Another PR Coup for Christianity: Hunger Striking Navy Chaplain [View All]

[BurtWorm]

Just another fundamentalist demonstrating his version of a firm grip on reality...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901812_pf.html

Fasting Chaplain Declares Victory
Navy Denies That He Couldn't Pray In Jesus's Name

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006; A13

A Navy chaplain who had been on an 18-day hunger strike resumed eating Saturday and reported for duty yesterday at the base chapel in Norfolk, saying he had finally wrung from the Navy the right to pray publicly in the name of Jesus.

But a spokesman for the Navy maintained that the chaplain, Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, had been tilting at windmills all along. The Navy has no regulation against praying to Jesus and "has always encouraged every chaplain to pray according to his own individual faith during worship services," said the spokesman, Lt. William Marks.

...

On Dec. 22, two days after he stopped eating, the Navy notified Klingenschmitt that he could stay on "indefinitely" in the chaplain corps. But Klingenschmitt vowed that he would not eat "until the president gives me back my uniform and let's me pray in the name of Jesus."

Sixteen days later -- and 14 pounds lighter -- Klingenschmitt declared victory after the commanding officer of the Norfolk Naval Station, where he is now assigned, said in writing that he could wear his uniform if he was conducting a "bona fide worship service" in front of the White House. His first bite was a Communion wafer....