Christianizing the Military.. (eye popping read) [View All]

[Tellurian]

Jan 6, 2007

Christianizing the Military


Earlier this week, Chris Hedges wrote about how deeply embedded the evanglical Christian movement had become in the Pentagon and the military. Chris warns that it is particularly dangerous for the military to be so strongly associated with the Christian Right, and it is even worse that this is happening while there is such a strong suspicion on the part of the Muslim world that the United States was waging a religious war against Islam. And he warns that having a large continguent of the military proclaiming fealty to the Christian Right movement is particularly worrying.

The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

During the past two years I traveled across the country to research and write the book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” I repeatedly listened to radical preachers attack as corrupt and godless most American institutions, from federal agencies that provide housing and social welfare to public schools and the media. But there were two institutions that never came under attack—the military and law enforcement. While these preachers had no interest in communicating with local leaders of other faiths, or those in the community who did not subscribe to their call for a radical Christian state, they assiduously courted and flattered the military and police. They held special services and appreciation days for all four branches of the armed services and for various law enforcement agencies. They encouraged their young men and women to enlist or to join the police or state troopers. They sought out sympathetic military and police officials to attend church events where these officials were lauded and feted for their Christian probity and patriotism. They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as “satanic.” All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence. It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/009562.php