Ambassadors for Christian Dominion in Uniform
The Washington Post reports on the Officers’ Christian Fellowship:
In its mission statement, the OCF says its goal is “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.” ... According to the OCF’s executive director, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Fister, it means that “the people around a military leader ought to see the characteristics of Christ in that leader.” It is a national tradition reflected in “hundreds of writings and proclamations issued down through the ages by American leaders who claim divine protection for our nation, place our nation’s trust in God and claim God as our source of strength.”
To [Mikey] Weinstein, who is both a Jew and a member of a military family, it is an abomination. It “evokes the Crusades.” He says he can’t believe that generals talk like this when the United States is fighting a global war on terror and trying to win hearts and minds in Muslim countries.
Weinstein assumes that these generals are interested in doing their job — at least insofar as their “job” is defined according to traditional military standards. It seems, though, like these generals are part of the “new” military where the “job” is defined according to the standards set by the Christian Right: convert the world or kill them. Funny, but isn’t that one of the things they try to criticize Muslims about?
Focus on the Family and like-minded groups, many of which are headquartered near the academy, succeeded early this year in persuading the Air Force to soften its guidelines, so that the latest rules explicitly allow commanders to share their faith with subordinates.
More than 70 members of Congress have urged President Bush to issue an executive order guaranteeing the right of military chaplains to pray “in the name of Jesus” at mandatory ceremonies attended by service members of all faiths.
The National Association of Evangelicals and the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group, also have filed motions to intervene in the suit on behalf of Christian chaplains and service members. They argue that the injunction Weinstein is seeking would infringe on their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.
“I consider my constitutional right to discuss my faith without censorship or fear of retribution as valuable to the military and the future of our nation as the aircraft, bombs and bullets I am trained to employ,” Air Force Capt. Karl Palmberg, one of the would-be interveners, said in an affidavit.
These conservative groups all have the law wrong — either they simply don’t understand basic legal principles or they are deliberately lying. I’m inclined to think that they are lying because these efforts are being pushed in part by members of the military who know better: they know that, when you’re in the military, you don’t have full freedom of speech when it comes to performing your job.
Privates don’t have a “free speech” right to tell the general that he’s a jerk; chaplains don’t have a “free speech” right to promote just their religion because their job is to serve members of all religions; superior officers don’t have a “free speech” right to evangelize to subordinates because that undermines the effectiveness of the chain of command. Conservative Christians want chaplains to be able to promote their religion at mandatory meetings because they want to use the power of the government to promote their religion — they can’t do it on their own, so they need the government’s help.
They’re losing and they know it; in their minds, the best way to avoid losing may be to abuse the state’s power on their behalf.
The Weinsteins were married 29 years ago in the Air Force Academy’s modernist chapel, its 17 gleaming spires lined up like fighter jets shooting into the sky. It was a Jewish ceremony, but the clergyman under the huppah was a Protestant chaplain. Back then, Weinstein says, military chaplains “were like Father Mulcahy in ‘M*A*S*H,’ type O universal blood donor chaplains” who gave equally to all, who tried to serve the troops, not convert them.
This helps demonstrate that Weinstein isn’t anti-Christian — if he were, he’d hardly have allowed a Protestant minister to perform his wedding ceremony and he wouldn’t continue to look back fondly on it. This also helps to demonstrate what a military chaplain is all about: it’s a position created by the government because the government takes people away from their homes, inhibiting their ability to readily practice their religious faith.
If military chaplains are constitutional, it’s only because they are needed to server and support the religious liberty of military personnel. That, however, requires that the chaplains subsume their own religious beliefs in the interest of others’ beliefs and needs. It is this which conservative Christians are trying to undermine; if they succeed, they will effectively eliminate the only argument they have for chaplains existing in the first place. They have to choose between government-funded chaplains that serve everyone equally or not chaplains at all.
Christian & Religious Privilege:
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