Bibles in Afghanistan: A Tribute to the (US Military) Power of Belief

[Bluebear]

Evangelism in the halls of the Pentagon. Personalized Bible studies for foreign diplomats. Passion of the Christ advertisers next to plates in the Air Force Academy mess hall. Officers Christian Fellowship buses from military bases to revival meetings. A Southern Baptist fundamentalist at the head of the Chaplain Corps.

Through Christian Embassy and similar organizations, millions of dollars annually are dedicated to insuring that our military leadership is steeped in born-again Christianity. The investment has paid off. Mikey Weinstein at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation receives letters daily from service men and women who have been coerced or intimidated because they aren’t born again. Ironically, most of those who complain are Christians – just not the right kind.

You can’t have this kind of conversion activity going on inside the military without it spilling over to the outside. One missionary boasts that he sent 1.3 million tracts to Iraq. Claiming to be humanitarian aid workers, others go bearing Bibles and video tapes or coins with Bible verses for Iraqi children. But much of the public didn’t get the pattern until Al Jazeera this week ran footage of soldiers unwrapping Bibles in Afghanistan and a chaplain urging them to “hunt people” for Christ.

From a moral standpoint, the behavior of missionary soldiers is akin to missionaries who pretend to be aid workers. Soldiers handing out tracts or Bibles are violating an explicit military rule while deceptive aid workers violate an implicit ethical rule, but the reason those rules exist is the same—to prevent harm. How much effort and tax money has gone into convincing the Arab world that our presence among them is not a religious crusade? How much lethal hatred have our soldiers absorbed because Muslims believe that it is?

Even when conversion activities don’t cause soldiers to get physically hurt or genuine aid workers to be driven off, they do cause harm. A conversion agenda undermines the slow painstaking work of laying down trust, the foundation material that lets us bridge our cultural and religious differences and see our shared humanity.

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2009/05/bibles-in-afghanistan-tribute-to-power.html

[Taverner]

1. I fucking HATE HATE HATE Missionaries

I saw them in Thailand. Completely psycho fucks.

[msongs]

2. CiC is a true believer, don't expect any changes on this issue - "faith based" military indeed nt

[MineralMan]

3. The sheer arrogance of the fundamentalcases is

astounding. The people in Afghanistan have a freaking religion. It's no better or worse than any of the other religions. It's none of our damn affair.

[walldude]

4. Crusade... that's what it should be called.

That's what it is. Goddamn fundies have managed to turn us from the country of free worship to the Empire of the Christian Crusade. :puke: