Christianizing the Military.. (eye popping read)

[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

[Tellurian]

1. Update at end of article

"Although the Democrats have taken over the Congress, the Christian Right has made some significant strides on their goals under the Bush administration. (If you watch the video, you will see that Tom DeLay is one prominent political leader shown as a supporter of the Christian Embassy mission.) We should be concerned about the takeover of our military by the Christian Right because their goal is antithetical to our form of government and the Constitution. Indeed, it seems they are preparing for the next Crusade!"

[Joe Bacon]

2. Yes, and Force Ministries is the main force in making a Jesusbot Army

http://www.forceministries.com

If this does not scare you to death, what will?

[Tellurian]

3. Yes, it does..

Why this is covert takeover of America is hidden from view, just boggles the mind!

[AdHocSolver]

19. Bush/Cheney throws many issues on the table simultaneously to dilute attention.

Two main goals of the Iraq war were to gain control of Iraq oil (control the supply and control the price) and start a long-lasting war so companies like Halliburton can make huge profits. Congress was (too easily) cajoled into financing the Iraq war through lies and deception. But that won't work again for the next war. Even many in the military questioned the war and its execution.

The solution for Cheney/Bush is to install a "crusader class" of religious fanatics in the military hierarchy who won't question U.S. initiation or involvement in any war in the future. Congress can then be arm-twisted to "support our troops" at any cost.

Senator Leahy has introduced The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 (posted elsewhere) which is a good first step to nipping this process in the bud.

[donheld]

24. Your exactly right

The send out so many distractions many things like this fail to get noticed.


Welcome to DU :hi:

[Jcrowley]

6. Whoa now

How does a ministry REALLY reach the military?


The numerous souls of a group of people often ignored in the context of evangelistic efforts may remain unaccounted for unless someone takes an aggressive stance towards reaching our nations heroes.

The answer to the question “How do we reach them?” can be found in the Word of God, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” (Matthew 11:12) NIV.

The Kingdom of God is advancing and Force Ministries is at the tip of the spear, where we love to be. We have been developing our next phase of ministry to the military and are proud to introduce “More Than Conquerors” (MTC). MTC is going to be the loudest voice Force Ministries has had so far. March 9th & 10th, 2007 will mark the first of many arena and stadium events that we will be hosting here in the USA and around the world. These events will boast incredible music from some of the most talented bands, and extraordinary speakers, bringing a clear message of salvation and leading thousands of our military men and women to Jesus Christ.

After years of research and development in the area of ministry to our military, the one thing we have come back is the simple statement of Matthew 11:12. We need to be aggressive in our efforts to reach our military.

One of the most crucial elements of an MTC Stadium Event will be the follow-up. Those who make the decision to passionately embrace Jesus Christ in their hearts are faced with the cold fact that the enemy wants steal or destroy that “newness of life”. As thousands come to embrace the living/loving God, someone needs to be there for them. Force Ministries has begun monthly MTC mini events (which we are sure will become a weekly event by late 2006 or early 2007) to train and raise up mentors to help these new believers at our first event. These monthly events are where we impart Faith in Christ, instill patterns and principles for victorious Christian duty and ignite destiny. This is how someone can learn to be a successful, impacting Christian, spreading the Gospel of Jesus throughout our military.

http://www.forceministries.com/

[Tellurian]

17. Colonization for OIL..

:dem:

[jgraz]

4. Don't forget, they're also going after the police

Which can get scarier much faster. Just think about getting pulled over by one of these Jesus freaks on a remote highway.

[Tellurian]

9. Just don't say..

If you don't like my ponytail,
"consider a suppository!"

[Fovea]

5. The risk is omnipresent with a professional military

We need to completely rethink what defense entails.

What does America need to defend itself?

[VelmaD]

13. wasn't one of the reasons we broke from England...

the complaint that they kept in times of peace a standing army? Or something like that?

[Fovea]

14. I agree

The standing army might need to stay, but scaled and redesigned from a military primarily designed to project force
to an army of defense. And we first need to pull the military back from most of its off shore deployments.

[DemBones DemBones]

27. That's one of Rangel's arguments for national service.

Americans used to be proud of serving in the military, even when drafted. Viet Nam changed that, although the draftees were good soldiers. It was the war when people saw behind the curtain and learned about profiteering as a motive that's really been behind all wars. Bad as Hitler was, profiteering was behind our getting involved in WW II.

Ideally, we'd have national service but a policy of avoiding wars, like Switzerland, which requires all men to own a firearm and train with a militia. It's not a standing army but the militias could come together if Switzerland were attacked.

A standing army of professional soldiers is a dangerous thing.

[Tellurian]

33. I don't believe we've ever broken from England..

our partners in crime..

[ninkasi]

7. You might want to check this thread out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3094102

This deals with the VA giving "spiritual assessments" to patients before treating them. It's scary to me, but I've never been in the military, so maybe this is something the VA has always done? It just seems unnecessarily intrusive to me.

[bobthedrummer]

8. There was a thread earlier about Chris Hedges and the Pentagon's

Christian Embassy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3094512

[Tellurian]

12. I saw the Title but it didn't compute..

thanks for running it again..

[puebloknot]

10. K&R I've spent the last 24 hours thinking about this.

I'm reading "American Fascists" right now, the most disturbing of a number of books I've read over the last couple of months on this subject. So your message is timely for me.

I fear that too many Americans are going along, thinking these Christofascists are harmless enough. "Yes, they're an odd bunch, but they aren't bothering me"

Except they are bothering all of us, but just quietly enough that we aren't paying much attention. And we unfortunately won't, as a country, until we reach critical mass and it's too late.

This is me on a concerned and not very optimistic day. Tomorrow....

We have to stand against this, and to do it, we have to know what is going on in the underground "Christian" movement.

Thanks for this!

[Tellurian]

15. Well, it is written somewhere...

"The end will come like a thief in the night.."

imo...we've all been put here for a reason...some of us
are more intuitive than others and in tune to certain signs
that sort of tweak our ears along the way.

I use the 3X rule. If three unrelated events cross my path
each pointing to a common thread, whether it be a name, number,
animal, something...I begin to really pay attention to my surroundings..
and try to figure out what these external forces are trying to tell me..

thanks for telling me your reading the book. How far in are you?

[puebloknot]

26. I was well-indoctrinated in that "thief in the night"...

rhetoric as a child. It was used to try to keep me in line, letting me know as a four-year-old that hellfire awaited me if I failed to measure up. For the record, it didn't work.

Now, you may not have any such thesis in mind. I know that New Age people are expecting Zero Point -- kind of their own version of "The Rapture." I consider all these possibilities; I just think it's best not to settle into a position because things change. (And there are those who tell us we can shape that change!) Maybe that's what you refer to when you pay attention to synchronistic events (which concept I understand and honor).

I'm only into the book about three chapters, but I've heard Hedges speak on television. What I'm reading isn't new to me -- so far, anyway -- it just backs up what I've been hearing for some time. Bill Moyers has been warning us about the "Christian" takeover for years. I gave credence to his ideas all along, but I just never believed it would get this serious. If *I* have trouble believing the insertion of "Christians" with a dark agenda into government is rapidly taking place, coming out of a fundie background (started leaving when I was about two :)), I see why it's hard for educated, rational, sincere people to take it seriously. Just like the inhabitants of the Land of Goethe, no one wants to waste any brainpower or time out of life meditating on such silliness. We're a civilized country, after all! It couldn't happen *here*!

[Tellurian]

32. you have incoming.. nm

[DemBones DemBones]

28. Jesus said that He would come back to earth "like a thief in the night,"

meaning when you least expect it. The message was to live a good life and be prepared for death so that you will go to Heaven. It is part of a conversation where Jesus tells his disciples that "no one can know the day or the hour, only the Father knows." Jesus talked about signs that would be present in the "last days" (wars, famines, plagues) but was cautioning against trying to predict when the world would end.

The Rapture/"Left Behind" crowd ignore what Jesus really said and obsess about when He will come again. They also ignore the fact that there have always been wars, famines, and plagues, and also there have always been some Christians who were convinced they were living in the last days. Some of today's end times fanatics want to hasten the Second Coming, which is very odd to me -- they are in essence trying to control God. It's also very scary, because they might succeed in hastening the end of this world.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. Peter Pace recently said that God talked to Rumsfeld

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/0,9294,2-10_2017169,00.html

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said marine General Peter Pace, chair of the joint chiefs of staff.


I think Peter Pace is still around, too.

[Tellurian]

16. Ummm...

when I hear that type of speak..

It's roadrunner time.

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. Only true believers need apply

to BushCo's army of the 21st Century.

[ellisonz]

22. Pace is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Scary.

[AtomicKitten]

18. This is a frightening episode of the Twilight Zone. K&R

US fundie fascists versus the "islamofascists," in our name, without our permission. What is mind-boggling is that there nothing biblical about their mission; it is unmitigated insanity.

Be afraid, be very afraid.


http://www.wickedsunshine.com/WagePeace/IraqWar/Images/SayIt!OneNationUnderGod!SayYouLoveJesus!SayIt!.gif

[Name removed]

20. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[malaise]

23. The only time Bush has been truthful

in six years was when he used the word Crusade although that was meant to cover the oil raid.

[GreenZoneLT]

25. Lemme tell ya, this is some annoying-ass crap, too

Fortunately, the military is enough of a meritocracy, especially in wartime, that the really loony Jesus freaks mostly get weeded out on their way up to putting on stars, but there's certainly a lot more proselytizing and "Krischen" prayer than when I joined 26 years ago.

I thought I'd gotten away from that when I left rural East Tennessee, but in one of my last Reserve units, the fucking chaplain prayed over us every single time we had a unit meeting. And you can guarantee that he always ended up saying "In Jesus' name we pray."

[DoYouEverWonder]

29. Too bad they didn't weed out General Boykin

I hear he was in charge of the attack in Somolia the other day?

[DemBones DemBones]

30. Living in the Bible Belt, and being

Catholic, I feel your pain. My husband and I complain about the "krischens" plenty, and the hard-core Dominionists are very scary people. I hope they don't have as much influence in the military as the article suggests.

But you wouldn't expect a Christian chaplain not to mention Jesus, would you? I mean, it's a no-brainer that a Muslim chaplain will mention Allah and Muhammad, too.

[leesa]

31. Aren't we discovering that these people are too cowardly to join the military though?

These are the people Bush has been counting on to mobilize for his Crusade after he did 9-11 for them and launched the End Times Parade into Jerusalem via Saddam and Baghdad. These are the people he was talking to with all his Revelations code words as he was speechifying over the years. The megachurch podpeople are too chickenshit, or too selfish, or both, to join up.

I'm much less afraid of these people now. They damned near pulled it off, but not quite. BushCo, however, may still destroy the world, but their gig has nothing to do with religion, except to use the End Times scam to get their oil war on.

[DemBones DemBones]

34. I think that applies to a great many of them.

They've got their place in the world and their support for the war doesn't lead them to enlist. They'll leave that to others while they fly flags and put yellow ribbon stickers on their cars.

But others go into the military with little or no religious belief and are converted by aggressive proselytizing. Recruits are generally young men and women, often away from home for the first time, certainly separated from friends and family, lonely, maybe having financial problems (debts, kids to support) that induced them to join up. Thus they're ripe for religious conversion, which will give them a sense of belonging to something more than the military, a sense of being better than others in their unit who don't participate in the new religious group, a sense of security. If they've joined the military, they are probably looking for direction and certain answers and adding a strict religion to their military work will just add more security.

(Obviously, not everyone in the military fits this description, and the "profile" can also be applied to many young people who go away to college. Maybe that's why fundamantalist groups are on most college campuses today.)

The frightening thing is that some of these sects want to establish a theocracy or speed up the end of the world. If they have enough members in the military, and in mercenary paramilitary groups like Blackwater, they could do it. It's completely illogical that someone who professes faith in God would want to force God's hand, of course, but how do we get them to see that?

[bobthedrummer]

35. kick

[JunkYardDogg]

36. They already control the Air Force- Jesus Army needed to squash American Dissent

When the draft is instituted, this will wake up the Me Only Generation and
there will be massive campus and street demonstrations
The National Guard will not be an effective citizen suppression force,
because they have served in Iraq and will not kill American citizens
The only military units which can be effective to suppress American citizens will be military units controlled by ChristoFascist Religious Extremists
The bloodshed will make Kent State look like a picnic

[Tellurian]

37. ....

:dem:

[bobthedrummer]

38. kick