The Demonizing of Christians in the Military

As many of you know, I spent the last twenty-five years of my life as an U.S. Army Chaplain where I fought the good fight of faith in the context of the military community.  In fact, at one time I was the Command Chaplain for the U.S. Army Reserve Command.  If I were yet in that position, I would find myself involved with the likes of these incidents that recently surfaced.

 

An U.S. Army Reserve unit in Pennsylvania was recently given a briefing on “Extremism.”  Within that PowerPoint presentation there was a slide (#24) under the heading “Religious Extremism” with more than a dozen examples of extremist groups. Al Qaeda was listed fifth. Hamas was sixth. The Ku Klux Klan was eighth on the list. At the top of the list was “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” was tenth.

 

The Department of the Army contends this was an isolated incident, and that the materials were not condoned by the Army. Sadly, that’s not true; for not long after there was news that U.S. Army LTC Jack Rich of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, sent a 14-page email warning of behaviors inconsistent with “Army Values” and warning about various groups that “do not share our Army Values.”  Among those groups listed in his email were neo-Nazis and the KKK, along with pro-family Christian organizations like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. 

 

Sadly, this is more evidence that left-wing activists who equate traditional Biblical values with bigotry and extremism have burrowed their way into the government bureaucracy and are even moving up the ranks of Obama's military.

 

The source for this briefing and email appear to have been the anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center.  According to the American Family Association, the Southern Poverty Law Center brands anyone with a biblical view of homosexuality as extremist; therefore targeting the American Family Association who insists that the Bible teaches that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and that same-sex relationships are sinful.  

 

Earlier this year, a report from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point labeled as part of the “violent far right” anyone who espoused “strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals' civil and constitutional rights.”  That could well be a majority of the country!  According to a Pew Research poll taking in February, 53% of Americans view the government as a threat to their liberty.

 

For decades, the political left has been on a cultural jihad to purge God and faith from the public arena. (Don’t forget last year’s DNC Convention that just about voted God out of their platform.)  The political left mocks Christian conservatives as “the American Taliban.” Now we are being told that believing marriage is between a man and a woman is bigotry.

 

When leftists outside the government condemn men and women of faith, why would we be surprised when leftists inside the government start producing reports calling Christians “extremists”?  If any fair-minded observer in the media wanted to figure out why there is such a concern about universal background checks and a national registry of firearms, he should look no further than this latest Army briefing and email, and he will see the left's routine demonization of normalcy.

 

Let me venture a guess as to why this is happening. It is the slippery slope of repealing the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy. As the administration began to demand tolerance for alternative lifestyles, the word quickly went out from the top that tolerance had its limits. LTG Thomas Bostick, then the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, said, “These people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can't, they need to get out.”  Why, even the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains (MG Douglas Carver) said as much to the Corps of Chaplains.  Since the repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” (Dec 2010), we have gone from tolerance for homosexuals serving in the military to intolerance for men and women of faith serving in the military.

 

Don’t be fooled – There is occurring a direct assault on religious liberty.  It is blatant anti-religious bigotry that seeks to force men and women of faith into the closet.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel