Holy S*#t, It really is a Holy War

Image by Svadilfari via Flickr

In 2003, I became obsessed with a nearby taekwondo school that was also a fundamentalist Christian “mission.”  I myself have been a student, instructor, and competitor in taekwondo for some time and it just never occurred to me that roundhouse kicks could be used in the name of Jesus.  I don’t know if it was Divine intervention or just a serious sense of the perverse that made me go and spend an evening with them, but I went and what I found out that night changed my life.

It scared the s*#t out of me.  Oh, not because I realized I was a sinner and need to be saved.  I’ve made my peace with hell as my future residence a long time ago.  But because these people were not just kicking for Christ, but they were clearly very much a part of a larger military-sponsored mission to convert soldiers to fundamentalist Christianity.

Here’s what I found out that night.

There is a group of very high level black belts (one can go up to a 9th degree) who travel the country in RVs going from military base to military base doing things like breaking through cement blocks and saying “See that?  That was the power of Jesus Christ.  Do you want to have that kind of power?”

A video was given to me, a sort of promotional video, of this “team” of black belts at West Point, a place they went to EVERY YEAR!  At West Point they got 500 cadets to stand up and should “Yes, I WANT THE POWER OF JESUS CHRIST.”

Scary, right?  Future leaders of the US Army being converted to fundamentalist Christianity by a bunch of charlatans in dobaks (and yes, dear reader, there is nothing miraculous about breaking through things since even a well-trained sinner black belt like myself can do it).

Well, like most things in US politics, it’s only gotten worse.  According to Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus, the military is openly waging a religious war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There are photos of soldiers with rifles and bibles and a tank with “New Testament” written on it being released as PR.  There are Army-approved organizations openly recruiting- sending Bibles in Arabic with little notes inside saying “Ask a Muslim friend to help you read it” (wink, wink- get it?  they’ll read the Gospel and know the Truth!).  One tank decided to paint the taunt “Jesus Killed Muhammed” in Arabic on its side.  Large- I’m talking big ass- crosses are being constructed on military bases.  Christian-themed murals are being painted on military buildings,

The Army’s chief of chaplains endorses many of these groups on a mission from God, groups like  Soldiers Bible Ministry, despite the fact that they’re openly waging a religious war.

The January 2009 newsletter of Worldwide Military Baptist Missions, for example, included these images of their English-Arabic proselytizing materials.

This is from the caption for these photos:

“In 2008, we shipped over 226,000 gospel tracts, 21,000 Bibles, New Testaments and gospels of John (to include English-Arabic ones!) and 404 ‘discipleship kits’ to service members & churches for use in war zones, on ships and near military bases around the world.”

Then there’s the fact that the DoD has authorized the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches, which is headed by Jim Ammerman, who things Democrats should be executed.

Ammerman, working with an organization called the International Missions Network Center, set up a network of 40 of his chaplains serving in Iraq to receive and distribute Arabic Bibles in order to “establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world,” as he said in one of the CFGC’s newsletters, and which IMNC called the “true reconstruction” of Iraq.

10 Ways the U.S. Military Has Shoved Christianity Down Muslims’ Throats | World | AlterNet.

In 2003, when I first encountered the Kicking for Christ mission, things were pretty grim.  Dubbya was in power and popular.  The corporate media was saying nothing about the lies and crimes of the wars, and some sort of crazy fundamentalist Christian takeover of the US government and its military seemed inevitable.

That night as I drove the hour and a half home from a rather difficult workout (for instance, we had to hold a push up position until we could cite the correct Bible versues by heart – a task I was ill-prepared for), a thick fog rolled in.  As I fiddled with the radio to try and find a station,  the only thing that came in was an Evangelical preacher screaming about how Muslims want to kill us all.  At that moment, truck lights bore through the fog and I had to quickly swerve to avoid arriving in Hell ahead of my time.

Afterwards, sitting in my car and trying to get my heart beat to slow down, I listened to the static-filed voice of the angry preacher, I waited for some sign- from God or the Fates or the inner recesses of my brain.  What to do?  What to do about the Christian takeover of state and military that was happening?  The “Holy Wars” being waged.  But neither God nor the Fates nor I had an answer then.  And I still don’t have an answer now.  Except pray.  Pray really really hard that this madness will end, the Christian Right will occupy its rightful place outside the power of the state, and we can somehow go back to a time when separation of Church and State had more of a chance of survival than an ice cube in Hell.