Hunting Afghans for Jesus
“The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. We do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus.”
Those are not the words of some Bible Belt Bible thumper. It’s the chief U.S. military chaplain in Afghanistan urging U.S. soldiers to proselytize the Afghans.
It gets worse. This Al Jazeera video shows evangelical Chrisians holding a prayer meeting at the Bagram base in Afghanistian. Nothing wrong with a little Praise the Lord, except that these soldiers were plannning to distribute Bibles to the Afghans. And not just any Bibles, but books that were specially printed in Pashtu and Dari. Proselytizing happens to be in violation of U.S. military orders, but the soldiers don’t think it’s a problem. They’ll just call the Bibles a “gift”.
Incredible. One of the potent Taliban and Al Qaeda propaganda themes is that Western soldiers are the new Crusaders. And here are our soldiers passing out Christian Bibles. I’m Jewish, and I know how I feel when the Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on my door. And I don’t own an AK-47.
If you want to see how bad religious fundamentalism (or evangelical Christian extremism) has become in the U.S. military, check out the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. One example of how piety has become lunacy: the chief Army chaplain declared a day of prayer and fasting for April 8 (which just happened to be the night of the Passover seder meal). On the other hand, Jews have their own issues; in the Israeli military, which used to be extremely secular, half the new combat officers are religious. Coincidentally, the Israeli army is now frequently accused of brutality.
Think all this is bad? Just wait until the Hari Krishnas get tanks.
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So handing out bibles the local populace can read is the newest sign of bad religious fundamentalism?
Sounds like your bias towards religious people is outweighing your common sense.
If its against military orders to hand out the bibles then those encouraging people to do so should be punished within UCMJ.
It is bad religious fundamentalism when Christian soldiers occupying a Muslim country insist on handing out Bibles to the populace. The military chaplains in that video don’t instruct the soldiers to wait until a Muslim expresses interest in Christianity (any more than the Jehovah’s Witnesses ask my permission to knock on my door).
It’s not just a stupid policy that’s going to inflame the populace and get American soldiers killed. It’s also wrong for people in a position of power – and soldiers are in a position of power – to exploit that by proselytizing.
In response to another comment. See in context »Many Christians want a holy war in hopes of triggering The Apocalypse to trigger the arrival of Jesus. Never mind that John’s prophecies in Revelation are done, gone and wrong, as he wrote that “the time is at hand”. Of course, it’s written so vaguely that the prophecies can still apply always. The seven heads are the seven hills of Rome. No wait, the seven heads are the seven popes. No wait, the seven heads are …. etc. Century after century after century….
Michael there is much more “fundamental” issue here. It is not the job of the American govt to be promoting any religion. The man is in the employ of the United States govt, and even though the fact that he is a chaplain strains the concept of separation of church and state he is there as a service to his fellow soldiers, he is not employed to proselytize, he needs to be removed from his post.
And BTW when the JWs ring my door bell I just say “I’m a jew and I’m queer, take your best shot”, it sends em running every time!