Tag Archives: Jewish

US Military Celebrates Jesus Christ’s Resurrection in Baghdad, 2016

How many people thought after the US invaded Iraq in 2003 that we’d still be celebrating Easter in Baghdad in 2016?

In Iraq, chaplains and their support teams used air and ground support to provide Easter services for troops throughout the country, including the location formerly known as Fire Base Bell — the small outpost attacked a little more than a week prior.

The Easter sunrise service was just one of five religious services held at Union III and one of many services across the CJFLCC-OIR area of operations in celebration of the holiday.

A few official news sources have begun to document this year’s other celebrations of Easter by US military forces around the world.

Aboard the USS Nitze:  Read more

Military Grants One Sikh Exemption, Three More File Lawsuit

singhThe US Army extended its religious accommodation of Capt Simratpal Singh, a Soldier who had decided to return to his Sikh practices and had sued after the Army tried to subject him to additional testing not required of other Soldiers.

The response from the Army (PDF) is intended to moot the suit. The accommodation allowing Singh to wear his religious accoutrements is open-ended, but it is heavily qualified with the Army’s caveats that it might remove the accommodation at any time. Perhaps more importantly:  Read more

Did USAFA Christians Fund Witches Party?

denverwitchFor the past few years, a few US Air Force Academy cadets have been attending annual wiccan festivals and the “Denver Witches Ball” (shown above) — trips that were paid for by the USAFA Chapel Tithes and Offerings Fund.

In itself, that wouldn’t be too unusual. For several years there has been an “earth centered” pagan/witch group as part of the USAFA chapel community. It is not unusual for the chapel to fund retreats or similar trips for religious events through the congregants’ tithes. The CTOF is supposed to be funded by the donations of the participants of those religious services, which would mean the pagans were essentially paying their own way to the cauldron.

The unusual thing about these witch trips, though, is that the USAFA pagan chapel doesn’t appear to have any congregant “tithes.”

Documents obtained by Judicial Watch (PDF) show  Read more

I am a Christian First: Ted Cruz and Christian Priorities

AP PhotoWhen GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson rose in the polls a couple of months ago, a buzz started — mostly among activists and agitators — about the religious statements made by his now-chief of staff, retired Gen Bob Dees. (Dees had long been on Carson’s staff, but Carson’s rise brought sudden attention to otherwise old information.)

Now that Ted Cruz has risen to be Donald Trump’s primary challenger, critics of faith and liberty have shifted the “religious analysis” to him.

At the liberal-leftist Daily Kos, Ian Reifowitz called on his readers to imagine if a Jew or Muslim had said what Cruz had. Citing Politico, Reifowitz quoted Cruz:

“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth…I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”

Reifowitz assessed:

Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second? Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.

Reifowitz’s argument was almost immediately Read more

US Air Force Band, Military Bases Show Christmas Spirit

Around the country and around the world, US military bases are helping troops celebrate the season of Christmas. (Many bases are also simultaneously celebrating Hanukkah, though the Jewish holiday is this week, preceding Christmas by a couple of weeks this year.)  For the most part, it seems many bases aren’t shying away from calling them what they are, though a few are sticking to the more generic “holidays.”

Mikey Weinstein Threatens Lawsuit for Being Called “Grinch”

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has reportedly threatened to sue the Christian Examiner for posting a commentary entitled “How the Grinch stole Christmas – at Dover Air Force Base.”

The commentary is actually a very well-written and astute piece by Dr. Gregory Tomlin, an Assistant Professor of Church History and a faculty instructional mentor for Liberty University Divinity School, who clearly explains both the constitutional and military regulation issues surrounding Weinstein’s complaint about the now-infamous Operation Christmas Child email sent by a Dover AFB secretary.

Tomlin accurately notes that  Read more

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