As reported in the Miami Herald, an Army chaplain in Iraq has used a supply of clean water to bribe soldiers into being baptized. Josh Llano of Houston, a self-described ''Southern Baptist evangelist,'' will allow soldiers to use some of his 500-gallons of pristine water - but at a price. They must attend one of his hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent and then receive a baptism which itself involves an hour of quoting from the Bible.
Every day he seeks out potential converts: truck drivers, tank drivers, computer specialists, fighting soldiers in combat zones, and combat support soldiers who keep soldiers supplied. According to Llano, ''You have to be aggressive to help people find themselves in God." If portable showers are installed, he has a back-up plan: ''There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes and fruit rolls to pull out."
Llano's goal, then, is to get as many soldiers converted, even if just superficially, to his brand of Southern Baptist Protestantism. He'll offer them needed water, he'll offer them needed food, and he'll bribe them with whatever else he thinks they might need badly enough to consider changing their religion. He's not seeking to convince them with rational arguments about his religious beliefs and he's not trying to inspire in them a change of heart when it comes to religious feelings. All he is doing, in reality, is paying people to listen to him preach and to be baptized - except that he is paying with water instead of money.
The question all of this raises is: are the actions are Army chaplain Josh Llano wrong? This simple question contains several more complicated questions: Are his actions an unethical abuse of authority and power? Are his actions a violation of the separation of church and state? Finally, do his actions contradict the principles of Christian ethics and Christian charity? I think that the answer to all three is a resounding "yes".
