The Negative Effects of Evangelical Christianity in the U.S. Military

Previous posts have looked at the efforts of Christofascists within the ranks of the U. S. Military to inflict their poisonous beliefs on all and to proselytize to others - even those who want no part of what they are peddling.  Serious problems have arisen at the Air Force Academy and elsewhere, yet the Christofasicts continue to press their theocratic agenda.  The negative effects are many fold, including but not limited to the propaganda opportunities presented to jihadists and others who make use of batshit crazy and virulently anti-Muslims made by senior military officers and, of course, chaplains.  A piece in Policy Mic looks at the harm done to non-Christofascists who are forced to serve under religious extremists in the ranks.  Here are article highlights:

One of the most famous phrases regarding faith and the military is the self-assured statement that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” To anyone with a basic respect for facts, this is patently untrue. This idea is ridiculous, and were it “just a phrase,” we might leave it at that. But the underlying sentiment — that the military consists solely of believers, should be run as a Christian organization, and should seek to impose spiritual standards on its soldiers — is one of the most destructive threats to the efficacy of our military.

Evangelism is firmly entrenched in American military culture. It pervades several aspects of military life, and each of these — from the social exclusion of nonbelievers, to the influence of evangelism on access to military resources, to the toxic fusion of national security objectives with religious terminology — warrants serious consideration. For all the honor and respect we give our soldiers, we certainly don't hold some of the ideas they defend — namely, the separation of church and state — in very high regard.

Evangelicals have designated the military as a prime target for conversions. Evangelicalism wasn’t always this prevalent in the military. In fact, through World War II, religion was not a major source of contention at all. Race was the biggest issue until 1947, when the Army finally integrated. The religious pluralism found in the military at the end of WWII sustained itself, and respect for different religions ensured that no one group came to dominate the others. That changed with the progression of the Cold War.

The divisions caused by the Vietnam War fueled the evangelizing of the military. Mainline Protestant churches, which were generally opposed to military action in Vietnam, saw their representation in the military drop precipitously in the 1970s. Picking up the slack was the evangelical community, whose churches were generally in favor of the war.

These deep political divisions within American Christianity had long-lasting effects. Because evangelicals supported the war in greater numbers, they subsequently became the Army’s next generation of leaders. This shift coincided with the rise of the religious right in 1970s and ‘80s, resulting in a military that was 40% evangelical by 2005. Even more significant is the concentration of evangelicals in the chaplaincy: A full 60% of military chaplains are evangelicals.

Positions of leadership allow evangelicals to proselytize in remarkable ways. Just ask Army Specialist Jeremy Hall, who was sent home from Iraq in 2006 because the military could not protect him from Christians in our own army. Because Hall respectfully declined to join a Christian prayer before mealtime, he was ridiculed, threatened, and ostracized. He needed a bodyguard full-time to protect him from his Christian peers and superiors who could not comprehend the presence of an unbeliever in their ranks. As the Tampa Bay Times pointed out, it’s somewhat ironic that the nation spending billions to keep peace between Sunnis and Shias was unable to protect even one nonbeliever in its own ranks.

The Air Force in particular has been a hotbed of evangelical controversy. Major Warren Watties, the USAF’s 2004 Chaplain of the Year, kindly explained to new cadets that those not “born again will burn in the fires of Hell.” Additionally, cadets who declined evening chapel services were mockingly marched back to their dormitories in the "Heathen Flight." And then there’s the 2004 survey of cadets at the Air Force Academy that revealed close to half of non-Christian cadets said classmates are intolerant of those who do not "follow a religion" or "believe in a divine being."

If that's not enough, try to imagine this: Before deploying on a patrol in Iraq, your commander asks you to participate in a specifically Christian prayer. It happened to Jason Torpy, who is just one of thousands of atheists, agnostics, and humanists who are regularly reminded by their evangelical peers exactly how welcome they are.

The Officers' Christian Fellowship (OCF) represents another aspect of the evangelizing of the military: faith groups known as “parachurches” operating within our armed forces. The group’s goals are quite clear: It is the job of the OCF to “carry the gospel through the medium of ordinary relationships among the entire military community.”
This idea — that the entire institution of the military should be occupied and run by Christians — reflects the politically oriented Christian Dominionism movement. To Dominionists, the separation of church and state isn’t just a falsehood, it’s an obstacle to their goal of institutionalized evangelism.

There is more.  In addition, there are additional columns here and here.  Personally, I would like to see the chaplain corps eliminated.  The military and the government should not be spending a dime to support any faith or denomination.  Let churches and denominations build their facilities near bases and so forth, but they should no be allowed on base.

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America Now Has Its First Openly Gay General

Elaine Donnelly must be writhing and convulsing on the floor with a trail of spittle pooling next to her.  Why?  Because the U.S. Army now has an out lesbian general.  It's got to be more than the delusional Donnelly can cope with based on her past batshitery and obsession with her fantasies about threat of gay sex in the military.  The out general in question is Brigadier General Tammy Smith who is pictured above with her wife Tracey Hepner.  Here are highlights from Think Progress on the development:

Tammy Smith has been promoted to the rank of brigadier general in a private ceremony today, making her the first openly gay flag officer to come out while serving in the U.S. military. Less than a year after the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Smith — who served in Afghanistan last year — is now the most senior openly gay public military figure.

Smith discussed her promotion with Stars and Stripes, focusing on the honor of the opportunity rather than her sexual orientation:

“All of those facts are irrelevant,” she said. “I don’t think I need to be focused on that. What is relevant is upholding Army values and the responsibility this carries.” [...]
Stars and Stripes interviewed Smith last summer before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal was finalized. Speaking under a pseudonym, she said she had no plans to come out to her colleagues, but was looking forward to the relief of knowing that her career wouldn’t be threatened if she was found out.

“Finally my partner and I will be able to go out and have drinks together without worrying,” she said then.

Smith’s promotion marks an important milestone, and while the fight for equality continues, the future is bright for the LGBT military community: The Air Force Academy graduated its first openly gay cadets this past May. For her part, Smith has been extremely humble: “For me, the story is about the promotion and the opportunities it brings.”

Bible and Nukes Don't Mix

I have written a number of times about the Christianists within the U. S. Military on issues ranging from Christianist intimidation and proselytizing at the U. S. Air Force Academy to mandatory attendance at Christianist themed events at nearby Fort Eustis in Newport News. The Air Force has gotten itself once more in the news over a story about what could best be described as Christianist indoctrination in the context of training for for new missile launch officers - a frightening concept inasmuch, as noted yesterday, Christians have the least qualms about military actions that kill civilians. Here are highlights from CNN:

The Air Force has suspended an ethics briefing for new missile launch officers after concerns were raised about the briefing's heavy focus on religion.
The briefing, taught for nearly 20 years by military chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is intended to train Air Force personnel to consider the ethics and morality of launching nuclear weapons - the ultimate doomsday machine.

Many of the slides in the 43 page presentation use a Christian justification for war, displaying pictures of saints like Saint Augustine and using biblical references.

"Abraham organized an Army to rescue Lot," one slide read, referring to the story of the Hebrew patriarch and his nephew found in the book of Genesis. "Revelation 19:11 Jesus Christ is the mighty warrior," another slide read.

The Air Force halted the class last week after 31 missile launch officers reported the religious nature of the briefing to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group which tries to ensure religious freedom among the troops.

"There were several things that they found disgusting," Mikey Weinstein founder of the foundation said. "The first was the fact that there is actually a slide that makes it clear that they're trying to teach that, under fundamentalist Christian doctrine, war is a good thing."

Weinstein said his group had to act. "We were literally blown away by what we saw on the slide presentation. And one of the first things I did was to contact some of the most senior leadership for the Air Force in the Pentagon and made it very clear that this has to stop immediately," Weinstein said.

The Air Force said headquarters officials were not aware of the religious component of the ethics course, despite it being taught for nearly two decades by chaplains. . . . A review is underway at the base to see if an ethics briefing is needed at all.

The Christianists can rail all they want about Islamic fundamentalists and extremists, but in truth they are just as serious a menace as their Islamic counterparts. They have truly turned Christianity into something very evil.

Religious Fundamentalists Taking Over World's Armies?

I have expressed concerns previously about the influence of evangelical Christians in the U. S. Military who seek to impose their beliefs on others in the ranks. The Air Force Academy has been particularly racked with problems of this nature. The phenomenon is not unique to the USA, however, as a Washington Post column notes. The development is worrisome since the combination of military power and religious fanaticism is a very dangerous one indeed. One need only look to Iran to see how dangerous unrestrained religious extremism becomes when combined with military power. It literally can threaten the entire world. Here in the USA, every effort needs to be made to discharge from the military those who put religious fanaticism ahead of the U. S. Constitution and the civil rights it guarantees to all citizens, nut just Christianists. Here are some column highlights:

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Thanks to the peculiar combination of Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations theory and Al-Qaeda's televisual terrorism, we've grown accustomed to thinking of holy wars as battles fought between shadowy non-state actors representing different 'civilizations'. But a recent string of articles indicates a far more complex and dangerous relationship between religion and state-based security forces.

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Consider a recent New York Times commentary regarding Israel. "The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies," noted Moshe Halbertal, a Jewish philosophy professor who co-wrote the military code of ethics and who is himself religiously observant but politically liberal. "The religious right is trying to have an impact on Israeli society through the army."

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And one, published five days later, about Pakistan. "The Taliban's widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan's military intelligence agency ... new details reveal that the spy agency is aiding a broader array of militant networks with more diverse types of support than was previously known -- even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI's playing a "double game" had ended."

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Closer to home, there have been reports of a disturbingly close relationship between some right-wing Christian groups and U.S. Armed Forces: "(In the summer of 2007) the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering 'freedom packages' to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended. What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers."

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To make matters worse, religious nationalism in security forces has the potential not only to inflame conflicts between nations, but also within nations and regions. One of the biggest destabilizing influences in Northern Ireland was the presence of a largely Protestant police force patrolling Catholic neighborhoods. A recent New York Times piece confirms that one of the main complaints by Sunni Muslims in Iraq is feeling blocked by the Shia dominated Iraqi government from jobs in the Iraqi security forces.

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There's a lot on the line here, folks. Will battles over land and power get framed as clashes between civilizations? Will the religious right increase their influence over nuclear weapons by rising to the top of the military hierarchy - in Pakistan, Israel, America? Will police forces become instruments of chaos rather than stability in diverse societies?

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Here's what's clear: the forces of religious nationalism are no longer content to dress in rags and move in the shadows. Some are seeking uniforms, and a place in the halls of power.

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It should be noted that in every instance cited, the fundamentalist religious groups involved are all consistently anti-gay and favor the marginalization of LGBT citizens or worse.