of intolerance by vocal critics, no institutional intolerance has ever been substantiated, and there is no public indication that intolerance is a valid “reputation” of the Air Force.

The editorial also treats a fairly complex issue rather whimsically.  The simple and unexplained demand that the Air Force “eliminate prayers from official events,” after all, would have prevented a Chaplain from praying at the nationally-televised memorial service at Fort Hood attended by the President.  Read more

Fort Hood Report Addresses Chaplains, Religious Accommodation

The Fort Hood report (pdf), authored at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, is being widely circulated and read by a variety of pundits.  As previously noted, many have already taken note that it calls for action against the officers who appear to have not followed standards when Hasan’s evaluations did not match his reported performance.  Two other findings are also important to the relationship between religion and the military: a review of the policy on Chaplain endorsers, and a recommendation that the military define a “baseline” for religious conduct.

First, with regard to the officers who supervised US Army Maj Hasan:  Read more

Senate to Military: Add Islamic Extremism to Banned Groups

A Senate committee is recommending that Islamic extremism be added to the list of groups that military members are prohibited from participating in or associating with.

The Defense Department’s existing policies for dealing with personnel that become involved in gangs and racist groups need to be expanded to cover new avenues of violence, [Sen. Joe] Lieberman [I-CT] and [Sen Susan] Collins [R-ME] say.

The two also encouraged the military to educate its members to be able to distinguish between “violent Islamist extremism” and “the practice of the Islamic faith.”

Unfortunately, the Senators’ well-intentioned recommendations are not nearly as simple as they seem to imply.  They present a labyrinth of logistical, political, and religious liberty issues, all of which the military must attempt to figure out on the fly.  It would appear most people agree that something needs to be done, but fulfilling that request without unnecessarily inhibiting religious liberty is another challenge altogether.

Religious Freedom Day, 16 Jan 2010

Updated with President Obama’s proclamation.

Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (see 2009).  President Obama does not appear to have issued his proclamation for tomorrow yet (now available), though the day has been a topic of discussion in varying forums across the internet.

Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today.  Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute:  Read more

You Can’t be a Good Christian and a Good Soldier

The “interim CEO” of the Stand Up America Project had much to say about the ability of a religious adherent to be a loyal citizen or member of the military:

There is no doubt that a devout [Christian] must proclaim the exclusivity of [Christ] or he is an apostate. Therefore, he must always be a [Christian] first, and that means he is not only unable, but also forbidden from acting in any other fashion. If he is in our military, he may take orders, and obey, but at some level, when the order runs afoul of [Christianity], he must revert to [Christianity] first.

Except, he didn’t exactly say that.  Scott Winchell railed against Muslims in the long piece, ultimately saying  Read more

Atheist Lawsuit Against US Military Dismissed

Chalker v Gates, the lawsuit which pitted the MRFF and an atheist Soldier against the Department of Defense, has been dismissed.  The case was brought by Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and US Army Specialist Dustin Chalker.  The primary complaint was that Chalker was forced to attend formations at which Christian prayers were given, though Weinstein used the lawsuit as a forum to accuse the military of promoting Christianity.

According to various reports,

US District Judge Kathryn Vratil ruled Thursday that Chalker failed to exhaust all available remedies before filing suit.

Weinstein has said he will appeal the decision.

The ruling that dismissed the lawsuit (pdf) is slightly more complex than the media summary.  The ruling stated:  Read more

Happy New Year, 2010: Top Stories for 2009

A variety of websites that track issues of religion in the public sphere have listed their “top ten” stories for 2009.  Though each uses their own criteria, the resulting lists generally matched the recent trend (as noted last year) in which issues of religion and the military have largely disappeared from the “big stories” over the years.

US News mentioned nothing about the military in their list, nor did the Religion Clause.  BJC Online included a mention about Sikhs and the military at #8 and accusations of military evangelism in “US Foreign Affairs” at #4.  Of these, the Religion News Writers were the only ones to mention US Army Maj Hasan’s Fort Hood massacre (#3).

While ongoing events in the world will likely keep religion near the forefront of current affairs discussions, “controversies” over the interaction between religion and the military do not appear to be the “headlines” that some might think they are.  The year 2009 may have borne that out.  Some of the “biggest” stories on the military and religion were actually non-events, including accusations of Bible distribution in Afghanistan or the plethora of complaints that Chaplains acted illegally or unConstitutionally.

There will always be controversies and media attention.  Still, the belief that some accusations of impropriety are “tempests in a teapot” may be correct.  Perhaps, too, claims of surreptitious military takeovers by religions seeking world domination really are the fringe conspiracy theories they often seem to be.

“Conservative Christians Dominate the US Military”

Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and co-author of Is Christianity Good for the World with Pastor Douglas Wilson, takes on religion in the US military in his latest article in Vanity Fair, for which is he a contributing writer.

The lead-in to the article demonstrates a set of false assumptions which are never substantiated within the article:

It’s no secret that conservative Christians dominate the US military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it’s time to worry.

Hitchens never provides evidence that any ideological belief, never mind conservative Christianity, “dominates” the US military.  He also misrepresents Read more

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