Pastor Terry Jones in March 2011

Burning the holy books which are interconnected with the hearts and souls of millions of people around the world is one of the most heinous and dreadful actions which one can think of. After decades of bloodshed and bigotry in the two World Wars, Civil War in the United States and Crusades against Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries, burning the holy books can be interpreted as a new form of barbarity and ignorance in the modern era and an unforgivable crime which can be justified by no standards whatsoever.

Over the past decade, several cases of desecrating the holy book of Muslims, Quran, have been reported that incited the hatred and frustration of millions of Muslims and non-Muslims in the four corner of the globe.

In July 2010, an extremist Christian pastor Terry Jones gained widespread public attention when he announced that he would be burning copies of the Holy Quran on the anniversary of September 11 attacks for the alleged excuse that they were the Muslims who spearheaded the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and that Islam promotes violence and aggression. Of course such a terrible idea can be only issued by someone who suffers from an inferiority complex and yearns for attracting people’s attention. Taking a glance at the background of Terry Jones and what his former colleagues say about him, one can effortlessly figure out that the Christian pastor has always had an ambivalent personality and an air of self-importance which has made him an arrogant and supercilious man. After receiving an honorary degree from an unaccredited theology school in 1983 when he was 32, he began referring to himself as “Doctor” for which he was ultimately found guilty and condemned by a German administrative court.

Jones moved to Germany in 1981 and established a small church in Cologne named Christian Community of Cologne. As reported by the German publication “Der Spiegel,” the congregation fired him after a while, accusing him of spreading a “climate of fear and control” in the church. His colleagues say that he preached the congregants to beat their children with “rods” and also consumed the church funds for personal, improper purposes. What can be inferred from his biography is that the traces of sanity and reason can be barely found in his behavior and disposition.

In July 2010, he made the headlines by announcing his devilish plan for burning the copies of Holy Quran on an “International Burn a Quran Day.” Several heads of states, politicians, academicians, peace activists and journalists condemned his plan, and although he initially retreated from his decision, he finally set ablaze copies of the holy book of Muslims in Dove World Outreach Center’ss sanctuary on March 20, 2011.

Surprisingly, the Western politicians refused to express disapproval of this shocking venture and only stated that Terry Jones should cancel his plan simply because the lives of multinational forces in Iraq and Afghanistan might be endangered. Actually, the Western statesmen credulously overlooked the immoral and decadent nature of this action or simply refused to practice what they always preach: religious tolerance and diversity. Of course they would have no response to give if asked about the veracity of their claims of being supportive to religious freedom and tolerance. They offended and disappointed millions of Muslims with their silence and demonstrated that they have no respect for the beliefs of those who want to live alongside them in peace.

But the Quran burning controversy of 2011 did not mark an end to the adventurous ploys of Pastor Jones. The newspapers and TV stations across the world reported last week that Terry Jones once again burned copies of the Holy Quran and a portrait depicting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on Saturday, April 28 in what was claimed as his protest to the detainment of a so-called Christian clergyman in Iran.

Before committing this obscene act, Pentagon had urged Jones not to burn the Holy Quran for the sake of the security of Americans in uniform, but no other statement was released by Obama administration to prevent the insane pastor from doing such a crime. Gainesville Sun reported on April 29 that the Quran burning plan was attended by a number of local residents and was broadcast live on internet. Even a group of police officers patrolled around the church premises and provided security for the ceremony. The region’s fire department chief also said that Jones had received proper authorizations for burning certain materials on April 28, but it was not specified what the materials were.

Although the high-ranking officials of Islamic countries, including the Iranian statesmen condemned the renewed venture of burning the Holy Quran in strongest terms, the U.S. and European officials turned a blind eye to the blasphemy, tacitly endorsing the radical pastor.

However, what is clear is that Jones is certainly looking for national and international attention. He has established a campaign for the 2012 presidential elections and even created a website for his campaign with the slogan “Real America, Real Hope.” In this website, Jones has claimed that he is standing up to speak for “truth” and confront “Islamic radicalism.” This is unquestionably a testimony to his lunacy and provides evidence for the fact that this mad man has no clear ideology or worldview. If he is a real Christian pastor, then can he justify that insulting the holy book of a major religion is in compliance with the teaching of Christianity?

Different Christian institutions, including the World Evangelical Alliance have strongly condemned Terry Jones and asked the U.S. government to take action against him. An Islamic movement in Pakistan has called for the execution of Terry Jones; however, it seems that the Obama administration and the Israeli-dominated Congress are so coward and pitiable that they will get along with the appalling enterprise that has come out of their country.

Of course, it should not be neglected that Yusef Naderkhani, the so-called pastor who is in jail in Iran is not detained on charges of changing his religion or advocating Christianity. He is charged with sexual abuse and robbery and no death penalty, as the U.S. mainstream media pretend, has been issued for him. The problem of Terry Jones and people like him with Islam and its teaching is that Islam unveils the true evil nature of imperialism and this is something which the U.S. politicians and their stooges such as the pastor of a tiny church in Florida cannot tolerate.

Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist and writer and a member of World Student Community for Sustainable Development.

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.

This story was originally published on Truthout and written by TPR’s Editor-at-Large and Truthout’s Deputy Managing Editor, Jason Leopold.

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration’s torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a “higher power” in order to be deemed “spiritually fit” to serve in the Army.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million “holistic fitness program” unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish its goal by teaching its service members how to be psychologically resilient and resist “catastrophizing” traumatic events. Defense Department documents obtained by Truthout state CSF is Army Chief of Staff George Casey’s “third highest priority.”

CSF is comprised of the Soldier Fitness Tracker and Global Assessment Tool, which measures soldiers’ “resilience” in five core areas: emotional, physical, family, social and spiritual. Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far and more than 100,000 soldiers have participated in the remedial training.

But for the thousands of “Foxhole Atheists” like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to “train” soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.

Griffith, who is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, took the test last month and scored well on the emotional, family and social components. But after completing the spiritual portion of the exam, which required him to respond to statements such as, “I am a spiritual person, my life has lasting meaning, I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all humanity and all the world, ” he was found to be spiritually unfit because he responded by choosing the “not like me at all” box.

His test results advised him, “spiritual fitness” is an area “of possible difficulty for you.”

“You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life,” Griffith’s test said. “At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles and values. There are things to do to provide more meaning and purpose in your life. Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”

In an interview, Griffith, who was not speaking on behalf of the Army, said he was “deeply offended” by the spiritual questions he was forced to answer.

“It seems like my destiny is all messed up and that I am unfit to serve in the United States Army, if you believe the results of this test,” said Griffith, who has served in the Army for five years. “When I think of the word spirituality I go to the root of the word: spirit. I don’t believe in that.”

Lt. Greg Bowling agreed, acccording to a comment he posted on an official Army website last April,  that the test “asks rather intrusive questions about soldiers’ spirituality – coming perilously close to violating the 1st Amendment.”

“There was no option to avoid the questions, leaving our atheist soldiers to wonder if their beliefs are tolerated in today’s increasingly religious Army,” he said.

According to a copy of the test, the Army maintains that the “spiritual dimension questions … pertain to the domain of the human spirit: they are not ‘religious’ in nature. The Comprehensive Fitness Program defines spiritual fitness as strengthening a set of beliefs, principles, or values that sustain a person beyond family, institutional and societal sources of support.”

Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, a nurtritionist and urologist who directs the CSF program, has said, “The spiritual strength domain is not related to religiosity, at least not in terms of how we measure it.”

“It measures a person’s core values and beliefs concerning their meaning and purpose in life,” she said. “It’s not religious, although a person’s religion can still affect those things. Spiritual training is entirely optional, unlike the other domains. Every time you say the S-P-I-R word you’re going to get sued. So that part is not mandatory. The assessment is mandatory though and junior soldiers will be required to take exercises to strengthen their other four domains.”

But despite the verbal gymnastics Cornum, who was captured by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf War, seems to engage in over the meaning of “spiritual” and “religious,” it has been established that the spiritual component of CSF is deeply rooted in religious doctrine.

A press release issued by Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in January 2010 said renowned “Psychology of Religion” expert Dr. Kenneth Pargament was tapped to develop the spiritual portion of the test in consultation with Army chaplains, BGSU ROTC cadets, graduate students and officials at West Point.

Cornum’s claims that soldiers are not required to participate in remedial training if they score poorly on the spiritual portion of the test were not articulated to Griffith and other soldiers, who told Truthout they feared they would be disciplined by their superior officers if they didn’t act on the recommendations they received after taking the exam. In fact, nowhere on the test does it state that such training is voluntary.

Moreover, Cornum’s attempts to replace the word “religious” with “spiritual” as a way to avoid a lawsuit was not lost on one civil rights organization.

Last week, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) sent a letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh and General Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, demanding that the Army immediately cease and desist administering the “spiritual” portion of the CSF test. (Full disclosure: MRFF founder and President, Mikey Weinstein, is a member of Truthout’s board of advisers.)

“The purpose of the [spiritual component of the test] though couched in general and vague language, is to strengthen a solder’s religious conviction,” says the December 30, 2010, letter signed by Caroline Mitchell, an attorney with the law firm Jones Day, who is representing MRFF. “Soldiers who hold deep religious convictions routinely pass the spirituality component of this test while atheists and nontheists do not. The Army cannot avoid the conclusion that this test is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by simply substituting the word ‘spiritual’ for ‘religious.’”

“The majority of the spiritual statements soldiers are asked to rate are rooted in religious doctrine, premised on a common dogmatic belief regarding the meaning of life and the interconnectedness of living beings,” the letter further states. “The statements in the tests and remedial materials repeatedly promote the importance of being a believer of something over electing to be a nonbeliever. Moreover, the images that accompany portions of the CSF Training Modules make clear the religious aspects of the spirituality training.”

Mitchell says the Establishment Clause of the Constitution prohibits such religious testing.

“And it’s not just the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment which is being blatantly violated here,” Weinstein said. “Clause 3 of Article 6 of the body of our nation’s Constitution specifically prohibits any type of ‘religious test’ being used in connection with any government service. Thus, this ‘spirituality’ portion of the Army’s CSF test completely savages this bedrock Constitutional prohibition.”

Weinstein said MRFF currently represents more than 200 Army soldiers who are “vehemently objecting to this clearly transparent ‘religious test’, the majority of them practicing Christians themselves.”

He said he does not expect the Army to stop administering the spirituality portion of the test. Weinstein and his legal team intend to pursue legal remedies if they are rebuffed, he said.

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation has also sent a letter to McHugh calling on the Army to stop assessing soldiers’ spiritual fitness.

Additionally, Jones Day filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last week on behalf of Griffith and MRFF, seeking a wide range of documents related to the development of the spiritual portion of CSF. Truthout is also a party to the FOIA request.

A Defense Department spokesperson did not return calls or emails for comment.

“Dr. Happy”

CSF is based entirely on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, a member of the Defense Health Board, a federal advisory committee to the secretary of defense, and chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, who the Army calls “Dr. Happy.”

Seligman, who once told a colleague that psychologists can rise to the level of a “rock star” and “have fame and money,” is the author of “Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.” The Penn Resiliency Program, upon which the Army’s CSF is based, “teaches cognitive-behavioral and social problem-solving skills and is based in part on cognitive-behavioral theories of depression by Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis” and Seligman.

Despite his “happy” reputation, in some circles, Seligman is best known for developing the theory of “Learned Helplessness” at the University of Pennsylvania more than four decades ago. As psychologist and torture expert Dr. Jeffrey Kaye noted in a report published in Truthout last year, Seligman and psychologist Dr. Steven Maier developed the concept of Learned Helplessness after they “exposed dogs to a situation where they were faced with inescapable electrical shocks.”

“Within a short period of time, the dogs could not be induced to escape the situation, even when provided with a previously taught escape route,” Kaye wrote. “Drs. Seligman and Maier theorized that the dogs had ‘learned’ their condition was helpless. The experimental model was extended to a human model for the induction of clinical depression and other psychological conditions.”

Seligman’s work in this area influenced psychologists under contract to the CIA and Defense Department, who applied the theory to “war on terror” detainees in custody of the US government, according to a report published in 2009 by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In May of 2002, the timeframe in which the CIA began to use brutal torture techniques against several high-value detainees, Seligman gave a three-hour lecture at the Navy’s Survival Evasion Resistance Escape school in San Diego. Audience members included the two psychologists – Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell – who have been called the architects of the Bush administration’s torture program.

Five months earlier, Seligman hosted a meeting at his house that was attended by Mitchell, along with the CIA’s then-Director of Behavioral Science Research, Kirk Hubbard, and at least one “Israeli intelligence person.” Seligman claims he was totally unaware his theory on Learned Helplessness was being used against detainees after 9/11 and denied ever engaging in discussions about the torture program with Mitchell, Jessen, or any other Bush administration official.

“Learned Optimism”

Seligman, a past president of the American Psychological Association (APA), began consulting with General Casey in September 2008 about applying the research he and his colleagues have conducted over the past decade to the benefits of his theories on “Learned Optimism” to all of the Army’s active-duty soldiers. Seligman then met with Cornum in December 2008 to discuss creating the foundation for CSF as a way to decrease PTSD.

“Psychology has given us this whole language of pathology, so that a soldier in tears after seeing someone killed thinks, ‘Something’s wrong with me; I have post-traumatic stress,’ or PTSD,” Seligman said in August 2009. “The idea here is to give people a new vocabulary, to speak in terms of resilience. Most people who experience trauma don’t end up with PTSD; many experience post-traumatic growth.”

According to a report published in December 2009 in the APA Monitor, Seligman believes that positive thinking methods taught to schoolchildren who “were [conditioned] to think more realistically and flexibly about the problems they encounter every day” can also be taught to Army soldiers and the results will be the same.

Seligman said he is basing his theory on a series of 19 studies he conducted, which found that teachers who “emphasized the importance of slowing the problem-solving process down by helping students identify their goals, gather information and develop several possible ways to achieve those goals,” increased students’ optimism levels over the course of two years “and their risk for depression was cut in half.”

But unlike studies conducted on schoolchildren, there is no research that exists that shows applying those same conditioning methods to the Army’s active-duty soldiers will reduce PTSD. Seligman, however, seems to be aware that is the case. That may explain why he has referred to Army soldiers as his personal guinea pigs.

“This is the largest study – 1.1 million soldiers – psychology has ever been involved in and it will yield definitive data about whether or not [resiliency and psychological fitness training] works,” Seligman said about the CSF program.

“We’re after creating an indomitable Army,” Seligman said.

Positive Psychology’s Critics

While positive psychology, a term coined by Seligman, has its supporters who swear by its benefits, the movement also has its fair share of critics. Bryant Welch, who was the first executive director for professional practice of the APA, said, “personally, I have not been able to find a meaningful distinction between [positive psychology] and Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking. Both emphasize substituting positive thoughts for unhappy or negative ones.”

“And yet the US military has bought into this untested notion to the tune of [$125] million,” Welch said. “This money, of course, could have been used to provide real mental health care to our troops. Instead, it is being used to tell military personnel that they can (and, thus, presumably should) overcome whatever happens to them on the battlefield with the dubious tools of Positive Psychology.”

PTSD “is is not a mental state that can be treated by suggesting to the patient that he or she simply re-frame how they think about the situation, as Dr. Seligman suggests,” Welch added.

Other notable critics include authors Chris Hedges and Barbara Ehrenreich, both of who say the practice has thrived in the corporate world where the refusal to consider negative outcomes resulted in the current economic crisis.

Hedges, author of the book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,” wrote, “positive psychology, which claims to be able to engineer happiness and provides the psychological tools for enforcing corporate conformity, is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis.”

“Positive psychology is a quack science that throws a smoke screen over corporate domination, abuse and greed,” Hedges said. “Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. Their attitudes need correction.”

Hedges added that “academics who preach [the benefits of positive psychology] are awash in corporate grants.”

Indeed, Seligman’s CV shows he has received tens of millions of dollars in foundation cash to conduct positive psychology research.

According to a report published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “People credit a large part of positive psychology’s success to the solid reputations of the field’s leaders – and Seligman’s ability to get science-supporting agencies interested.”

“The National Institute of Mental Health has given more than $226-million in grants to positive-psychology researchers in the past 10 years, beginning with just under $4-million in 1999 and reaching more than nine times that amount in 2008,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Seligman has equated his work for the Army to assisting the “second largest corporation in the world.”

Multimillion-Dollar Contract

Seligman’s biggest payday came last year, when the Positive Psychology Center received a three-year, $31 million, no-bid, sole-source Army contract to continue developing the program.

According to Defense Department documents, “the contract action was accomplished using other than competitive procedure because there is only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirement[s]. Services can only be provided from the original source as this is a follow-on requirement for the continued provision of highly specialized services.”

In 2009, several months after receiving the green light from Casey to develop the CSF program, the Army paid Seligman’s Positive Psychology Center $1 million to begin training hundreds of drill sergeants to become Master Resilience Trainers (MRTs), “certified experts who will advise commanders in the field and design and facilitate unit-level resilience training across the Army.”

More than 2,000 MRTs have been trained since CSF was rolled out in October 2009. The Army intends to certify thousands more MRTs.

The Defense Department’s justification for the no-bid contract said Seligman’s program “possesses unique capabilities, in that, [it is] the only established, broadly effective, evidence-based, train the trainer program currently available which meets the Army’s minimum needs.”

Seligman’s program was “explicitly designed to train trainers (teachers) in how to impart resiliency and whole life fitness skills to others (their students),” the contracting documents state. “Other existent programs are designed to simply teach resiliency directly to participants. The long-term outcomes of [Seligman's program] have been examined in over 15 well documented studies.”

“Without the Army’s Resiliency Master Trainer Program [as taught by Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania] the exacerbated effects of multiple wars and other stressors result in a weakened corps and this directly impacts the Army’s readiness and ultimately compromises the national security of our nation … This program is vitally important to our forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The contracting documents go on to say that “market research … mostly through a thorough web search and networking with subject matter experts both within the Army, across services and in [academia] into other “positive psychology” programs was conducted between August and October 2008 before the Army decided to award the contract to Seligman because his program met the Army’s immediate needs.

Cornum said in July 2009 that similar resiliency tests used by the University of Pennsylvania for the general public would be “militarized” by the Army.

A Difficult Challenge

But according to Griffith, the atheist Army sergeant, the Army did not do enough to remove the religious connotatitions from the spiritual section of the test.

Even Seligman’s colleagues acknowledge that attempting to separate spirituality from religion is a challenge.

“Mapping the conceptual distinctions between what we refer to as ‘religion’ and what we refer to as ‘spirituality’ can be difficult,” wrote Ben Dean in an article published on the University of Pennsylvania’s Authentic Happiness web site.

Griffith said there’s a simple solution: “Scrap [the] spiritual aspect altogether.”

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.

R. Randolph "Randy" Brinson, MD

An associate of Alabama Governor Bob Riley threatened a Christian Coalition leader over gambling issues, according to a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court in May 2007.

Dr. Randy Brinson, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, states in the lawsuit that he supported a bill in the Alabama House of Representatives that would tax and regulate gambling and help fund Medicaid. Brinson’s support for the bill, sponsored by Rep. Marcel Black (D-Tuscumbia), drew heavy fire from Riley allies.

The most alarming fire came from Dax Swatek, who was Riley’s campaign manager in 2006. The lawsuit says Swatek had become a lobbyist for Jones Group LLC, a Montgomery-based public affairs consultant registered to lobby on behalf of Greenetrack Inc., an Alabama gaming facility, among others.

Swatek apparently was more than happy to take money from gambling interests. But he must not have liked the bill that Brinson supported. The lawsuit states:

Not only have negative comments been made about Brinson and the Coalition in the news media, Brinson recently received a personal threat from Dax Swatek during a phone conversation after the April 10, 2007, press conference held by Rep. Marcel Black concerning HB 527. In the conversation Swatek told Brinson he’d “better back off,” and said it in a threatening manner sufficient to alarm Brinson. As Swatek represents a powerful gambling interest with an enormous interest in controlling the state’s gambling laws, Brinson has taken Swatek’s threat seriously.

Brinson and the Christian Coalition filed the lawsuit against Swatek, John Giles, and a number of other parties, claiming the defendants unlawfully seized the organization’s Web site and member lists and interfered with its business relations.

Giles was chairman of the Christian Coalition of Alabama for about eight years until he was forced to resign in August 2006. Swinson became the new chairman, and Giles went on to form a group called Christian Action Alabama.

Under Giles’ leadership, the Christian Coalition of Alabama was steadfastly opposed to gambling. But the lawsuit notes that a 2005 Boston Globe article quotes conservative leader Grover Norquist saying that his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, gave $850,000 to the Alabama Christian Coalition, and the money came from an Indian casino in Mississippi.

The lawsuit goes on to note Bob Riley’s connections to gambling interests in Las Vegas and Mississippi–and to the money laundering operation of GOP felon Jack Abramoff.

The two sides evidently reached a quick settlement, and the lawsuit was dismissed roughly one month after it was filed. But the 20-page document offers a fascinating look at the seamy intersection between Republican Party politics, religion-based organizations, big-money gaming interests, and criminal enterprises.

We will be examining the lawsuit closely because it speaks volumes about the political climate in Alabama and other conservative strongholds.

Regular readers know that Dax Swatek is a major player in my personal story, largely because his father, Pelham attorney William E. Swatek, filed the bogus lawsuit that started my legal headaches. Evidence strongly suggests that the Swateks, or someone else with close ties to Riley, played a major role in my unlawful termination at UAB. And evidence also suggests they might have played a role in my wife’s unlawful termination at Infinity Property & Casualty.

A number of sources have told me that the Riley crowd is famous for such skulduggery. You can rest assured that will be a major line of inquiry when my wife and I file lawsuits against the entities and individuals who cheated us out of our jobs.

Here is one of many posts I’ve written that says a lot about the Swateks longstanding connections to sleaze. And we have addressed before the Riley crowd’s tendency to threaten those they see as opponents.

Consider this from a post I wrote last November:

I’ve called the GOP tactics financial terrorism. And I’ve experienced them personally. I’ve received more threatening anonymous comments on my blog than I can count. And they have not been idle threats.

After a February 2008 post about connections between U.S. Attorney Alice Martin and Alabama GOP political consultant Dax Swatek, we received an anonymous comment: “Nut case, yours is comong (sic).”

After an April 2008 post, we received an anonymous comment claiming that I was blogging at work, and my employer, UAB, needed to be notified. On the date in question, I was taking a vacation day, so I was not blogging at work–then or any other time.

Roughly a month later, I was fired at UAB, after 19 years on the job, amid vague allegations that I was blogging at work. For the record, UAB’s own IT expert testified at my grievance hearing that those allegations were not true. But did someone with GOP political ties get in the ears of UAB leaders and pressure them to unlawfully fire me? Sure looks that way. And evidence suggests it was all because I was writing a blog that was critical of the Bush Justice Department and it’s handling of various political prosecutions, including the Siegelman case.

Isn’t it interesting to learn now that Dax Swatek resorted to issuing threats against Randy Brinson and the Christian Coalition? And how do people like Dax Swatek and Bob Riley reconcile such threats with their efforts to garner the support of Christian voters.

“You’d better back off”? That sounds like mighty fine Christian language doesn’t it. But that’s how Bob Riley’s henchmen talk–and that’s how they act.

The Brinson lawsuit is perhaps the most insightful document we’ve seen about the Republican Party’s depravity during the eight-year reign of terror under George W. Bush. And GOP immorality continues to reign, partly because the Obama Department of Justice refuses to expose it.

Legal Schnauzer, however, is not afraid to expose it. We will be publishing the entire lawsuit and examining its contents closely.

This story was originally published on Mr. Shuler’s blog, Legal Schnauzer.

Roger Shuler, a regular contributor to The Public Record, resides in Birmingham, Alabama. A 1978 graduate of the University of Missouri, Shuler worked 11 years as a reporter and editor for the Birmingham Post-Herald before working 19 years in several editorial positions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He blogs at Legal Schnauzer.

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.

Klingenschmitt, who now runs a Colorado Spings-based nonprofit, “The Pray in Jesus Name Project,” is also fond of boasting to his right-wing extremist followers that he demanded his own court martial because his superior officers prohibited him from praying in the name of Jesus.

But those claims are flat-out lies.

He was actually charged with disobeying an order and kicked out of the Navy for attending a political rally in front of the White House in March 2006 dressed in his Navy uniform, a violation of military regulations. Dozens of media reports over the years have since debunked Klingenschmitt’s dishonest statements  about the nature of his court-martial.

Furthermore, what makes Klingenschmitt’s claims of religious persecution so unbelievable is the fact that there have been dozens of examples where controversial, apocalyptic “End Times” evangelists like Klingenschmitt have force-fed their brand of fundamentalist Christianity down the throats of thousands of active-duty military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq–in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution–and the Department of Defense has turned a blind eye to the offenses, despite a mountain of complaints from the battlefield.

Perhaps the tallest tale Klingenschmitt has told his rabid right-wing following is the one in which he claims to have sacrificed a seven-figure pension in the name of Jesus.

That assertion is contradicted by an e-mail he sent in October 2006 to the Vice Adm. John Harvey, Jr., Chief of Naval Personnel stating that he would offer his “voluntary resignation or retirement,

Please click on this image to read the contents of Gordon Klingenchmitt's e-mail

and drop all complaints of reprisal/harassment, and waive all rights to future legal complaints against the Navy, if I were offered adequate compensation for my many years of service to our nation.”

His e-mail, obtained by The Public Record, made other veiled threats in an effort to get the Navy to pay him off in exchange for his silence.

For example, Klingenschmitt, who refused to comment for this story, threatened to turn over “documents,” supposedly backing his claims that he was being persecuted for praying in Jesus’ name, to Congress if his case was “unresolved.”

“Perhaps you’ve also noticed, both the Senate and House have scheduled hearings in January on this chaplain issue, and as their key whistleblower I’m sure they’ll be interested in my attached documents, should my complaint of new reprisals by [Chief of Naval Personnel] remain unresolved. Sir, I look forward to meeting you on Capitol Hill.”

In June of 2006, Klingenschmitt submitted a whistleblower complaint with members of Congress in which he accused naval officials of constitutional violations for prohibiting  him from praying in the name of Jesus, which an 18-month investigation conducted by Navy officials concluded was “without merit.”

The “documents” Klingenschmitt cited in his e-mail to Vice Adm. Harvey were two newspaper articles, one from the Washington Post and the other from the Washington Times. It’s difficult to understand how Klingenschmitt would have believed these articles supported his cause.

The Washington Post report, published in September 2006, was headlined: “Navy Chaplain Guilty of Disobeying an Order.” The Washington Times article appears to be one written by an Associated Press reporter the newspaper carried on Sept. 12, 2006, headlined: “Navy chaplain faces court-martial for wearing uniform at protest.”

Other documents Klingenschmitt threatened to turn over to Congress included a petition, or something similar, that supposedly showed he was supported by “30 million evangelicals” and a “conference report ordering the [Secretary of the Navy] to rescind [non-sectarian prayer] policy.”

The Navy declined to settle with Klingenschmitt in exchange for his offer to drop his complaint.

Klingenschmitt’s e-mail was written less than a month after a Navy court found him guilty of disobeying an direct order not to wear his Navy uniform to a March 30, 2006 political rally in front of the White House. He was also issued a letter of reprimand.

Klingenschmitt appeared at the White House rally alongside former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, another right-wing religious zealot, who waged an unsuccessful campaign to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments at the state courthouse.

Kligenschmitt, who was an Air Force officer for 11 years prior to becoming a Navy chaplain in 2002, had also worked closely with Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and other members of Congress, in lobbying the Bush administration to sign an executive order authorizing military chaplains to pray “in the name of Jesus.” That effort also proved to be futile.

In closing arguments of Klingenschmitt’s court-martial, where Moore testified on Klingenschmitt’s behalf, Cmdr. Rex A. Guinn told jurors that the case was not about praying in Jesus’ name, rather it was “about an experienced military officer receiving a clear order to not do something.”

Klingenschmitt’s attempts to appeal the guilty verdict were denied.

Further undercutting Klingenschmitt’s claim that he sacrificed his naval career in the name of Jesus is an e-mail Vice Adm. Harvey sent to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen urging him to approve Klingenschmitt’s “involuntary release” from the Navy due to Klingenschmitt’s “lack of career potential.”

The e-mail was sent to Mullen a week before Klingenschmitt’s appearance at the rally. It noted that Klingenschmitt was insubordinate in his campaign to overturn longstanding military religious policies.

“This officer is the individual who conducted a hunger strike in front of the White House several months ago and has engaged in other actions concerning [Defense Department] and Navy Religious Ministry policies,” the e-mail said.

In February 2007, following his court-martial, Klingenschmitt sent a lengthy screed to Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter in which he came across as highly unstable and unwilling to accept the fact that he was denied his pension–hardly the voluntary gesture of a chaplain who said he sacrificed his livelihood for Jesus. His letter accused Navy officials of “raping” him because he filed a whistleblower complaint alleging his civil rights were violated.

Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), said the disgraced chaplain’s Oct. 6, 2006 e-mail to Vice Adm. Harvey requesting a cash settlement in exchange for dropping his complaints shows that Klingenschmitt is nothing more than a modern day “Judas Iscariot.”

“In my opinion, the shocking revelation of this blatantly extortionate demand letter for payoff money from Klingenschmitt to senior U.S. Navy leadership paints a crystal clear picture for all the world to see,” Weinstein said in an e-mail message. “That shamefully irrefutable picture is none other than one of a morbidly hypocritical, 21st Century, Judas Iscariot lustfully eager to betray his boundlessly self-professed piety, proselytizing ministry and missionary zeal for Jesus ‘for the right price’ to be paid to him by the United States Navy.

“However, whereas the original Judas allegedly managed to get paid his 30 pieces of blood money silver for the betrayal of Jesus, the U.S. Navy apparently made it unquestionably clear to Iscariot’s 21st Century clone, Klingenschmitt, that they would NOT pay him and he could in the alternative, essentially, simply go to hell. Indeed, any remaining molecules of good faith credibility Klingenschmitt may have had would now seem to be as extinct as the dinosaurs.”

In April, MRFF and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) sent a letter to naval officials calling for an investigation into Klingenschmitt for continuing to represent himself as an active-duty Navy chaplain.

On his website, Klingenschmitt, who was trying to raise funds for his new endeavor when MRFF and AU lodged their complaint, posted a photograph of himself dressed in his Navy uniform and referred to himself as “Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt.” Federal law prohibits the misuse of military uniforms.

Klingenschmitt then posted a lengthy disclaimer and referred to Weinstein and Americans United executive director Rev. Barry Lynn as “boneheads.”

“The views of former Navy Chaplain Klingenschmitt do not represent the views of the U.S. Navy. The picture of Chaplain Klingenschmitt in uniform is a picture of his former self, taken while he was serving on active duty, therefore he was not impersonating an officer, he actually WAS an officer when the photo was taken (Duh).”

In May, Klingenschmitt urged his followers to pray for the death of Weinstein and Lynn.

“Let us pray. Almighty God, today we pray imprecatory prayers from Psalm 109 against the enemies of religious liberty, including Barry Lynn and Mikey Weinstein, who issued press releases this week attacking me personally. God, do not remain silent, for wicked men surround us and tell lies about us. We bless them, but they curse us. Therefore find them guilty, not me. Let their days be few, and replace them with Godly people. Plunder their fields, and seize their assets. Cut off their descendants, and remember their sins, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Since he was kicked out of the Navy, Klingenschmitt has made a career out of twisting the true facts of his story and has cast himself as a martyr in the process. His followers have overlooked his long list of lies and half-truths. But former colleagues have routinely called him out.

As reported by AU, Norm Holcomb, a retired Navy chaplain who was Klingenschmitt’s boss, sent an e-mail in March 2007 to Kentucky state officials after he discovered the House of Representatives passed a resolution lauding the disgraced Navy chaplain for “service to God, country and the Commonwealth of Kentucky” and invited him to lead a prayer session.

“I was the dishonored ex-chaplain’s supervisor for the past 2 years,” Holcomb wrote in his message. “I found him to be totally untruthful, unethical and insubordinate. He was and is contemptuous of all authority. He was not court-martialed for praying in Jesus’ name. I sent him out in uniform every week to pray at various ceremonies and functions. He always prayed in uniform and in Jesus’ name.

“He was never told that he could not pray in Jesus’ name. In fact, the issue of prayer had nothing at all to do with his dismissal from the Navy. He disobeyed the lawful order of a senior officer. I am sure that you understand that Navy Regulations forbid any of us, regardless of rank or position, to appear in uniform in support of any political or partisan event.

“We have been relatively quiet regarding our ex-chaplain’s untruthfulness and lack of honor because we are embarrassed that one of our own could display such behavior in the name of our Lord. We wanted to spare all concerned the embarrassment associated with his dishonesty. However, it now seems that it would be wrong for those of us who know the truth to remain silent. I served with him and supervised him (as best as it was possible to supervise a person who refused to submit to lawful authority) and I know about his daily dishonesty and ‘spin’ of the truth.”

The Muslim Public Affairs Council has joined other nonprofit organizations in urging Obama to follow up on his commitment to work with Muslim Americans to revise charitable giving rules.

In a letter to the president, the organizations said, “We are seeking a meeting with you and the appropriate representatives of your administration to provide background information on how current national security rules create problems for all U.S. charities and to provide recommendations for change.”

It outlined a set of principles for new rules governing charitable giving and operations, and said government policy “must address systemic problems.”

The government, it said, should “provide clear standards for permissible charitable and development activity that are consistent with long-standing norms for humanitarian operations,” such as the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Disaster Relief.

It must provide a fair opportunity for charities accused of supporting terrorism to defend themselves; protect charitable assets from indefinite freezing and allow these resources to further the charitable mission donors intended to support; and withdraw the Treasury Department’s Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: Voluntary Best Practices for U.S.-based Charities.”

For Muslims, charitable giving is a religiously-mandated obligation known as “zakat.”

The “war on terror” has dealt a harsh blow to Muslim charities and interfered with their donors’ religious freedom, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The report says statutes that it describes as overly broad and enforced in a discriminatory manner, coupled with a lack of due process, have starved Islamic charities of money and impeded Muslims’ ability to fulfill their religious requirement to make charitable donations.

Entitled “Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity,” the report is based on interviews with more than 100 Muslim community leaders as well as experts on antiterrorism laws and regulations. Though it gives no estimate of the decline in donations to Muslim groups, it says a total of nine Islamic charities have closed as a result of government action against them since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

That action ranges, it says, from declaring a group to be under investigation to designating it a terrorist organization and freezing its assets.

Georgetown Law Center’s David Cole, a widely respected Constitutional scholar, sees a correlation between the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s and the government’s current policies. He told us, “With our return to a ‘preventive paradigm’ of preemptively weeding out threats to national security, guilt by association has been resurrected from the McCarthy era. While it was illegal in the 1950s to be a member of the Communist Party, it is now a crime to support an individual or organization on a terror watch list, although the government can designate and freeze assets without a showing of actual ties to terrorism or illegal acts.”

“While the House Un-American Activities Committee once relied on the private sector to mete out punishment through the destruction of reputations and careers, today measures such as the Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines have turned funders into the new enforcers. In this light, he said the nonprofit sector has an obligation to resist such a partnership with government.”

Last November, five members of the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development were convicted in federal court in Dallas of funneling money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and sentenced to prison. The defendants said they only gave much-needed aid to a volatile region.

Two other high-profile terrorism-financing trials, in Chicago and Florida, ended without convictions on the major counts.

Two current court cases may test the limits of the Obama administration’s executive authority as well as its commitment to transparency. Human rights lawyers are challenging the government’s right to use information obtained through warrantless wiretapping as evidence and to shut down charitable organizations without allowing them to defend themselves.

In one case, the government shut down the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi charity, in 2004, allegedly using information obtained though illegal wiretaps. In the other, also involving a Muslim-oriented charity, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the constitutionality of government programs that designate organizations as “terrorists” and close them down without providing these groups a way to contest the decision in court.

In the Al Haramain case, the George W. Bush administration’s Treasury Department charged that the group was funneling money to terrorists in Chechnya and shut it down. But the government inadvertently released a classified document to the group’s lawyers. Now the lawyers contend that this document revealed that the government had been wiretapping both the organization and its lawyers without a warrant.

The organization sued the Bush administration. But when the case came to court, in 2006, the government invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege,” claiming that the case could not go forward because it would reveal information that would compromise national security.

The judge in that case, Vaughn Walker of the federal district court in San Francisco, rejected the government’s claims. In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the judge said the government had to comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which forbids it from obtaining evidence without first obtaining a warrant from the FISA court.

The president, the judge said, could not invoke the state secrets privilege to conceal the evidence and dismiss the case.

And when the Obama administration filed an emergency appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, it hoped for a reversal of the lower court’s ruling. But the appeals court surprised government lawyers – and legal scholars – by rejecting their appeal, thus allowing the lower court decision to stand.

The decision was a significant victory for Al-Haramain’s lawyers, who said they needed the classified documents to represent their clients.

“I did not expect this from the Obama justice department,” Jon Eisenberg, an Oakland, California, lawyer representing Al Haramain, told us. “I anticipated that the Obama Department of Justice would take a more reasonable approach to moving forward with litigating this case in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize national security, which I think can be easily done,” he said.

In the second case, the Treasury Department threatened to name KindHearts, a Muslim charity, as a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT) based on classified evidence, without providing it with a reason or meaningful opportunity to defend itself.

The ACLU is asking a federal court to block the government from blacklisting KindHearts without providing it due process, and to lift the freeze on the organization’s assets.

“OFAC’s unlimited authority to seize KindHearts’ property and shut it down without giving the charity notice or an opportunity to defend itself is unconstitutional,” Hina Shamsi, lead ACLU attorney on the case, told us.

“KindHearts has been in limbo for more than two and a half years and is asking for independent judicial scrutiny of what has been, until now, unilateral government action,” she said.

In October 2008, a federal judge granted the ACLU’s request for an emergency order blocking the government from designating KindHearts as an SDGT without further judicial review.