US soldiers urged to pray for Muslims to become Christians

Image by kevindooley via Flickr

On Friday, several thousand Muslims gathered in DC for a very peaceful National Day of Prayer.  At the same time, several Evangelical Christian groups gathered to protest the event.  According to a Fox News story,

At a separate event, held simultaneously in a conference room at the Rayburn House Office Building, a group calling itself Stop Islamization of America warned about the supposedly hateful, violent, and anti-Western teachings of the Koran.

John Cosgrove, who identified himself as a counterterrorism consultant, called on “American males” to “stand shoulder to shoulder” in the battle to save America from the imposition of Sharia on American law. Sharia is a body of Islamic law used, with varying degrees of severity and harshness toward women, in many Muslim societies. At one point, Cosgrove brandished a book called The Quranic Concept of War to demonstrate the supposedly aggressive and confrontational nature of ancient and modern Islam.

Muslim ‘Day of Unity’ Draws Prayerful, Protests – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com.

But what are we to do about the Fundamentalist Christian concept of war that is increasingly dominating the US military?

In a recent post I suggested that given how influenced the US military is by fundamentalist Christianity, we better start praying now that separation of Church and State might be saved.

Turns out that those damnable Born Again Christians beat me to it, but they sure as hell ain’t praying for the separation of Church and State.

A young patriot, one who actually cares about the founding principles of this nation, emailed me to let me know just how Christian things are getting in the military branch in which he serves.  Turns out there are all sorts of emails being sent out about praying for America- praying for a Christian America, that is.

Here are pieces of one such email- definite evidence that the current wars being waged are, as Dubbya once admitted, a religious crusade.  This email was sent out on a MILITARY listserve to SOLDIERS from the organization National Day of Prayer (note: emphasis in email is mine):

It is critical that the church in America understands the times and what needs to be done now… There is a great spiritual conflict with a rising tide of Islamic boldness being manifested. Several happenings are converging this week. First of all, our President has recently proclaimed, honored, encouraged the Muslim holy days of prayer and fasting called Ramadan. He was very silent on the National Day of Prayer but very vocal on the support of Ramadan. Interestingly at the same time a major Christian leader of the Emergent Church called for forty days of fasting and prayer in the same Ramadan period with the goal that the church will better understand our Muslim friends. We are all for understanding but we must have spiritual discernment as to the spiritual dark powers that are being invoked into our nation.

At the same time, on the 25th of September, Muslims are calling for a Muslim Day of Prayer in Washington DC… They are calling for 50,000 Muslims to gather and pray on the DC Mall. This is the exact word of one of the Sheikhs who is leading this historic gathering, “Muslims should march on the White House. We are going to the White House so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will become into a Muslim house.” These are not empty words. They speak of a dark spiritual intent and a coming day of great trouble to America.

Now these events are enough to awaken us to this significant throbbing moment, but when they all converge it becomes a massive spiritual alarm that must be responded to by the praying Church. This convergence… is urgently summoning us in the midst of the rising tide of Islamic influence in America to recognize that our God is above every god and that if we return to Him with all of our hearts and call upon Him with fasting and prayer then God could use what the enemy meant for evil to bring about a great day of salvation for Muslims in America.

Here is the Vision

First of all, we cannot be passive as a Church to let these kinds of developments go on without being challenged in the spirit. Our fight is not against Muslims, it is against principalities, powers, and forces of darkness. We are calling the Church of America at the end of Ramadan, from September 21st through 25th, to five days of concerted prayer. On Friday, September 25th, the Muslim Day of Prayer, we are calling the Church of America to fast and pray that Muslims would be moved by the Holy Spirit, convicted by the testimony of Christ, and even be visited by Jesus in dreams. We must pray that God would restrain the spiritual powers behind Islam and grant us the great awakening that we desperately need for America.

According to the National Day of Prayer website, they are interested in “the well-being of America and for those in leadership on all levels of national, church and educational areas of influence. The National Day of Prayer is observed on the first Thursday of May each year.”

The NDP website claims that the National Day of Prayer is not an exclusively Christian event. I suppose since the prayers are for the conversion of Muslims (and Jews and atheists and everyone else) to be moved by the Holy Spirit to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior it is in fact an “all-American” event, but it is also by definition an attempt to force the US to be a Christian nation (the world to be a Christian world) and it is executed through the state and therefore would qualify as a crusade.

According to the young person who sent me this email, this sort of thing is fairly regular these days in the US military.  The sort of conflation of fundamentalist Christianity and the military that is now “commonplace” is a violation of the fundamental principles of democracy.  We are not a Christian nation.  We are a secular state.  That was the point- that there would be religious freedom in these United States because a separation of Church and State would be enforced. At this point, there is absolutely no attempt to keep the US military from being fundamentalist, evangelical, born again, apocalyptic, fire and brimstone Christian.

I was wrong in my last post.  We sure as hell need to do more than pray that the wisdom of the founding fathers prevail.  We better start prosecuting all these Christian solders and anyone else who violates the separation of Church and State for the traitors to democracy that they really are.