Question:

Answer: The federal government admittedly does not routinely fact-check grant applications for charter schools, and does not allow the private consultants it hires to look at the grant applications to look at any information other than what’s in the grant application.

That’s right, an applicant for a federal grant for a charter school can say whatever they want to in their application, true or false, and nothing they say will be questioned, even if their application has already been exposed as a work of fiction.

This is what’s going on right now with the proposed Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School, and the epicenter of the fight to stop this school from being approved or getting any federal grant money is my own little town, Highland Park, NJ.

I got involved in the fight against this charter school about a year ago, when one neighbor sent another neighbor my way with a petition opposing the school — a school that is overwhelmingly opposed by the residents of Highland Park, a town with an exceptional public school system and no need for a charter school of any kind, let alone one designed to provide a free religious education to a small number of students at the expense of our public school students.

Needless to say to anyone familiar with my work, I was immediately drawn in by the church/state separation issue of a religious charter school, and initially got involved for that reason, but as I soon found out, this went way beyond a simple church/state issue. The degree to which the founders of this proposed charter school have lied about all aspects of their school on their applications in their quest for approval is nothing short of astonishing.

Now, the founders of this Hebrew Language charter school, led by Highland Park real estate agent Sharon Akman, will insist that the purpose of their proposed school is not religious, and that it will not cater specifically to Jewish students. So, to give the appearance of this not being a specifically Jewish school, they claimed on their charter application that the location of the school would be a Catholic church, St. Mary of Mount Virgin in the neighboring town of New Brunswick. The problem? They lied about that — one of the many whoppers they told in their application. They have no agreement whatsoever with this Catholic church, as Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski of the Diocese of Metuchen has repeatedly made clear.

On May 24, 2011, Bishop Bootkoski sent a letter to New Jersey’s Acting Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf, stating:

“It has been brought to my attention that the Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School has stated that the parish of St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church, New Brunswick, NJ has entered into a leasing agreement to operate a charter school at the facility of St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church. This is not so. In order to clarify the situation, I wish to state that an agreement has not been entered into by the Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School and St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church, and will not be approved by the Diocese of Metuchen.”

You’d think this flat denial by the bishop about her charter school having an agreement with this church would have made Ms. Akman change this piece of misinformation in the subsequent applications, right? Wrong! She proceeded to repeat this lie in both her application for her federal grant three months later, and her next (fourth) version of her application to the New Jersey Department of Education in October 2011, five months later.

When Bishop Bootkoski found out that Akman was continuing to use her fictitious agreement with the church, he wrote another letter to Cerf, dated December 14, 2011, again denying that any such agreement existed or would ever exist:

“It has recently been brought to my attention again that the Tikum Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School is applying for a charter for the City of New Brunswick. In May 2011, they claimed to have entered into a leasing agreement to operate the school at the facility of St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church, New Brunswick, N.J. As I stated in my May 24, 2011 letter to you, no such agreement was approved at that time nor will it be in the future with St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church or any other Roman Catholic entity in the City of New Brunswick.

“Therefore, I wish to restate that such an agreement has not and will not be accepted by the Catholic entities in New Brunswick or the Diocese of Metuchen.”

Now, you’d think that since providing documentation of a “lease, mortgage or title to its facility” is required to open a charter school, this little matter of Ms. Akman not having the facility she claims to have would have squashed her chances for approval, right? Wrong! Tikun Olam made it through the NJ Department of Education’s first round of cuts in December, which left 17 of the 42 schools that applied in October (which was Akman’s fourth try) in the running for approval.

But, as the New York Times reported last week, the lie about having secured this Catholic church as the location for their school was just one of many lies told by Akman and company, who also claimed to have the support of and/or agreements with quite a few other individuals and institutions that they didn’t have the support of or agreements with. But, of course, with the federal government’s prohibition on looking at any sources outside of the information provided by the grant applicant, none of the letters from these people and institutions denying that they supported the school could be taken into consideration when making the decision to approve a $600,000 grant to the school!

Akman also claimed in her application to have a relationship with the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, although the Associate General Counsel at Rutgers wrote the following e-mail on May 26, 2011 stating that the museum has no relationship with the school.

You recently sent me a letter inquiring as to whether the Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School founders have “established relationships” with the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum” of Rutgers University as claimed in its charter school application.

The application does not describe what kind of relationship the founders have with the Museum. They could be members, they could be contributors, they could volunteer for the Museum. There is, however, no formal relationship between the founders in their capacity as founders of Tikun Olam and the Museum.

I called Ms. Akman and she confirmed that there was no formal relationship with the Museum.

And yet, even after acknowledging in May that her charter school had no formal relationship with the museum, Akman has continued to claim, in both her October 2011 state application and her federal grant application, that the school has an established relationship with the museum.

Then there’s the support that Akman claims from Assemblyman Peter Barnes and Jun Choi, a former mayor of Edison, another town that would be affected by her school. Akman claims in her application that Barnes and Choi “promised to help make connections and build a diverse student body.” But both Barnes and Choi have made it clear that they do not support the school and never gave Akman any such promise of assistance. Neither did Heather Ngoma, the African‐American Director of the New Jersey Charter School Resource Center, another alleged supporter claimed by Akman.

As the Times article said in reference to the federal policy of not allowing outside sources to be used in determining whether or not a charter school should get a federal grant:

“[I]f Ms. Akman writes that Assemblyman Peter J. Barnes III supports the charter, the federal consultants are not permitted to interview Mr. Barnes, who would have been happy to tell them that he does not.

“This prohibition against using outside information is intended to ensure that no special measures are taken to either favor or hinder an applicant, although what it really invites is fiction writing.”

Akman, who has made almost no public statements since the fight to stop her charter school began, declined to speak to the Times, but did give a rare statement to News12 New Jersey regarding her claims about the support of Assemblyman Barnes and former Edison mayor Choi, saying, “We’re not misrepresenting anybody. If they subsequently changed their mind about it, that’s a different thing. But we did not misrepresent them.” Really? They flip-flopped? Is that Akman’s explanation for the statement of non-support from the Bishop of Metuchen and the statement that her school has no agreement with the Zimmerli Art Museum, too?

Other claims made by Akman include the alleged support of New Brunswick’s predominantly Hispanic and black community, although no community survey has been done and the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., the Civic League of Greater New Brunswick, and the Puerto Rican Action Board all do not support the school; the crazy notion that a Hebrew school will appeal to low-income Muslims; and that the school will serve students with problems such as “poverty, crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, academic failure, dropouts, gangs, and other challenges,” as well as special needs students, all without even having as much as a single guidance counselor on its staff. As for its plans on how it will get qualified teachers and provide anything even close to the education available in our public schools, well those aren’t really clear either, but the details of all of that pesky ‘how on earth are these people going to provide anything like an adequate education?’ stuff would require a whole other post.

In a nutshell, what we have is a small group of people who want to start a Jewish charter school for a small community of Jewish students but who need to make it appear that they are starting a secular school that will be chock full of students from every demographic in what is an extremely diverse area in terms of income, race, ethnicity, and religion. But nobody is buying that.

As Highland Park Rabbi Steven Miodownik wrote to acting Education Commissioner Cerf last spring:

“Proponents of the Hebrew language charter school have carefully placed a fig leaf over their agenda of forcing the state to fund their ‘free’ alternative to private Jewish education, but it is not the job of the State of New Jersey to provide religious instruction for its children; that must be left up to our excellent private schools.”

But, what did those federal government consultants who aren’t allowed to look at anything other than the information provided by the grant applicant base their approval on when it came to diversity and community support? Well, all they were allowed to base it on was Akman’s answers to questions like the following on her grant application:

Selection Criteria – Extent of community support for application

1. Note: The Secretary encourages the applicant to describe how parents and other members of the community will be informed about the charter school, and how students will be given an equal opportunity to attend the charter school.

Strengths:

The applicant provided a detailed description of the ways in which it has conducted community outreach to help ensure diversity of the student population at the proposed charters school. The applicant cites meeting outcomes from a number of sessions with leading political and civic leaders who have expressed an interest in helping to tell the community about the proposed charter school. The applicant has proposed hiring a Community Outreach Coordinator to assist with helping members of the community who do not speak Hebrew (i.e. not Jewish) about the school and its commitment to repairing the world or perfecting the world. The applicant has also indicated that a proposed facility for the charter school is a former Catholic school located in a mostly minority, low-income New Brunswick neighborhood. The applicant believes this is a strong statement of the proposed charter school’s commitment to ensure that an equal opportunity to attend the school is given to all.

Weaknesses:

There are no weaknesses in addressing the this application requirement.

Right, there are “no weaknesses in addressing this application requirement,” unless, of course, you consider the whole thing being a pack of lies to be a weakness!

While the $600,000 federal grant will only be received if the school is approved by the N.J. Department of Education, Ms. Akman wasted no time in informing the acting Education Commissioner that her grant had been approved, giving her school a potential leg up in the state’s final decision, expected this week.

Finally, getting back to the church/state separation aspect of this Hebrew school, which is what got me involved in the first place, I have to include the ludicrous reason given by Akman in her effort to make her Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School sound like it has a necessary, secular purpose. Ready for this? Akman claims that the teaching of Hebrew is vital to America’s national interests because the United States does so much business with Israel (even though the official business language of Israel is … um …. English).

Last spring, I was part of what we called our “documentation committee,” a committee formed to thoroughly examine the version of school’s charter application that was current at that time. For my part on this committee, I did exactly what anyone familiar with my other work would expect me to do — I checked out the sources cited by the school’s founders to support their ridiculous ‘teaching Hebrew is vital to our national interests’ claim. And what I found, of course, was that they had misquoted and misrepresented the sources they cited to make them support their claim.

While the school’s latest application has dropped parts of what was debunked in the previous application, this will give you an idea of the depths of scholarly deception — on top of all their other deceptions — that these Liars For Yahweh have stooped to in their attempt to get their school approved.

Ms. Akman and her cohorts should not only be flatly denied a charter to start their school, but should be prosecuted under Title 18, §1001 of the U.S. Code, the federal statute prohibiting the making of false statements to federal officials, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone who “knowingly and willfully makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” or “makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry.”

Additional resources: Mother Crusader, the blog of Highland Park resident Darcie Cimarusti, who since last spring has made it her full-time job to stop the Tikun Olam charter school; Speak Up Highland Park; and Save Our Schools NJ.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

About a year ago, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) began an investigation into just how much money the DoD spends on promoting religion to military personnel and their families. What prompted this interest in DoD spending on religion was finding out what the DoD was spending on certain individual events and programs, such as the $125 million spent on the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and its controversial “Spiritual Fitness” test, a mandatory test that must be taken by all soldiers. The Army insists that this test is not religious, but the countless complaints from soldiers who have failed this “fitness” test tell a different story. The experience of one group of soldiers who weren’t “spiritual” enough for the Army can be read here. But the term “Spiritual Fitness is not limited to this one test. The military began using this term to describe a variety of initiatives and events towards the end of 2006, and this ‘code phrase’ for promoting religion was heavily in use by all branches of the military by 2007.

Although it was clear from the start of MRFF’s investigation that determining the total dollar figure for the DoD’s rampant promotion of religion (which is always evangelical and/or fundamentalist Christianity) would be next to impossible, as this would require FOIA requests to every one of over 700 military installations to find out how much each is spending out of various funds at the installation level, one thing we could look at was DoD contracts, so that’s where we started. What we’ve found so far is astounding.

Even though this is still an ongoing project, and we’ll certainly be finding much more, I thought that given all the current brouhaha over what should be cut from the federal budget, people might be interested to see some of examples of how the DoD is spending countless millions of taxpayer dollars every year to Christianize the military.

As mentioned above, what MRFF is looking at does not include chaplains or chapels — not even the excessive spending on extravagant “chapels” like the $30,000,000 mega-church at Fort Hood, or the “Spiritual Fitness” centers being built on many military bases as part of what are called Resiliency Campuses. The examples below are all strictly from DoD contracts, with the funding coming out of the appropriations for things like “Operations and Maintenance” and, somehow, “Research and Development.” (Summaries of all contracts referenced below are publicly available at usaspending.gov)

Evangelical Christian Concerts Under the Guise of “Spiritual Fitness”

One of the most direct expenditures of money on religious proselytizing, under the guise of “Spiritual Fitness” spending, is the funding of concerts with the top evangelical Christian performers. These concerts are most prevalent on Army posts, although they also occur on installations of other branches of the military. One concert series that stands out, both because soldiers were punished last year for not attending one of the concerts and because of the cost of hiring the musical acts, is the “Commanding Generals’ Spiritual Fitness Concert Series” at Fort Eustis and Fort Lee in Virginia. This is not a chapel concert series, but a command sponsored “Spiritual Fitness” program, paid for with DoD contracts.

All of the performers for these Spiritual Fitness concerts so far (this concert series is ongoing) have been evangelical Christian artists. Not only is the music itself overtly Christian, but during the concerts there are light shows of large crosses beamed all over the stage, and the performers typically give their Christian testimony or read Bible verses between songs. Some of these performers have Blanket Purchase Agreements and Indefinite Delivery Contracts good until 2012 or 2013, indicating that this concert series is planned to continue at least through the next two years. The total amount of money awarded so far for this concert series, including the amount remaining on Blanket Purchase Agreements and Indefinite Delivery Contracts, is $678,470. This figure is only for the performers fees, and does not include all the other expenses associated with putting on concerts on the scale of those being held at these Army posts.

The following are the amounts of the contracts awarded to Christian talent agencies and bands for this “Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concert Series.”

• Street Level Artist Agency: $153,000 spent to date, $22,000 remaining on a $50,000 Blanket Purchase Agreement (good until 2012)
• Gregg Oliver Agency: $46,000 spent to date, $54,000 remaining on a $100,000 Indefinite Delivery Contract (good until 2013)
• James D Griggs: $9,900 to date, $141,100 remaining on a $150,000 Blanket Purchase Agreement (good until 2013)
• Titanium Productions, Inc.: $33,470 spent to date, $100,000 remaining on a $100,000 Blanket Purchase Agreement (good until 2012)
• SonicFlood: $24,000 spent to date, $76,000 remaining on a $100,000 Indefinite Delivery Contract (good until 2012)
• The Samoan Brothers LLC: $20,000 spent

(For these talent agencies and bands where the “amount spent to date” and “amount remaining” on the Blanket Purchase Agreements and Indefinite Delivery Contracts are not equal, it is because these talent agencies have been awarded more than one contract. For example, Titanium Productions, Inc. had contracts totaling $33,470 that were separate from the $100,000 Blanket Purchase Agreement for future concerts in this concert series.)

Evangelical Christian Facilities for Strong Bonds and other “Spiritual Fitness” Retreats

According to an Army spokesperson on the Pentagon Channel, the Army’s Strong Bonds program receives at least $30 million a year in DoD funding. This program of pre- and post-deployment retreats for soldiers and their families are often evangelical Christian retreats, many held at Christian camps and resorts, with evangelical Christian speakers and entertainers.

A search of DoD contracts for the last few years shows that at least 50 of the locations where Strong Bonds and other Spiritual Fitness retreats are regularly held are evangelical Christian camps, resorts, and conference facilities.

The site regularly used by Fort Sill, for example, is Oakridge Camp & Retreat Center, which has received over $500,000 in DoD contracts and has hosted approximately 60 retreats. Oakridge not only requires its employees to be Christians, but even goes as far as requiring on its employment application that the applicant state their views on issues such as abortion and homosexuality. While a private religious organization is free to impose a religious test on its staff, it is quite a different matter for a DoD contractor to do this. And, in the case of Oakridge, it is not only the facility’s staff who must adhere to the its Christian beliefs, but all of its guests as well, including the soldiers attending Fort Sill’s Strong Bonds and Spiritual Fitness retreats.

For example, the first paragraph of Oakridge’s “Policies & Guidelines” for its guests states: “Oakridge is a private Christian retreat center, not a hotel. Therefore, there may be some guidelines and policies that may not seem ‘hotel-like.’ This is our purposeful intent. Oakridge does not serve the ‘general public,’ but only those interested in a Christian camp perspective.” Moreover, guest groups must attend an “Oakridge Orientation,” and it is stated in the “Policies & Guidelines” that “prayer will be offered for all groups at every meal in Jesus’ name.”

While Strong Bonds is specifically an Army program, the rampant promotion of evangelical Christianity under the guise of Spiritual Fitness is going on in all branches of the military. As an example from another branch of the military, over $120,000 in DoD contracts have been awarded to the Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center, one of the facilities used by both the Army and the Navy for retreats. Another popular site in Virginia for the Navy’s Spiritual Fitness and “Personal Growth” retreats is the Peninsula Baptist Association’s Eastover Retreat Center, which has received $75,000 in DoD contracts. For its retreats in Rhode Island, the Navy also uses a Baptist facility, the American Baptist Church’s Canonicus Camping and Conference Center, which has received $53,000 in DoD contracts.

In addition to the constitutional issue of these military retreats being evangelical Christian retreats, any of the Christian facilities used for these retreats that receives over $10,000 in DoD contracts is in violation of the prohibition on federal government contractors discriminating based on religion in their hiring practices. They all hire only Christians, and many require in their employment applications that potential employees subscribe to a “statement of faith” and provide their Christian “testimony,” detailing when and how they were “saved.”

Evangelical Christian Performers for Strong Bonds and Other Events

Even retreats that are not located at religious camps regularly feature evangelical Christian speakers and entertainers. The contract amounts range from a few thousand dollars paid to each of a number of individual “motivational” speakers for single retreats to tens of thousands of dollars for evangelical Christian ministries and performers hired for multiple retreats.

For example, Quail Ministries, a Christian music ministry that provides performances “liberally seasoned with songs, stories, and anecdotal Scripturally-based lessons,” has received over $84,000 in DoD contracts for performances at about a dozen Strong Bonds retreats.

Unlimited Potential, Inc., a ministry “Serving Christ Through Baseball” by sending evangelical Christian major league baseball players to military events, received over $80,000 in DoD contracts for just two retreats, one Strong Bonds retreat and one Spiritual Fitness retreat. Unlimited Potential has been at many other military bases for various other events that do not show up in DoD contracts, presumably because these appearances were paid for with base funds.

DoD Funded Evangelical Christian Youth Programs

Service members are not the only ones targeted by evangelical Christian programs paid for with DoD contracts. Military children are also heavily targeted, both here in the U.S. and on bases overseas. Evangelizing the children of service members is one of the largest areas of spending.

The biggest ministry contracted by the DoD to target children is Military Community Youth Ministries (MCYM), whose mission statement is “Celebrate life with military teens, Introduce them to the Life-Giver, Jesus Christ, And help them become more like Him.” MCYM has received $12,346,333 in DoD contracts since 2000. One of MCYM’s tactics? Stalking “unchurched” military children by following their schools buses.

Ranking second is Cadence International, with over $2,671,603 in contracts since 2003. Cadence describes itself as “an evangelical mission agency dedicated to reaching the military communities of the United States and of the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.” Cadence not only targets young service members and military children for conversion to evangelical Christianity, but also actively tries to convert members of foreign militaries in the countries where they operate under DoD contracts.

In addition to military youth ministries like MYCM and Cadence, military children are also targeted by military base Religious Education Directors, also hired with DoD contracts. These ministries and Religious Education Directors employ tactics that can only be described as “stalking” children, with some DoD contracts even requiring that the contractors identify and target the “unchurched” children at non-religious events and activities and get them into chapel programs, and to supply reports naming these children by name.

Conversion by Temptation

As I’ve been sitting here writing this post, an email came in to MRFF from a soldier who is currently in Advanced Individual Training (AIT), the stage of training between basic training and and a soldier’s first assignment, where the soldier receives training in the particular job they will be doing. During AIT, soldiers are typically given a few privileges that they didn’t have in basic training, but not many.

This soldier’s email is a a great example of a common strategy that I call “conversion by temptation,” where the military ministries and the military itself tempt young soldiers and military children with fun or exciting things to lure them into participating in programs and events where they can be “saved.” What young soldier would pass up a vacation at a resort with their spouse that they could never afford on their military salary? That’s how the Army’s Strong Bonds program gets many soldiers who would never attend an religious retreat to attend evangelical Christian retreats. What teenage kid would pass up a ski trip or week at the beach with the other kids? That’s how DoD funded military youth ministries like MCYM lure the teenage kids of our service members.

The email that just came in from the soldier in AIT was about the soldiers in training being granted extra privileges if they attend the programs on his post run by Cadence International. These privileges include being allowed to have pizza and soda on Friday nights if they go to the Christian “Coffee House,” even if they haven’t reached the stage of training where this is allowed, and being allowed to wear civilian clothes and engage in all sorts of fun activities if they go to Cadence’s on-post weekend retreats.

To a non-Christian soldier in AIT, getting the extra privileges and having some fun are worth the price of having to sit through the fundamentalist Christian sermons that go along with these activities, so many of them do it. Others go along simply because they don’t want to stand out from the crowd and be singled out as being of the “wrong” religion or not being religious.

Cadence particularly targets soldiers in AIT for a reason — these are the soldiers likely to soon be facing their first deployment. And this ministry, which, as noted above receives DoD contracts for their work, makes no secret of why they’ve chosen AIT as its mission field. One of the reasons given by Cadence for the success of its “Strategic Ministry” is: “Deployment and possibly deadly combat are ever-present possibilities. They are shaken. Shaken people are usually more ready to hear about God than those who are at ease, making them more responsive to the gospel.” Of course, they must first gain access to these “shaken” soldiers, but that’s no problem — the Army helps them out by allowing them to operate on Army posts and granting the soldiers in AIT extra privileges if they attend Cadence’s retreats.

For more details on these and other taxpayer funded schemes to Christianize the U.S. military, see “Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic,” the chapter I wrote for the 2010 book Attitudes Aren’t Free: Thinking Deeply about Diversity in the US Armed Forces, published by Air University Press, the publishing arm of the Air Force’s Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

One Academy faculty member, who called the conference a “travesty,” said of MRFF’s exclusion, “I’m very disappointed that they would, at this time, not invite [MRFF] … Why is it that a big supporter of religious freedom in the military is not here?”

The statistics on religious harassment, from the Academy’s bi-annual “climate survey,” were only made public after a demand from MRFF and a number of other organizations, both religious and secular, who signed onto MRFF’s letter to the Secretary of Defense.

One of the most serious issues highlighted in MRFF’s letter (an issue that would have been addressed at the Academy’s religious respect conference if MRFF had been invited) is the problem of fundamentalist Christian ministries being given free reign over Academy cadets — particularly a ministry called Cadets for Christ, described by the parents of several cadets recruited by this ministry as a “cult.”

Under the influence of Cadets for Christ, one recent Academy graduate is now completely estranged from her family. Why? because they are Catholic, and therefore unsaved according to Cadets for Christ founders Don and Anna Warrick.

The havoc being wreaked on the families of cadets who fall under the influence of the Warricks can only be adequately expressed by one of the families ripped apart by this “cult.” What follows is a “holiday letter” from the Baas family to the Warricks, with an introduction to Air Force Academy superintendent LTG Mike Gould, to whom this letter was also sent.

I, and everyone else at MRFF, would like to sincerely thank the Baas family for their courage in being willing to go public with their story.

From: Jean Baas

Date: November 20, 2010 10:19:07 PM CST

To: mike.gould@usafa.edu

Subject: Don and Anna Warrick — Cadets for Christ

As many families write annual holiday letters to update relatives and friends of noteworthy events over the past year, we have chosen to write on behalf of ourselves and countless others that have fallen prey to the fundamentalist Christian religious cult, “Cadets for Christ” at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). We are Peter, Jean and Emily Baas. Lauren is 2010 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. To date, USAFA completely denies that unconstitutional proselytizing exists on their campus even though innumerable witness accounts and results of the recent climate survey irrefutably contradict their knowingly false and deliberately misleading public statements. We choose to share this letter with the public to give specific insight that this covert proselytizing operation is very much alive and prospering at the United States Air Force Academy.

Mr. and Mrs. Warrick:

As the holidays are upon us, let us give you an update of the Baas family. Lauren will not be coming home. Her presence will be missed enormously as we celebrate our holidays filled with love and rich in family tradition. Words cannot express the heartache YOU have caused. Do not attempt to trivialize these circumstances with the rationalization that we are merely a family that cannot accept the fact that their daughter has “chosen” to change religions and marry outside the Catholic faith. YOU KNOW, AS WELL AS WE, THIS STATEMENT IS SO FAR FROM THE TRUTH!!! You have taken Lauren’s mind and soul and twisted it to your fundamentalist Christian liking. She was brainwashed to believe she was “unenlightened” and an “unsaved fool” in the Catholic faith. She now lives in fear of God and feels “shameful” if she does not continually stand guard against “ungodly people.” You have trained your “soldiers of God” and now cowardly hide behind them. YOUR DESTRUCTIVE TEACHINGS OF RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!! May God truly have mercy on your soul.

Did you ever have the guts to ask Lauren about her career goals before squelching them? From birth she was a very determined individual. As parents, we taught her to work hard and be persistent in any endeavor she chose to undertake. She completed elementary and high school with great pride and high academic achievement. Her next goal was to graduate from the United States Air Force Academy and become a USAF pilot. Of course, being a female, you made sure that goal was extinguished. In your words, she is the sheep and her career is to follow the male shepherd. HOW DARE YOU PLAY GOD!!!

Did you know that Lauren never experienced the thrill of dating someone? Growing up, she was always quiet, shy and spoke of getting her feet on the ground before entering the dating arena. Of course, you instructed her that God sent a USAFA Cadet over two years her junior, to be her life long partner. They never had the opportunity to date, as it would interfere with their “Bible study.” Five months into their relationship you were shoving “Biblical” marriage preparation materials down their throats!!! Don’t tell us that you had no part in orchestrating their engagement. YOUR SELFISH GOAL WAS TO PERPETUATE THE FUNDAMENTALIST EVANGELICAL MISSION!!!

Did you know that we speak for many families that have been destroyed by you? We know you are very aware that many parents do not come forward because they fear irreparably severing a now very fragile relationship with their child. You have taught our children to tolerate us so long as we do not question your “teachings.” If we do, we are to be cast aside and treated as if we are Satan himself. You have no regard for the family that has loved and nurtured these USAF Academy cadets into young adulthood. THEY BECOME EASY PREY WHEN THEY ARE RELIGIOUS, TRUSTING AND FAR AWAY FROM HOME……DON’T THEY?!!!

For the above reason, we have joined forces with the only entity willing to selflessly assist us and the only organization that understands the oppressive evil you perpetrate; the civil rights fighters at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Together with MRFF we will FIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION at the United States Air Force Academy. We are keenly aware that Lauren must now denounce us because your “teachings” are being questioned. You cannot continue to destroy young USAF Academy cadets’ lives and the lives of their families. We have always taught our children to stand up for what is right and we will not let them down now. We will NEVER stop fighting against your vile, calculated and cold efforts to subvert the U.S. Constitution and teach our precious daughters that they are designated by your twisted version of Jesus to be a second-class citizen “sheep” consigned to doing the will of their assigned male overseers.

Peter, Jean, and Emily Baas

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

Now, the fact that West Point allowed a group of uniformed academy cadets and faculty to be used as props by Beck is a serious matter in itself, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but Beck, in his zeal to slam Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, unknowingly promoting a core step towards socialism is just way too ironic to pass up. And what is this step towards socialism that Beck, in all his ignorance, was so enthusiastically promoting? That government employees and officials should never be paid more than what the average citizen earns.

In a 1911 speech about the Paris Commune — a movement lauded by Marx as “heroic,” and said by Lenin to have been “a practical step that was more important than hundreds of programmes and arguments” –Lenin pointed out the Commune’s (and apparently now Glenn Beck’s) position on government salaries: “And, as if to emphasize its character as a truly democratic, proletarian government, the Commune decreed that the salaries of all administrative and government officials, irrespective of rank, should not exceed the normal wages of a worker …” I think maybe that crack research team (or research team on crack) that Beck is always boasting about should have done a bit more research for this show.

Now, back to the other issue with this episode of Beck — the utter impropriety of West Point allowing Beck to use West Point cadets and faculty members for his studio audience.

According to CPT Olivia Nunn of West Point’s Public Affairs office, the cadets and faculty members, all from the academy’s Systems Engineering Department, were visiting the studios of FOX News as an academic exercise “to watch how news productions are done from beginning to end.” The cadets appeared on several other FOX News shows on Thursday, answering questions about why they decided to join the military and their experience at West Point, and the faculty members answered questions about teaching there. All of this was perfectly appropriate. But then, on Friday, they appeared on Beck, which was completely inappropriate. Military personnel in uniform cannot engage in any activity that gives the appearance of supporting any political, religious, or ideological movement.

There is no question that, more than anything else, what Glenn Beck’s show consistently promotes would be classified as an “ideological movement,” fitting the dictionary definition of “ideology” to a tee: “a system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.” Whatever the specific topic of any given Beck episode — whether it’s history, religion, politics, or just picking someone to bash for weeks on end — all are clearly tied into the promotion of this ideology in one way or another. How can a studio audience full of uniformed West Point cadets and military officer faculty members clapping for Beck’s overtly partisan rant against Congress not be seen as engaging in an activity that gives the appearance of military support for Beck’s “ideological movement?”

As I wrote in a previous post about the problem of Glenn Beck’s show being aired on the American Forces Network, and the complaints received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) about televisions in PXs, gyms, and other facilities on military installations being regularly tuned in to Beck, Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) — “Contempt toward officials” — states: “Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

But on Beck’s show last Friday, during which Beck spewed his typical contempt towards members of Congress, we had eighteen future Army officers, under the guidance of five faculty members — four majors and a lieutenant colonel — clapping on national television for statements that they, as military officers, could be court-martialed for uttering themselves.

As seen in the video above, in addition to being contemptuous towards Congress as a whole, Beck, of course, singled out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in his rant about members of Congress whose wealth has increased during the time they’ve been in Congress, even though, according to Roll Call’s 50 Richest Members of Congress list, Pelosi is only at number 13. But the wealthiest member of the House of Representatives is a republican — Darrell Issa of California, whose minimum net worth for 2009, according to Roll Call, was more than seven times the net worth of Pelosi. And Harry Reid? Well, he didn’t even make the top 50. But these pesky facts didn’t stop Beck from insinuating that there’s something suspicious about Pelosi and Reid having money. Exactly what Beck is implying isn’t clear, but his intent certainly is — plant the notion in his audience’s heads that Pelosi and Reid have somehow gotten rich as a result of serving in Congress.

When asked if West Point considered it risky to allow the cadets to appear on a show hosted by someone who is well known to be highly partisan and contemptuous towards the President and Congress, CPT Nunn responded that Glenn Beck had told them that his show would only be about honoring the military for Veterans Day, and they had no way of knowing that he was going to get political. Right. We all know that Glenn Beck would never be less than completely honest.

Now, there actually was one very important federal regulation that West Point was apparently quite concerned about. As Beck pointed out on his November 11 radio show, he wasn’t allowed to spend more that $20 per person when he bought the cadets dinner that night. Obviously, violating that regulation would have been a real problem.

It was pretty clear, however, that Beck just didn’t care that he was crossing a line, beginning the overtly political part of his show by saying “I’m going to try very hard to not get overtly political here because then everybody in the military always says, oh no, oh no, don’t look at me, I neither agree or disagree,” and, towards the end of his little rant, actually laughing about the fact that his captive audience of cadets wasn’t allowed to respond to his political opinions even if they disagreed with them.

Beck also had a few things to say about my previous post, “Should the U.S. Military Be Promoting and Endorsing Glenn Beck?,” on his October 29 radio show:

“Well, we have now — we have now — another attack — and we’ll get into this probably next week — on us, now through the military. ‘Should the U.S. Military Be Promoting and Endorsing Glenn Beck?’ And this is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and they’re saying that the military is pushing my religion. Now, it’s not my actual faith, or not my actual religion, but, you know, the religion of Glenn Beck, if you will. Complaints about the program on the televisions in the PXs, the gyms, and other facilities now include complaints that ‘these televisions are being tuned into Fox News’s own evangelist Glenn Beck.’ They’re the usual complaints — ‘one about a senior NCO beginning each day by quoting a bit of Glenn Beck’s wisdom to his subordinates, and telling them they should continue their education by attending Beck’s online university, making their base a satellite Beck University campus.’ And then it just goes on about how evil I am, etc, etc. I think this is fantastic, and if I can find out who this NCO is and this base, we’ll make them an official satellite — a satellite of our Beck University. There’s nothing better. Of course, then again, I’m just a — I’m just a crazy anti-communist.”

No, Mr. Beck, I didn’t just go on about how evil you are. I went on to write that it’s your constant contempt for the President, Congress, and other government officials that makes your show inappropriate to be aired on the American Forces Network, as this kind of contempt against government officials is prohibited in the military. But, I realize that letting your listeners know what the main issue addressed in my post really was might have been a bit awkward, so I’d expect nothing less from you than your complete omission of my main point.

Finally, a note on the numbers Beck used to show how the evil Congress is screwing over the troops. Now, I don’t think anyone would disagree that our troops in the junior enlisted ranks should absolutely be paid more. A private’s starting salary of around $17,000 a year is unconscionably low for someone who’s putting their life on the line for our country.

But Beck’s use of the salary of a specialist with four years service as the “Average U.S. Army” salary, while very effective for his goal making the disparity between military pay, civilian salaries, and federal employee salaries appear as big as possible, is more than a bit deceptive. For one thing, Beck’s “Average U.S. Citizen” income of $50,462 is the median “household” income, not the average individual income.

This figure, of course, includes households with more than one wage earner, making it significantly higher than the average individual income, which, according to the Census Bureau is $39,138. Next, military personnel don’t have the single largest expense that civilian workers do — their housing. If they don’t live in government-provided housing, they receive a Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), based on the cost of housing where they’re stationed, in addition to their pay. So, the pay for Beck’s example of an E-4 getting out after four years of service would not be $22,676. Their base pay would have been $25,128, plus a BAH of $14,940 if they lived off post and had a family (using Fort Drum’s BAH scale as an example), for a total of $40,068, well above the average income of a high school graduate with four years at a civilian job. If they stay in for a few more years and make staff sergeant, the’ll be up to about $50,000 (again based on Fort Drum’s BAH scale).

If they make a career of it and stay in for twenty years and make first sergeant, they’ll be up to a total of about $75,000 — well above the average civilian income. And what about those future officers in Beck’s studio audience? Well, when they graduate, their base pay of $33,396, plus a BAH of $15,984 (again based on Fort Drum’s scale) if they live off post, would add up to about the same as the average starting salary for a recent college graduate in the civilian world. At the end of their five year active duty commitment, by which time, unless they’re a total screw-up, they’ll have made the rank of captain, their combined salary and BAH will be over $78,000 — more than the average federal employee. And if these cadets decide to make a career of it, and rise to the rank of colonel or one-star general, they’ll be in the $120,000 to $160,000 range. So, yes, something absolutely needs to be done to raise the pay of the lower enlisted ranks, but the income of officers and NCOs is actually well above the average American’s income (and they deserve every penny of it, of course).

The full November 12 Glenn Beck episode can be found here.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

As many will remember, we couldn’t have gotten off to a better start on winning hearts and minds when Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, on his speaking tour of churches back in 2003, publicly and in uniform proclaimed that the so-called war on terror was really a fight between Satan and Christians, making comments like, “We in the Army of God, in the House of God, the Kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this,” saying that George Bush, who himself had ignorantly called the war a crusade, was “in the White House because God put him there,” and, referring to the capture of Somali warlord Osman Atto, “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”

Speaking at a Rotary Club meeting in his hometown of Concord, North Carolina in December 2006, one of Boykin’s supporters in the aftermath of his comments, former Congressman Robin Hayes (R-NC), pronounced that stability in Iraq ultimately depended on “spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. …Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior.”

While few are as overt in their comments as Boykin and Hayes, plenty of other representatives of our government have made it clear that they view the United States as a Christian nation and the war on terror as a spiritual battle, promoting the specious notion that victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is somehow necessary to preserve our own religious freedom here in America.

From members of Congress, like Trent Franks (R-AZ), who, in his remarks on the passage of H. Res. 847, a resolution “recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith,” said that “…American men and women in uniform are fighting a battle across the world so that all Americans might continue to freely exercise their faith…,” to the most recent Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, who, in his commencement address at last year’s West Point graduation, invoked the words of Thomas Jefferson, saying that Jefferson would understand the threat we face today — tyranny in the name of religion.”

Geren quoted a few words from Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and then continued, “Two hundred years after Thomas Jefferson penned these words, your sons and daughters are fighting to protect our citizens and people around the world from zealots who would restrain, molest, burden, and cause to suffer those who do not share their religious beliefs, deny us, whom they call infidels, our unalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Neither Franks or Geren, nor anyone else who has suggested the war in Iraq is essential to the protection of the religious freedom of “our citizens,” has offered any explanation of how the outcome of this war could possibly affect the free exercise of religion by Americans.

While none were as widely publicized as those of Boykin, all of these statements, and many others like them, can easily be found on the internet. Hayes’s Rotary Club meeting remarks, for example, after being published in a few North Carolina newspapers, were reported on the blog BlueNC, and quickly spread through the blogosphere, turning a speech at a local Rotary Club meeting into a national story. Lt. Col. Rick Francona, USAF (ret.), when asked on MSNBC, “What’s your reaction when you hear those words coming from a congressman?,” explained why comments like these were such a problem.

“Well, it’s not helpful if this stuff gets back to the Iraqis, and of course in the days of the internet and the blogosphere out there it’s likely that it could. And you know our troops have enough problems over there just doing their jobs. Having to defend what a U.S. congressman might say, because you know, when you bring up the idea of proselytizing Christianity, to a lot of Muslims, that’s very offensive, and if we can keep religion out of what we’re trying to do over there, which is very difficult, it would be a lot easier for our troops. … When you’ve got a congressman saying that the country — they’re not going to solve their problems until they follow the ways of the savior, it becomes very difficult for the troops to defend those remarks. [...] If you’re trying to be a unit trainer to, say, an Iraqi battalion and the battalion religious advisor, the imam, would come in and say look what a congressman said, it just takes away from what we’re trying to do.”

9. Have top U.S. military officers appear in a video showing just how Christian the Pentagon is

In addition to inadvertently providing propaganda material to our enemies, public endorsements of Christianity by U.S. military leaders can also cause concern among our Muslim allies.

When Air Force Maj. Gen. Pete Sutton decided in 2004 to appear in uniform at the Pentagon in the Campus Crusade for Christ Christian Embassy promotional video, a video full of government officials and high ranking military officers saying things like “we’re the aroma of Jesus Christ,” he probably didn’t give any thought to the potential ramifications of publicly endorsing this fundamentalist religious organization. But, not long after appearing in this video, Sutton was assigned to the U.S. European Command, Ankara, Turkey, as Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation. Here’s what happened, according to the Department of Defense Inspector General’s report on the Christian Embassy video investigation.

“Maj Gen Sutton testified that while in Turkey in his current duty position, his Turkish driver approached him with an article in the Turkish newspaper ‘Sabah.’ That article featured a photograph of Maj Gen Sutton in uniform and described him as a member of a radical fundamentalist sect. The article in the online edition of Sabah also included still photographs taken from the Christian Embassy video. Maj Gen Sutton’s duties in Ankara included establishing good relations with his counterparts on the Turkish General Staff. Maj Gen Sutton testified that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim nation, with religious matters being kept strictly separate from matters of state. He said that when the article was published in Sabah, it caused his Turkish counterparts concern and a number of Turkish general officers asked him to explain his participation in the video.”

In addition to the Christian Embassy video, theMilitary Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has uncovered a slew of other videos of uniformed military personnel endorsing fundamentalist Christian organizations and military ministries, many of which have missions that include proselytizing Muslims. These videos are easily found on the internet, providing plenty of potential propaganda material for recruiting by extremists.

8. Plant crosses in Muslim lands and make sure they’re big enough to be visible from really far away

As Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf recounted in his autobiography, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, back in 1990, when U.S. troops were deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield, an attempt by a Christian missionary organization to use the military to proselytize Saudi Muslims led the Pentagon to issue strict guidelines on religious activities and displays of religion in the region. It was left to the discretion of individual company commanders to determine how visible religious services should be, depending on their particular location’s proximity to Saudi populations, and, in some cases, decisions not to display crucifixes or other religious symbols were made.

There were a few complaints about these decisions, but the majority of the troops willingly complied, understanding that these decisions were being made for their own security. According to Gen. Schwarzkopf, even his request that chaplains refrain from wearing crosses on their uniforms was received an unexpectedly positive reaction, with the chaplains not only agreeing with the policy, but going a step further by calling themselves “morale officers” rather than chaplains.

But now, in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. Schwarzkopf’s common sense policies and priority of keeping the troops safe have been replaced by a flaunting of Christianity in these Muslim lands by Christian troops and chaplains who feel that nothing comes before their right to exercise their religion, even if it means putting the safety of their fellow troops at risk. Numerous reports and photos received by MRFF, like the one below, as well as photos posted on official military websites, show conspicuously displayed Christian symbols, such as large crosses, being erected on and around our military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These large Christian murals were painted on the outside of the T-barriers surrounding the chapel on FOB Warhorse in Iraq. In addition to being a highly visible display of Christianity to Iraqis on the base, these photos were posted on an official military website. It is even more important that the Army regulation prohibiting displays of any particular religion on the grounds of an Army chapel, a regulation that protects the religious freedom of our soldiers by keeping chapels neutral and open to soldiers of all faiths, be strictly enforced on our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, as these and other photos collected by MRFF clearly show, violations of this regulation that probably wouldn’t even be tolerated on bases in the U.S. are not only tolerated but promoted on our bases in Muslim countries.

7. Paint crosses and Christian messages on military vehicles and drive them through Iraq

For those Iraqis who may not see the overt displays of Christianity on and near our military bases in their country, there have been plenty of mobile Christian messages, painted on our tanks and other vehicles that patrol their streets.

The title of Jeff Sharlet’s May 2009 Harper’s Magazine cover story, “Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military,” actually comes from one such vehicular message — the words “Jesus killed Mohammed” painted in large red Arabic lettering on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, drawing fire from nearly every doorway as it was driven through Samarra. Other vehicles have sported everything from the Islamic crescent overlaid with the internationally recognized red circle and slash “No” sign to crosses hanging from gun barrels. The photo below of the tank named “New Testament” was actually released by a military public relations office.

6. Make sure that our Christian soldiers and chaplains see the war as a way to fulfill the Great Commission

Iraq is crawling with missionaries and evangelists, both civilian and military, who show little or no regard for laws or military regulations. Why? Because, in their opinion, the “Great Commission” from Matthew 28:19 — “Go and make disciples of all nations” — trumps all man-made laws. It’s hard to find a military ministry whose mission statement doesn’t, in one way or another, include fulfilling the Great Commission.

Campus Crusade for Christ’s (CCC) Military Ministry, for example, whose goal is to transform our enlisted trainees and future officers into “government-paid missionaries for Christ,” is present at all of our military’s largest basic training facilities, as well as the military service academies and ROTC campuses. The “Vision” of another organization, Military Missions Network, is “An expanding global network of kingdom-minded movements of evangelism and discipleship reaching the world through the military of the world.”

Organizations like CCC’s Military Ministry could not succeed in their goals without the sanction and aid of the military commanders who allow them to conduct their missionary recruiting activities on their installations. And there is no shortage of military officers who not only condone, but participate in and promote, these activities. The Officers’ Christian Fellowship, an organization consisting of over 15,000 officers and operating on virtually every U.S. military installation worldwide, which has frequently stated its mission to “create a spiritually transformed U.S. military, with Ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit,” has actually partnered with CCC’s Military Ministry.

Describing the duties of a CCC Military Ministry position at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, for example, the organization’s website stated:

“Responsibilities include working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as government paid missionaries.”

Similar statements can be found for each of the many CCC Military Ministry many divisions, like this one from their Valor ministry, which targets future officers on ROTC campuses:

“The Valor ROTC cadet and midshipman ministry reaches our future military leaders at their initial entry points on college campuses, helps them grow in their faith, then sends them to their first duty assignments throughout the world as ‘government-paid missionaries for Christ.’”

A former CCC program director at the Air Force Academy, Scott Blum, said in a promotional video filmed at the Academy, CCC’s purpose is to “make Jesus Christ the issue at the Academy” and for the cadets to be “government paid missionaries” by the time they leave.

A Military Ministry instruction manual uncovered by MRFF in 2007 couldn’t be more clear that CCC’s mission is not simply to provide Bible studies to allow Christians in the military to exercise their religion. The manual states flat out:

“We should never be satised with just having Bible studies of like-minded believers. We need to take seriously the Great Commission.”

All of the above quotes, as well as the video filmed at the Air Force Academy, were found by MRFF on the internet, which, of course, means that any extremist looking for recruiting tools could also find this proof that our military is being groomed to be a force of crusaders.

5. Post photos on the internet of U.S. soldiers with their rifles and Bibles

Turning our military into missionaries and crusaders naturally requires a good degree of indoctrination, and CCC’s Military Ministry knows how to indoctrinate. Basic training installations and the military service academies are what they call “gateways” — the places that young and vulnerable military personnel pass through early in their careers. The following explanation of its “gateway” strategy appeared on CCC’s Military Ministry website in 2002:

“Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways. The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the ‘good news.’ We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals.”

According to Maj. Gen. Bob Dees, U.S. Army (ret.), the Executive Director of CCC’s Military Ministry, in the October 2005 issue of the organization’s Life and Leadership newsletter:

“We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation — through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens….”

The indoctrination of basic trainees at Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training installation, is a program called “God’s Basic Training,” in which the recruits are taught that “The Military = ‘God’s Ministers’” and that one of their responsibilities is “To punish those who do evil” as “God’s servant, an angel of wrath.”

Until being exposed by MRFF and taken down, the Fort Jackson CCC Military Ministry had a website containing not only its Bible study materials, but numerous photos of trainees posed with their rifles and Bibles. This was not only allowed by the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Snodgrass, but was endorsed by Snodgrass by the appearance on the site of his own photo, posing with the Military Ministry director and battalion chaplain.

This is from one of the group photos that were on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry website:

Obviously, no explanation is necessary to see the propaganda value of photos like this.

4. Invite virulently anti-Muslim speakers to lecture at our military colleges and service academies

In June 2007, Brigitte Gabriel, founder of the American Congress for Truth and author of Because They Hate, delivered one of her typical anti-Muslim lectures at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC). In February 2008, Walid Shoebat, along with his fellow self-proclaimed ex-terrorists turned fundamentalist Christians, appeared at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s 50th Annual Academy Assembly.

Gabriel’s JFSC lecture, including the following quotes from the question and answer segment, was broadcast to the world on C-SPAN.

In answer to the question, “Should we resist Muslims who want to seek political office in this nation?,” Gabriel replied:

“Absolutely. If a Muslim who has — who is — a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day — this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America.”

As part of her answer to this same question, Gabriel asserted that a Muslim’s oath of office is meaningless, giving the following reason:

“A Muslim is allowed to lie under any situation to make Islam, or for the benefit of Islam in the long run. A Muslm sworn to office can lay his hand on the Koran and say ‘I swear that I’m telling the truth and nothing but the truth,’ fully knowing that he is lying because the same Koran that he is swearing on justifies his lying in order to advance the cause of Islam. What is worrisome about that is when we are faced with war and a Muslim political official in office has to make a decision either in the interest of the United States, which is considered infidel according to the teachings of Islam, and our Constitution is uncompatible [sic] with Islam — not compatible — that Muslim in office will always have his loyalty to Islam.”

Here’s what Gabriel had to say about terrorists entering the U.S. from Mexico:

“Those Al Qaeda members and Hezbollah members who are coming into the United States, they are immediately going from the Mexican border into the major cities where there is large Islamic concentration in the United States, such as ‘Dearbornistan’ Michigan…”

And, on the Islamic community in the U.S. and racial profiling:

“We need to see more patriotism and less terrorism, and especially on the part of the Islamic community in this country, who are good at nothing but complaining about every single thing instead of standing up and working with us in fighting the enemy in our country.”

Just as outrageous as Gabriel’s JFSC lecture was the February 2008 appearance of the “three ex-terrorists” at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The three members of this traveling anti-Muslim sideshow, Walid Shoebat, Zachariah Anani, and and Kamal Saleem, whose claims about their exploits as Muslim terrorists have long been questioned by academics and terrorism experts who have found a plethora of unlikelihoods and outright impossibilities in their stories, were featured speakers at the 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic “Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today’s Plague of Violence.”

Shoebat has also spoken at Tim LaHaye’s Pre-Trib (Pre-Tribulation) Research Center conferences and John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) events. Zachariah Anani is a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen who claims to have killed 223 people while a Muslim terrorist. Kamal Saleem, under his real name, Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, was hired by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family in 2003, and founded Koome Ministries in 2006 to “expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world.”

Brigitte Gabriel’s anti-Muslim screed at the JFSC eventually ended up on YouTube, and articles about the ex-terrorists’ Air Force Academy presentation, which included things like Walid Shoebat’s pronouncement that converting Muslims to Christianity was a good way to defeat terrorism, also ended up online, providing plenty of proof that the U.S. military’s training includes teaching cadets, officers, and senior NCOs that Islam is evil and must be stopped.

3. Have a Christian TV network broadcast to the world that the military is helping missionaries convert Muslims

Travel the Road, a popular Christian reality TV series that airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), follows the travels of Will Decker and Tim Scott, two “extreme” missionaries who travel to remote, and often dangerous, parts of the world to fulfill their two part mission to “1. Vigorously spread the gospel to people who are either cut off from active mission work, or have never heard the gospel,” and “2. Produce dynamic media content to display the life of missions, and thus, through these episodic series electrify a new generation to accomplish the Great Commission.”

Season two of the series ended with three episodes filmed in Afghanistan. To film these episodes with the aid and participation of the U.S. Army, the TV show missionaries were permitted to be embedded with U.S. troops as “journalists.” They stayed on U.S. military bases, traveled with a public affairs unit, and accompanied and filmed troops on patrols — all for the purposes of evangelizing Afghan Muslims and producing a television show promoting the Christian religion.

The Department of Defense Public Affairs regulations violated by the military in its participation and assistance in producing this religious program alone are staggering, not to mention the regulations governing embedded journalists, the laws of Afghanistan, and other military violations documented in the content of the program, which included an outrageous violation of the CENTCOM’s General Order 1-A, which absolutely prohibits any proselytizing whatsoever in the Middle Eastern theater of operations.

In complete disregard of this bedrock standing order, the U.S. Army facilitated the evangelizing of Afghans by these Christian missionaries, which included the distribution of New Testaments in the Dari language, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. According to ABC News Nightline, which did a segment on the missionaries after MRFF first exposed that the Army had allowed them to be embedded and aided them in their mission, “Decker and Scott said the military was aware of the purpose of their trip.” In the interview Scott stated, “They knew what we were doing. We told them that we were born again Christians, we’re here doing ministry, we shoot for this TV station and we want to embed and see what it was like.”

As these video clips from the program show, the missionaries were able to just waltz into Afghanistan, without any of the advance approval and planning required for embedded journalists, and, within two days, be embedded with an Army unit.

While the Army’s participation in the Travel the Road program, which, according to a Travel the Road publication, is viewed by more than three million people worldwide, is the most incredible example of the stupidity of broadcasting to the world that the U.S. military was aiding missionaries who were trying to convert Muslims, it is far from the only example. On September 10, 2008, the Discovery Channel’s Military Channel aired a two-hour program titled God’s Soldier. Filmed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) McHenry in Hawijah, Iraq, the program’s credits say it was “Produced with the full co-operation of the 2-27 Infantry Battalion ‘Wolfhounds.’”

The co-producer of God’s Soldier was Jerusalem Productions, a British production company whose “primary aim is to increase understanding and knowledge of the Christian religion and to promote Christian values, via the broadcast media, to as wide an audience as possible.”

Bible verse text captions appearing between segments of this two-hour program, which focused on a evangelical Christian chaplain, Capt. Charles Popov, included “I did not come to bring peace, but the sword” and “Put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may stand your ground.”

This was one of Popov’s prayers, from a scene in which he was blessing a group of soldiers about to go out on a patrol:

“I pray that you would give them the ability to exterminate the enemy and to accomplish the task that they’re been sent forth by God and country to do. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.”

That prayer is followed by a scene in which Popov, sounding an awful lot like the Campus Crusade Bible study described above, says to the soldiers:

“Every soldier should know Romans 13, that the government is set up by God, and the magistrate, or the one who wields the sword — you have not swords but 50 cals and [unintelligible] like that — does not yield it in vain because the magistrate has been called, as you, to execute wrath upon those who do evil.”

The scene that tops them all, however, is one in which Chaplain Popov is setting up a nativity pageant for Christmas — using the unit’s Iraqi interpreters to play some of the roles. Popov describes this as some sort of cultural exchange, with U.S. troops recognizing Ramadan, and Muslim interpreters, in turn, celebrating Christmas. The stupidity of this is astounding. U.S. soldiers participating in a Muslim religious observance are not risking death by doing so, while Muslims, in a country where many consider converting to Christianity a death penalty offense, are. Broadcasting to the world via the Discovery Channel that U.S. Army personnel were putting Muslims in a Christmas pageant is absolute insanity, and couldn’t be a better recruiting tool for extremists.

2. Make sure Bibles and evangelizing materials sent to Muslim lands have official U.S. military emblems on them

What better way to say to Muslims that the U.S. military is not officially Christian than to have official U.S. military emblems stamped on hundreds of thousands of Bibles floating around Iraq and Afghanistan?

Over the past few years, MRFF has amassed quite a collection of military Bibles — some produced by private organizations and others officially authorized by the military — prominently sporting the seals of the various branches of the military and other official military emblems. The latest addition to the collection is a photo from an officer serving in Iraq, who emailed this photo of a Bible being distributed in Iraq with both the Multi-National Corps – Iraq and I Corps seals imprinted on its cover.

And, it isn’t just Bibles. Chief Warrant Officer Rene Llanos of the 101st Airborne Division, referring to a special military edition of a Bible study daily devotional published and donated by Bible Pathways Ministries, told Mission Network News that “the soldiers who are patrolling and walking the streets are taking along this copy, and they’re using it to minister to the local residents,” and that his “division is also getting ready to head toward Afghanistan, so there will be copies heading out with the soldiers.”

Just like the many civilian missionaries who see the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a window of opportunity to evangelize Muslims, Llanos continued, “The soldiers are being placed in strategic places with a purpose. They’re continuing to spread the Word.” This daily devotional, admittedly being used by the 101st Airborne Division “to minister to the local residents,” has the official military branch seals on its cover, giving the impression that it is an official U.S. military publication. And, while these logos are sometimes used without permission, and may have been on this particular book, the Iraqis and Afghans don’t know that.

Then there are the Bibles sporting the official military logos that actually were produced with the permission of the Pentagon, one of them designed by the Pentagon chaplains. Revival Fires Ministries, “at the request of the Chief Chaplains of the Pentagon,” has been shipping these Bibles to Iraq, via military airlift, since 2003, and, according to a ministry press release, this “full Bible is designed and authorized by the Chief Chaplains of the Pentagon.”

The poster boy for promoting these Bibles is Navy chaplain LCDR Brian K. Waite, who has appeared in uniform at three of the annual campmeetings of Revival Fires founder Cecil Todd, and endorses the ministry, also in uniform, on the websites of both Cecil Todd and his son, evangelist Tim Todd. Just prior to becoming a Navy chaplain, LCDR Waite wrote a virulently anti-Muslim book, in which he held the religion of Islam itself responsible for terrorism, and compared Islam, which he doesn’t even consider a real religion, to Nazism.

Not long after his book came out, it was revealed that he had plagiarized much of the book and fabricated some of the endorsements on its cover. Not only does Cecil Todd clearly hold the same anti-Muslim views expressed by Waite in his book, but so does his son Tim Todd. In fact, Waite’s photo and endorsement of those Pentagon endorsed military Bibles appeared right next to the following statement on the younger Todd’s website:

“We must let the Muslims, the Hare Krishna’s, the Hindu’s, the Buddhist’s and all other cults and false religions know, ‘You are welcome to live in America…but this is a Christian nation…this is God’s country! If you don’t like our emphasis on Christ, prayer and the Holy Bible, you are free to leave anytime!’”

1. Send lots of Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu language Bibles to convert the Muslims

Worse than any English language Bibles, even those stamped with official U.S. military emblems, are the countless thousands of Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu Bibles making their way into Iraq and Afghanistan, often with the help of U.S. military personnel.

In his autobiography, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, Gen. Schwarzkopf recounted his run in with Franklin Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse — an incident that made it clear that the Saudis’ fears and complaints of Christian evangelizing were not unfounded. While some of the Saudis’ fears, as the general explained, had resulted from Iraqi propaganda about American troops disrespecting Islamic shrines, the attempt by Samaritan’s Purse to get U.S. troops to distribute tens of thousands of Arabic language New Testaments to Muslims was real.

“The Saudi concern about religious pollution seemed overblown to me but understandable, and on a few occasions I agreed they really did have a gripe. There was a fundamentalist Christian group in North Carolina called Samaritan’s Purse that had the bright idea of sending unsolicited copies of the New Testament in Arabic to our troops. A little note with each book read: ‘Enclosed is a copy of the New Testament in the Arab language. You may want to get a Saudi friend to help you to read it.’ One day Khalid* handed me a copy. ‘What is this all about?’ he asked mildly. This time he didn’t need to protest — he knew how dismayed I’d be.”

*Lt. Gen. Khalid Bin Sultan al-Saud, commander of Saudi Arabia’s air defense forces, appointed by King Fahd as Gen. Schwarzkopf’s counterpart.

This was the incident that, as mentioned above, led to the implementation of strict guidelines on religious activities of military personnel. As also mentioned above, the adherence to and enforcement of regulations clearly aren’t what they were back then.

Converting the Iraqis and Afghans is a pet project of numerous private organizations (some with the help of the military), as well as military personnel and military organizations. Some missionaries even take jobs with DoD contractors to gain access to the Iraqi people. All have found ways to circumvent the prohibitions on sending religious materials contrary to Islam into the region. There are literally thousands of people involved, and hundreds of thousands of Arabic and other native language Bibles, tracts, videos, and audio cassettes have made their way into Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Christian comic books, coloring books, and other materials to evangelize Muslim children.

A recent Al Jazeera English news report showed U.S. troops at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan discussing the distribution of Dari and Pashtu language Bibles to the local Afghans, a blatant violation of CENTCOM’s General Order 1-A. The video showed stacks of these Bibles on the floor, so they were undeniably there, despite the regulations prohibiting the shipping to Iraq or Afghanistan of any bulk religious materials contrary to Islam.

In the Spring 2004 issue of “Gatherings,” the newsletter of the International Ministerial Fellowship (IMF), Army chaplain Capt. Steve Mickel described the evangelizing he was doing while passing out food in the predominantly Sunni village of Ad Dawr:

“I am able to give them tracts on how to be saved, printed in Arabic. I wish I had enough Arabic Bibles to give them as well. The issue of mailing Arabic Bibles into Iraq from the U.S. is difficult (given the current postal regulations prohibiting all religious materials contrary to Islam except for personal use of the soldiers). But the hunger for the Word of God in Iraq is very great, as I have witnessed first-hand.”

Obviously, by citing the regulation prohibiting the materials he was passing out as something that was hindering his proselytizing, Capt. Mickel was admitting that he knew what he was doing violated regulations.

Another Army chaplain, Lt. Col. Lyn Brown, in an article titled “Kingdom Building in Combat Boots,” stated:

“But the most amazing thing is that I was constantly led to stop and talk with Iraqis working at the Coalition Provisional Authority. I learned their names, became a part of their lives, and shared Jesus Christ by distributing DVDs and Arabic Bibles.”

The private organizations sending Arabic Bibles and those in other native languages into Iraq and Afghanistan are too many to count, and many boast of the help they get from military personnel to distribute these Bibles. Here are a few quotes from some of these organizations.

“OnlyOneCross.com recently sent a case of Arabic Bibles to a Brother who is working in a detention center in Iraq.”

The Salvation Evangelistic Association, which has soldiers in Iraq that their ministry converted at Fort Leonard Wood, now has these soldiers distributing the Arabic Bibles for them:

“Many young men in training at Fort Leonard Wood were converted to Christ. The Lord led us on to preaching in Army camps in the US, Korea, and the Philippines. We are now supplying Arabic Bibles for distribution by our troops in Iraq.”

But, topping the stupidity list, we have a Lt. Col. who was being so stupid that a missionary had to tell him that he was putting his troops and other people in danger. The missionary was from Liberty Baptist Tabernacle, which had already shipped 20,000 Arabic “Soul-Winning Booklets” into Iraq, with more on the way. This Lt. Col., who knew the missionary from the states, went to his hotel and offered to use his troops to protect the people who were attempting to convert the Muslims. This is from the insane story of what this genius of an officer did to meet with the missionary, copied from the ministry’s website:

“On another note, a dear Christian friend, that I had met some ten years prior, who was a deacon of an independent Baptist church in Missouri was also in Iraq. I was totally unaware of this. He was in the Missouri National Guard and holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonial. Col. Koontze immediately contacted me when he found out I was in country. He was made aware of my being in Baghdad by a pastor friend of his that he had spoken with in the states.

“Through his command intelligence office, he located the hotel I was staying at. When he came to the hotel, I was sitting outside with the other pastors on the hotel’s terrace, waiting for Robert Lewis [Global Resource Group-Director], who was going to meet with us that afternoon. Col. Koontze must have had 15-20 soldiers with him; they literally blocked off the entire city block with tanks and humvees to secure the area. He then walked into the lobby asking if anyone could tell him where Pastor Furse was. As he was saying those words, he spotted me and immediately said, “It’s good to see you again Bro. Furse.” At first, I did not recognize him, until he took his helmet off. We spoke for about 20 minutes at one of the tables on the terrace of the hotel; all the while the tanks and humvees were being lined up and down the main street in front of the hotel. After renewing acquaintances, I had to tell him that it would probably be best if he and his unit left as soon as possible.

“The Iraqi people in the hotel and those on the street were to say the least, very concerned. I did not want to bring that much attention to the hotel; for fear that terrorists would target the area as well [over the previous four or five days, we had heard sporadic AK-47 gunfire going off just blocks away from the hotel]. Col. Koontze agreed fully with me on that assessment and ordered his unit to leave quietly and as quickly as possible.”

There are also videos, like the one below of a chaplain admitting that Swahili language Bibles are being sent in to Iraq to evangelize the Ugandan workers employed by the U.S. military. In this video, from Soldiers Bible Ministry, Army chaplain Capt. Chris Rusack boasts about managing to get the Swahili Bibles into Iraq, in spite of the regulations prohibiting this. Referring to this shipment of Bibles, Chaplain Rusack said:

“Actually, they’re in Baghdad right now. Somehow the enemy tried to get ‘em hung up there. There was a threat they were gonna get shipped back to the States and all that. We prayed, and they’re gonna be picked up in a couple of days. God raised someone up right there in Baghdad that’s gonna go — a Christian colonel that’s stationed there in Baghdad, and he’s gonna go and get the Bibles…”

Last April, Soldiers Bible Ministry entered into an official partnership with an organization called Heart of God International Ministries. To announce this partnership, Heart of God International Ministries sent out an email about Soldiers Bible Ministry, featuring the Swahili Bible story as an example of the “supernatural things God is doing in Iraq.”

“Right now there are about 200 men from Uganda protecting 100 US Army soldiers in Iraq near Babylon. These men from Uganda have been having dreams, and these dreams have been of Jesus Christ as the Messiah which led them to begin asking questions about Christ to the Chaplain. Many of these former Muslims have come to Christ.”

The email ended with this fund raising pitch for Soldiers Bible Ministry:

“The signs of the times are all around us … Jesus, the Messiah, is coming back soon. It is our responsibility to make sure every man, woman, and child has had the opportunity to meet the Lord Jesus Christ. Seize every opportunity to share the Good News … seize this opportunity to put the Word of God into the hands of US troops and allied forces.”

In spite of their blatant violations of military regulations, Soldiers Bible Ministry is heartily endorsed by none other than the Army’s Chief of Chaplains, Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver, with this statement on their website: “Thanks so much for your invaluable ministry of the Word to our Soldiers.”

In addition to Bibles, other Arabic language Christian books are being shipped into Iraq and Afghanistan for distribution by our troops. The January 2009 newsletter of Worldwide Military Baptist Missions, for example, included these images of their English-Arabic proselytizing materials.

This is from the caption for these photos:

“In 2008, we shipped over 226,000 gospel tracts, 21,000 Bibles, New Testaments and gospels of John (to include English-Arabic ones!) and 404 ‘discipleship kits’ to service members & churches for use in war zones, on ships and near military bases around the world.”

And, last, but certainly not least, there is Jim Ammerman, a retired Army colonel and conspiracy theorist who heads a Department of Defense authorized military chaplain endorsing agency called the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), which currently endorses 270 military chaplains and chaplain candidates.

MRFF has demanded, for a number of reasons, that the DoD investigate CFGC and revoke Mr. Ammerman’s endorsing authority, as I wrote in a recent post titled “MRFF Demands DoD Revoke Authority of Chaplain Endorser Who Suggested Democrats Should Be Executed.”

Among the reasons for MRFF’s demands is that Ammerman, working with an organization called the International Missions Network Center (IMNC), set up a network of forty of his chaplains serving in Iraq to receive and distribute Arabic Bibles in order to “establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world,” as he said in one of the CFGC’s newsletters, and which IMNC called the “true reconstruction” of Iraq.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Young appeared in the popular Christian reality series "Travel the Road." He was recently promoted to the rank of full colonel.

“The President of the United States has reposed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities of the following officers,” says the order promoting Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Young to the rank of full colonel.

Now, the president can’t be expected to personally vet every military officer who is up for promotion, and, for all but those in the highest ranks, would obviously just rely on the recommendations of the superiors of officers on the promotions lists, but I have to wonder how President Obama would feel about having rubber stamped the promotion of an officer who said that blacks were better off as slaves.

Before getting to Col. Young’s slavery comment, I need to back up and explain how the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the civil rights organization I work for, first became aware of this officer. Back in December, I wrote a piece about the Army allowing two Christian reality TV show missionaries, whose mission was to proselytize Afghan Muslims, to be embedded with the troops in Afghanistan as journalists.

In that piece, I included a video clip from the program, Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Travel the Road, showing these missionaries giving Dari language Bibles to Afghan locals near the base where they were embedded. Just what was in this video clip, found on YouTube, was enough to see that serious violations of the regulations governing embedded journalists and the military regulations prohibiting proselytizing had been committed.

In February, I wrote a follow-up piece. By that time, ABC News Nightline had attempted to obtain the records of the embedding of the Travel the Road missionaries, only to be told that the Army had lost all records of this embedding. By the time I wrote my follow-up piece, I had also bought the DVD box set of the season of Travel the Road containing the three episodes covering the missionaries’ time in Afghanistan. In the third of the three episodes, Tim Scott, one of the Travel the Road missionaries, was shown interviewing Col. Young.

Here’s what I wrote about Col. Young in February, followed by the video:

The final clip in the video below is from the last of the three Travel the Road Afghanistan episodes, filmed in Kandahar. In this clip, Tim Scott interviews LTC Robert G. Young, the commander of the 325th Forward Support Battalion. LTC Young, a committed Christian who lists his interests in his Military.com profile as “Jesus, Wife, Kids, PT,” and belongs to a group called “Rangers 4 Christ,” told Scott that the biggest problem in Kandahar was drought, and that this drought coincidentally began as soon as the Taliban took over the country. He went on to say that we’ve got to “overcome evil with good,” and, literally thumping a Bible, quoted two of its verses in one sentence, saying, “Our weapons aren’t carnal” (Corinthians 10:4) “and no weapon formed against us shall prosper.” (Isaiah 54:17) He said he told an Afghan general that he would ask the American people to pray that God would send rain to Kandahar, and ended by saying that when the people of Kandahar see the rain “they’ll know that our god answers prayers.”

Shortly after I wrote this piece, MRFF began to receive emails telling us that the problems with Col. Young went beyond the typical disregard of regulations prohibiting the promotion of religion and proselytizing by evangelical military officers. We were informed that, among other things, the opinions espoused by Young included a comment to a subordinate officer that blacks were better off as slaves because at least then they knew Christ, and that complaints about his comments had led to him being relieved of his command.

MRFF passed these allegations on to journalist Jeff Sharlet, who was in the process of writing his article “Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military,” the cover story in the May 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Sharlet called Col. Young to get his side of the story. Young not only confirmed that what was emailed to MRFF was true, but, as the following excerpts from Sharlet’s article clearly show, still doesn’t see any problem with his slavery comment.

I found Lieutenant Colonel Bob Young after MRFF reported on an evangelical reality program, shown on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, that included tape of Colonel Young telling two wandering missionaries about his plan to pray for rain in Afghanistan. I reached him at home in Georgia late one evening. He said he was going to sit on his porch and look at the moon. In the background, I heard dogs barking. He talked for three hours, much of it about what he’d seen in the combat hospital under his command at Kandahar Air Base.

“Kids getting burned,” he recalled. “Bad guys floating in on helicopters. You wouldn’t know who they were.” The base hospital treated 7,000 Afghans that year, and Young, commander of the Army’s 325th Forward Support Battalion, lingered there, watching the bodies. “I want to tell you this. Triage area, guy strapped into gurney, Afghan guy. No shirt, skinny as a rail, sinewy muscle. Restraints on his ankles, his feet, dude is strapped into a wheelchair. He’s got a plastic shield in front of his face because he’s spitting.” A doctor wants to sedate him. “I say, ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with him. The guy has demons.’” Young decides to pray over him. “Couple minutes later the general’s son-in-law — the Afghan general’s son-in-law, our translator — comes in. I said, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?’ He says, ‘How do you say in English? He has spirits.’ I say, ‘Doc, there’s your second opinion!’”

On the phone, Young laughed, a harsh “Ha!” Then his voice broke. “I’m telling you, it’s real. Evil is real.”

In the Christian reality show, Young extended that thought to the weather. “Interestingly,” he says, “the drought has been in effect since the Taliban took over.” Young has a high mouth and a low brow, his features concentrated between big ears. “People of America,” he tells the camera, “pray that God sends the rain to Kandahar, and they’ll know that our God answers prayers.”

I asked Young if he wanted to contextualize these remarks, since they seemed, on the surface, to radically transcend his mission as a soldier. “Okay!” he said. “Are you ready?” I said I was.

He told me to Google Kandahar, rain, January 2005. The result he was looking for was an article in Stars and Stripes entitled “Rainfall May Signal Beginning of the End to Three-Year Drought in Afghanistan.” Three and a quarter inches in just two days.

“That’s some real rain,” I admitted.

“That’s what I’m saying, brother!”

I asked him about an allegation made to MRFF by a captain who served under Young: that Young had made remarks that led him to be relieved of his command. It was true that he had been relieved of command, he admitted, but he had appealed and won. And the remarks? “All that was, I was speaking in reference to inner-city problems and whatnot. I said that the irony is that it would be better for a black to be a slave in America — I’m thinking now historically — and know Christ, than to be free now and not know Christ.”

With that cleared up, I then asked Young about another of the captain’s allegations: that he had given a presentation on Christianity to some Afghan warlords. Absolutely not, he said. It was a PowerPoint about America. He emailed it to me as we spoke, and then asked me to open it so he could share with me the same presentation he had given “Gulalli” and “Shirzai.” Since it had been President’s Day, Young had begun with a picture of George Washington, who, he explained, had been protected by God; his evidence was that, following a battle in the French and Indian War, when thirty-two bullet holes were found in Washington’s cloak, the general himself escaped unscathed. Young wanted to show the Afghans that nation-building was a long and difficult journey. “I did stress the fact that in America we believe our rights come from God, not from government. Truth is truth, and there’s no benefit in lying about it.”

There were slides about the Wright brothers, the moon landing, and NASCAR — Jeff Gordon, “a Christian, by the way,” had just won the Daytona 500. And then, the culmination of American history: the twin towers, blooming orange the morning of September 11, 2001. Embedded in the slide show was a video Young titled “Forgiveness,” a collage of stills, people running and bodies falling. Swelling behind the images was Celine Dion’s hit ballad from Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On.” Following the video was a slide of the Bush family, beneath the words: “I believe that God has inspired in every heart the desire for freedom.” …

… The tension between war and faith does not disturb him. “We are to live with anticipation and expectation of His imminent return,” he told me. Look at the signs, said Young: nuclear Iran, economic collapse, President Obama’s decision to “unleash science” upon helpless embryos. He seemed to feel that the military was now the only safe place to be. “In the military, homosexuality is illegal. I don’t want to get into all the particulars of ‘Don’t ask,’ but you can’t act on homosexual feelings. And adultery is illegal. Really, arguably, the military is the last American institution that tries to uphold Christian values. It’s the easiest place in America to be a Christian.”

Nobody reading the article about Col. Young’s promotion on the official Army website would have any idea why his promotion to full colonel was delayed. According to the article, Young merely hit a “speed bump” due to an “adverse officer efficiency report,” which he successfully appealed — a demonstration of this fine officer’s “determination and drive to succeed.” According to the article, “Being promoted to colonel confirmed [Young's] sense that the Army is a good institution and that ultimately, the right things happen.”

Well, Col. Young is right about one thing. The military is “the easiest place in America to be a Christian.” Unfortunately, as the thousands of service members who have contacted MRFF about officers like Col. Young have made abundantly clear, it’s just not so easy a place to be for anyone else.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

One of the regular features in the monthly newsletter of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is a section containing a “Violation on Video,” in which we show a video clip of a military regulation being violated by a service member or at a military event, and “Captured on Camera,” a photo of a violation being committed. The video and photo that we planned to feature in our August newsletter are typical — a video of a Marine officer appearing on a Christian television show in uniform, and a photo of an Army officer giving a briefing while standing in front of a Christian flag. What’s not typical about this month’s video and photo is how I happened to come across them. So, rather than just presenting this video and photo in our newsletter in the usual format, I decided to write about the bigger story that led me to find them.

About a month ago, as the John Ensign and Mark Sanford sex scandals were introducing America to the Family’s “C Street House,” Jeff Sharlet, who had infiltrated and extensively researched the Family for his 2008 book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, began to be besieged with media requests as the one person who could explain this shadowy religious cult to a suddenly interested audience. Jeff quickly saw that as more was being revealed about C Street, more new questions were arising, some of which involved military connections. Jeff had just spent well over a year researching religious fundamentalism in the military for his May 2009 Harper’s Magazine cover story “Jesus Killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military,” and during the process had become extremely well acquainted with MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein, myself, and the work of MRFF. So, Jeff called Mikey and asked if he could “borrow” me for a few days to work on the C Street investigation.

Well, those few days have now turned into a month, and it’s become increasingly clear that we’ve still only hit the tip of the iceberg, as Jeff explains:

“Mikey Weinstein, Chris Rodda, and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation have been indispensable allies during the past month as I’ve worked to bring the story behind the ‘C Street House’ at the heart of this summer’s political sex scandals to the public. I knew I’d need help, and I’d need it from people who understand that political fundamentalism — ‘weaponized Christianity,’ in Mikey’s words — is a real threat to everybody’s First Amendment freedoms. Working together, we’ve uncovered a new front in the fight for open democracy: the convergence of the elite fundamentalism behind the C Street House and the populist fundamentalist activism that’s seeking to turn the military into a force for ‘spiritual war.’ MRFF understands this better than anyone. Mikey is the constitutional conscience of the military, and his research director, Chris Rodda, brings investigative brilliance to the battle. Hats off to both of them and all their colleagues in MRFF.”

Making the connections between the Family and the military is, as Jeff put it, “a new front” — a front that is leading MRFF to new revelations about some of our old discoveries. For example, the participants in the Campus Crusade for Christ Christian Embassy Video — a video that led MRFF to demand an investigation by the Department of Defense Inspector General in which seven officers were found guilty of ethics violations — also included, in addition to the military officers, many other government officials and politicians. Four of these other participants were members of Congress, and two of these members of Congress have been confirmed to be members of the Family. MRFF’s focus at the time of the IG investigation was, of course, on the violations committed by the military officers who appeared in the video, not the members of Congress. Similarly, when Jeff was researching the Family for his book, his focus was primarily on the political figures involved, and not the military connections that he came across. Now both of us, in addition to new research, are reviewing our respective prior research through different lenses.

Knowing that the Family’s agenda involves a worldwide strategy, one of the first things I looked at when Jeff brought me in on the C Street investigation was the travel records of the congressmen and senators known to be associated with the group. Members of Congress are required to disclose any travel paid for by private companies or organizations. What I immediately found were eighteen trips to foreign countries, taken by two senators and six congressmen, that had been paid for by the International Foundation, which is just another name for the Family. The senators taking these trips were John Ensign and Tom Coburn; the current congressmen were Robert Aderholt (R-AL), John Carter (R-TX), Mike Doyle (D-PA), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Joseph Pitts (R-PA), and Frank Wolf (R-VA).

In addition to his five foreign trips for the Family, Wolf also took a trip to “meet with government officials” in Kona, Hawaii, paid for by the International Foundation and the University of the Nations. What’s the University of the Nations? Well, it’s the Kona, Hawaii headquarters of the worldwide organization Youth With A Mission, the organization listed on the property records as owning the C Street House. Wolf was accompanied on this trip by former Ohio congressman Tony Hall. Neither Wolf nor Hall specified on their disclosure forms the country or countries of the government officials they met with.

Then there was the travel of Sen. James Inhofe, which did not show up in a search of the disclosures of foreign travel funded by the Family. That’s because Inhofe’s numerous trips to Africa were taken at the expense of the taxpayers, although there is no question that Inhofe was on a mission for the Family. Inhofe himself admitted this in a video, clips of which were shown by Rachel Maddow during one of Jeff Sharlet’s recent appearances on her show. In this segment, Jeff explained why the Family has been sending all these senators and congressman to foreign countries.

Appearing in the full video of Inhofe is a man named Mark Powers, an Assemblies of God missionary hired by Inhofe to be on his staff as his part-time African advisor, while continuing to work for his church. Powers has regularly accompanied Inhofe on his trips to Africa, as have Inhofe’s military liaisons, which brings us to a video I found when I was doing a bit of checking into the military personnel who have traveled with Family members.

As I said at the beginning of this piece, MRFF’s monthly newsletter features a “Violation on Video,” which is often a video of service member doing something in uniform that military regulations prohibit them from doing in uniform. This month’s video stars Marine Lt. Col. Sam Mundy, one of the military liaisons who has accompanied Sen. Inhofe on his travels to Africa. In violation of military regulations, Lt. Col. Mundy appeared in full uniform on the Christian television program Total Victory Today.

LTC Mundy’s appearance on this program in uniform isn’t just an example of a violation of military regulations. It’s also an good example of what those of us who research fundamentalist groups frequently run into — the multiple connections between the groups we’re looking at. In this case, it starts with the program’s producer, Total Victory Ministries, Inc., being affiliated with Student Venture, the high school and junior high ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Campus Crusade, of course, is also the parent organization of Christian Embassy, whose promotional video included two congressmen who are members of the Family.

The Family’s C Street House is owned by Youth With A Mission (YWAM), whose founder, Loren Cunningham, has often told the story of how Campus Crusade’s founder, Bill Bright, was instrumental in the founding of YWAM and its strategy to take over the world — the “7 Mountains” strategy, in which the “mountain of business” must be controlled in order to take over all other “mountains of culture” and achieve dominion around the globe.

Campus Crusade also runs Military Ministry, which is already firmly entrenched at all of our military’s largest basic training installations, the service academies, and ROTC campuses, and whose strategy for “transforming the nation” includes transforming the military, which “excercise[s] … the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens,” into a force of “government-paid missionaries for Christ.”

Like the Family, Campus Crusade’s Christian Embassy has been sending members of Congress on missions to foreign countries. Two of these congressmen, Robert Aderholt and John Carter, who are also Family members, talked about these trips in the Christian Embassy promotional video. But, although Adeholt and Carter were clearly talking about traveling to Africa for Christian Embassy, we can find no record of these trips in their privately funded travel disclosures. In fact, the only Christian Embassy funded trip reported by any member of Congress was one trip taken by Aderholt to meet with the president of Paraguay.

In addition to the travel records of Family members, we’ve been looking at the earmarks these members of Congress have requested, and one of the first things to jump out were the earmarks for large chapel complexes on our military bases. Jeff Sharlet got into this subject a bit on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Among the most expensive and extravagant of these mega-church military chapel projects are two of those requested by members of the Family. One, requested by John Carter for Fort Hood, already received $17,500,000 in last year’s Defense Authorization Act, and this year’s House bill adds an $8,500,000 addition to the project, for a total of $26,000,000. The other is a $14,400,000 mega-church for Fort Campbell, already approved in both the House and Senate versions of this year’s bill.

Requesting this earmark for Fort Campbell were the representatives of the two congressional districts in which Fort Campbell lies, which is who would normally be requesting an earmark for the base. But, also requesting this earmark was Family member Zach Wamp (R-TN), whose district is nowhere near Fort Campbell. Why is Wamp involved in this project? Well, a private group, the Citizens for Fort Campbell (CFFC), lobbied for it and Wamp pledged to help them get the funding for it. Wamp is on the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee for Military Construction, as is John Carter. In fact, three of the four republicans on this subcommittee are members of the Family. The third is Ander Crenshaw (R-FL).

Who didn’t get any help from Wamp and his fellow subcommittee Family members? Dover Air Force Base. Dover has a legitimate need to build a new chapel. This is the base where the military’s mortuary is, and where the bodies of fallen service members arrive. One of the base’s two chapels had to be demolished in January 2009. Then, in March, when the military began to allow the press to cover the “dignified transfer” process, as it’s officially called, they also began paying the travel expenses for the families of the fallen service members to be there for the process. Because it only has one chapel, Dover has no chapel to accommodate the influx of grieving families or the facilities for the chaplains to provide counseling for the families. So, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware requested an earmark for a chapel to be built at Dover.

The $7,500,000 needed for a chapel to accommodate grieving families at Dover AFB did not make it into the House bill, but Carter’s additional $8,500,000 to expand his $17,500,000 Fort Hood mega-church did. There’s something very wrong with this, but there is still an opportunity to correct this demonstration of backwards priorities. The House bill has already passed, but the senators from Delaware also requested the funding for Dover, and the Senate has put the Dover chapel in their version of the bill. We’ll just have to wait for the conference report on the bill to see which base gets the funding.

Looking further into the expansion of Carter’s Fort Hood mega-church project, it appears to be even more unnecessary than it first appeared to be. What we discovered is that the $8,500,000 in additional funding to build what is being called a “Family Life Center” will actually give the base something that it already has. Just last month, Fort Hood opened its new “Spiritual Fitness Center,” a facility created by extensively renovating one of the base’s existing eleven chapels.

While the military insists that this new “Spiritual Fitness Center” is not religious, but spiritual, the renovations of the existing chapel resulted in a building that is indistinguishable from a chapel, and, going beyond its general physical appearance, is set up to hold worship services, and had, as one of its kick-off events, a Christian rock concert. And, this brings us to the “Caught on Camera” photo we had chosen for MRFF’s August newsletter. Giving a briefing last year on this new “not religious” facility was none other than Maj. Gen. Vince Brooks, one of the officers found guilty of ethics violations for his appearance in the Campus Crusade Christian Embassy video. In the photo accompanying an article about the facility, Brooks, the third of the Christian Embassy officers to be promoted rather than punished, is shown giving his briefing on this non-religious facility while standing in front of a Christian flag.

As we’ve been discovering, the web of individuals and organizations connecting the Family and the military, which includes many that I haven’t even mentioned here, is far more extensive than we initially realized, and the joint investigation being undertaken by Jeff Sharlet and MRFF is far from over.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

Well, I’ve desperately been trying to find the time to get something out on this, but have just been up to my eyeballs in work for my job with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a job that, ironically, I ended up in two years ago because of the discovery of a David Barton essay on the “myth” of separation between church and state in the Junior ROTC core curriculum American history textbook. Then, Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, deluged with media requests since the Ensign and Sanford sex scandals exposed the Family’s “C Street” cabal to a wider audience, asked MRFF president Mikey Weinstein if he could borrow me to help with some further research on certain members of the Family, the full results of which will be breaking soon. So, I’ve just been busy as hell, and hearing and reading about the Texas BOE lunacy and the appointment of Barton, but not being able to find any time to write about it, has put me at serious risk of my head exploding.

I still don’t have much time to spend on this, but I do want to make a few things clear about David Barton.

First of all, very little of what I’ve been reading about the Texas BOE seems to convey just how dangerous Barton really is. His agenda for the teaching of American history is not merely a somewhat more religious “interpretation” of history, as some are describing it — it’s an all out, lie packed, completely revised, Christian nationalist version of history, designed to muster support for a very clear political agenda.

Second, I’ve read much about Barton’s utter lack of credentials to be in any way involved in the development of new textbooks — textbooks that, as Barton has been gloating about on his radio show for months now, will not only be used in Texas, but, because of the economic realities of the textbook publishing business, will find their way into the public schools of all the states. (California, with the largest state population, has always been the other state, along with Texas, the second most populous state, to steer the content of new textbooks, but, because of its current economic crisis, California is out of the picture this time around, leaving the Texas board of wackaloons as the only voice in what will and won’t appear in the next wave of textbooks.)

Now, getting back to Barton’s credentials, or lack thereof, many people have been pointing out that he has no degree in history. His educational credentials consist of a B.A. in religious education from Oral Roberts University, and an honorary doctorate from Pensacola Christian College. But, what bothers me far more than his lack of a history degree is his pumped-up bio, in which he claims to have been been involved in the development of the history/social studies standards not just for Texas, but also for California and other states. Well, like most of his historical claims, this claim isn’t quite true. In reality, Barton’s “involvement” in developing curriculum standards for any other state besides Texas has consisted of nothing more than being enlisted by some conservative member of that state’s standards commission or legislature — someone who shares Barton’s agenda — as an “expert” for their side. It does not mean that he was appointed by that state, and, thankfully, he hasn’t actually been able to succeed in screwing up any textbooks — at least not yet.

In the latest issue of Church & State, the magazine of Americans United (AU), Rob Boston explained Barton’s California claim:

In 1998, a conservative member of the California Academic Standards Commission appointed Barton to an advisory position, asking the Texan to critique proposed social studies/history standards. From that perch, Barton attacked the portion of the standards that discussed the development of religious freedom, trying to remove every reference to separation of church and state.

He almost pulled it off. Commission members, unfamiliar with Barton’s agenda, seemed open to adopting his suggestions. They changed course only after intervention by Americans United’s Sacramento Chapter, AU’s national office and others.

Another example of Barton’s grossly exaggerated role in a state’s curriculum development involves everyone’s favorite nut of a congresswoman, Michele Bachmann. Back in September, when Barton had Bachmann on his radio show — introducing her as “a rock solid lady,” and a “real class act” — he brought up his previous encounters with her, including this:

As a matter of fact, I worked with her on history standards up in Minnesota — doing some history legislation, and making sure that they could not censor religious references from history books.

So, what was Barton referring to here? Well, back in 2005, when Bachmann was still a senator in the Minnesota legislature, she and some of her fellow legislative wingnuts had bought — hook, line, and sinker — the wildly distorted story and propaganda about California banning the Declaration of Independence in public schools because it mentioned a creator. So, although existing Minnesota history standards already contained the use of the Declaration and other historical documents with religious content, Bachmann co-sponsored a completely unnecessary piece of legislation to “permit” these same documents that were already being used in the state’s schools to be used in the state’s schools, actually citing the bogus story about California banning the Declaration of Independence as a reason her unnecessary legislation was of the utmost importance. Barton’s big role in all this? Well, he appeared before the Minnesota Senate Education Committee in support of Bachmann’s legislation. Similar legislation had already been introduced by Minnesota state representative Mark Olson in 2001, and Olson, during a House Education Policy Committee hearing on his bill, had also brought in David Barton.

Of course, without the real explanations of the circumstances surrounding Barton’s role in these state history education related proceedings, and relying only on the deceptive way in which Barton describes his involvement, anyone unfamiliar with him would think he sounds like somebody who has lots of legitimate experience in developing history curriculums and is sought out by other states for this expertise.

But, the biggest problem with Barton meddling with our country’s textbooks is not his lack of qualifications. It’s the fact that he’s a big fat liar who will distort, misrepresent, and even fabricate historical events to further his Christian nationalist agenda and political ideology.

I’ve written so much on the subject of Barton’s historical revisionism, and debunked so many of his lies, that there’s no need for me to get into any particular lies here. If anyone wants to see just how bad this guy really is, and why those of us who already know how bad he is are so concerned about his appointment, I urge you to read a few of the things I’ve written and get a little taste of just what our country’s history textbooks may end up looking like.

One is the series I wrote last year when Rep. Randy Forbes introduced H. Res. 888, a resolution for an annual religious heritage week. This resolution, reintroduced in the current congress as H. Res. 397, is packed with a seventy-five “Whereas” clause litany of Christian nationalist historical revisionism. This is what David Barton would like to see taught in our public schools. In fact, Forbes got much of the material for this resolution straight from his pal Barton.

The other is a series I wrote a few years ago about the history revisionism in the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools (NCBCPS) curriculum. This curriculum, already being taught in thousands of our public schools, has David Barton on its Advisory Board, and contains many of the lies from his books. Unbelievably, it even contains fabricated quotes that Barton himself, after being busted on them, started advising his minions not to use. But this didn’t stop him from knowingly reviving these fabricated quotes in this public school curriculum.

For those who don’t have the time or inclination to do a lot of reading, I also made a little video about Barton and his lies after he trashed me on his radio show earlier this year.

For those who do have the time and inclination to do a lot of reading, there are links to a bunch of other articles about Barton, as well as several free chapters of my book, Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History, on my website.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this report mistakenly said that Gov. Perry appointed members to the Texas Board of Education. Board members are elected not appointed. Gov. Perry is responsible, however, for appointing the board’s chairperson. We thank reader Alexa for alerting us to the error.

Chris Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.

The military immediately began trying to pass this off as an “isolated incident.” On May 30, two days after the McClatchy story broke, the Associated Press reported that, “Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a spokesman for U.S. forces in western Iraq, said it didn’t appear to be a widespread problem, stressing that the military forbids ‘proselytizing any religion, faith or practices.’” and quoted the following from an e-mailed statement from Hughes: “Indications are this was an isolated incident — an individual Marine acting on his own accord passing out coins.” Stars and Stripes similarly reported on May 31 that Capt. John Caldwell, a spokesman for the Multi-National Forces – West, said that “Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the commander of U.S. troops in western Iraq, has discussed the matter with local sheiks, who said they understand it is an isolated incident.”

The majority of Americans will undoubtedly buy into this “isolated incident” line and be satisfied that the removal of this lone Marine will remedy the problem. But, the truth is that Iraq is crawling with missionaries and evangelists, both civilian and military, who show little or no regard for laws or military regulations. Why? Because the “Great Commission” from Matthew 28:19 — “Go and make disciples of all nations”  — trumps all man-made laws.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), founded by Mikey Weinstein in 2005 to protect the constitutional right of our service members and veterans to be free from religious discrimination and evangelism by the military, has been uncovering evidence of widespread attempts to convert the Iraqis for some time now. (I should say here that I’m MRFF’s Senior Research Director.)

In the course of investigating organizations like the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) Military Ministry, whose goal is to transform our enlisted trainees and future officers into “government-paid missionaries for Christ,” we began to look not only at how CCC’s activities, and the military commanders who allow these activities on their installations, were violating military regulations, but what these “government-paid missionaries” were doing once they were on active duty. We quickly discovered that converting the Iraqis is a project of numerous private organizations (some with the help of the military), as well as military personnel and military organizations. Some missionaries even take jobs with DoD contractors to gain access to the Iraqi people. All have found ways to circumvent the prohibitions on sending religious materials contrary to Islam into the region. There are literally thousands of people involved, and hundreds of thousands of Arabic language Bibles, tracts, videos, and audio cassettes have made their way into Iraq, along with Christian comic books, coloring books, and other materials to evangelize Iraqi children.

Fulfilling the Great Commission, at any cost, is the primary goal of both civilian mission organizations and many of our military personnel. It is also the goal of groups like CCC’s Military Ministry, who have decided that the way to reach the world is to use the military to do it. CCC’s Military Ministry has six “strategic objectives.” The first is to “Evangelize and Disciple Enlisted Members of the US Military;” the sixth is to “Change Continents for Christ. Transform nations of world through the militaries of world. Train, Equip, and Partner with indigenous leaders to establish strategic sending platforms in each region of world.”

According to CCC:

“Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways. The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the ‘good news.’ We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals.”

As Maj. Gen. Bob Dees, U.S. Army (ret.), the Executive Director of CCC’s Military Ministry, explained in the October 2005 issue of the organization’s “Life and Leadership” newsletter, “Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens./p>

In addition to their “gateway ministries,” targeting enlisted trainees, CCC has ministries to target future officers at the military academies and in ROTC. In a promotional video filmed at the Air Force Academy, Scott Blom, CCC’s director there at the time, explained their mission:

“Our purpose for Campus Crusade at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world. …We’re seeing kids come to Christ, being built up in their faith, and being sent out to reach the world. They’re government-paid missionaries when they leave here.”

None of CCC’s goals, however, could be accomplished without the military chaplains and commanders who allow the organization onto their installations. But, this doesn’t seem to be a problem. There’s no shortage of officers who share CCC’s goals. The Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), whose mission is to “Create a spiritually transformed U.S. military, with Ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit,” endorses CCC’s Military Ministry. OCF consists of over 14,000 officers, with chapters on virtually every U.S. military installation worldwide.

OCF membership reaches into the highest ranks of our military. The organization’s current president, Maj. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, Jr. was just named Commanding General of the 25th Infantry Division. Caslen also appeared in uniform at the Pentagon in a promotional video for CCC’s Christian Embassy, in which he states, referring to the group’s Flag Officers’ Fellowship, “we’re the aroma of Jesus Christ.” The current Secretary of the Army, Preston M. “Pete” Geren, also appeared in this CCC video. A past president of the OCF is LTG Robert L. Van Antwerp, Jr., who recently became the Commanding General of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Is it any wonder that the rampant evangelizing of Iraqis is not only being condoned, but aided and participated in by our military?

Mikey Weinstein, a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, former JAG, a former White House counsel under President Reagan, and former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, sums it up in a nutshell: “The United States armed forces have unconstitutionally and inextricably intertwined and interbred their already dubious Iraqi mission with virulently fundamentalist Christian missionary organizations and defense contractors to create a pervasive and pernicious cabal, a fundamentalist Christian ‘Military-Parachurch-Industrial Proselytizing Complex’ as it were. It constitutes nothing less than a seething internal national security threat to our country, every bit as formidable as the external national security threat confronting us from a resurgent Taliban and an al Qaida that is at LEAST as strong as it was on 9-11.”

Here are a few examples recently discovered by MRFF.

Chief Warrant Officer Rene Llanos of the 101st Airborne Division, referring to a special military edition of a Bible study daily devotional published and donated by Bible Pathways Ministries, told Mission Network News that “the soldiers who are patrolling and walking the streets are taking along this copy, and they’re using it to minister to the local residents,” and that his “division is also getting ready to head toward Afghanistan, so there will be copies heading out with the soldiers.” And, like the many civilian missionaries who see the U.S. occupation of Iraq as a window of opportunity to evangelize the Iraqi people, Chief Warrant Officer Llanos continued, “The soldiers are being placed in strategic places with a purpose. They’re continuing to spread the Word.”

The Bible Pathways Ministries book, although not printed in Arabic, presents another problem. It has the official military branch logos on its cover, giving the impression that it is sanctioned by the Pentagon. While these logos are frequently used without permission, and may have been on this particular book, the Iraqis don’t know that. And, there are also Bibles sporting the official military logos with the permission of the Pentagon, designed by the Pentagon chaplains. The stupidity of this needs no explanation.

In the Spring 2004 issue of “Gatherings,” the newsletter of the International Ministerial Fellowship (IMF), Army Chaplain Capt. Steve Mickel spewed the same lie as the civilian mission organizations — that the Iraqis are begging to hear about Jesus. As the Fallujah residents and clerics made quite clear in their reaction to the Bible verse coins, this is simply not the case. Even the Iraqi Christians are opposed to the American evangelizing efforts.

According to Chaplain Mickel, who was doing his evangelizing while passing out food in the predominantly Sunni village of Ad Dawr, “I am able to give them tracts on how to be saved, printed in Arabic. I wish I had enough Arabic Bibles to give them as well. The issue of mailing Arabic Bibles into Iraq from the U.S. is difficult (given the current postal regulations prohibiting all religious materials contrary to Islam except for personal use of the soldiers). But the hunger for the Word of God in Iraq is very great, as I have witnessed first-hand.”

Joe Phoenix, founder of Phoenix Mission of Mercy, works for DynCorp International, a contractor with a $1.2 billion DoD contract to train Iraqi police officers. Phoenix has launched a number of ministries in Iraq, and says of his team of DynCorp “American Highway Patrol Advisors,” each of which is assigned a military counterpart, “Each member is a Christian and has strong ministry ties with their Church back home. We as a team see to it that each ministry need is fulfilled and support them one hundred percent. Without our team of American Highway Patrol Advisors these ministries would cease to exist.”

While none of this has been reported by the American media, it has by the media in other countries. A nine minute report from the German TV news magazine “Panorama,” which can be viewed here, reveals what’s really going on, focusing on two organizations, The Voice of the Martyrs and the Southern Baptist Convention.

When asked in this report if his organization’s activities can lead to people dying, Todd Nettleton, Director of Media Development for The Voice of the Martyrs, responds:

“Our activities can lead to people dying, and we understand that…but, the reality is an eternity with Christ in heaven is so far better than an eternity in hell that it is a good deal. It’s a good decision, even if it results in physical punishment here on earth.”

The Great Commission must be fulfilled — at any cost.