More Questionable Evangelical Christian Prostelisizing In the ARNG!
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This post was created on the previous version of the MRFF website, and may not be fully accessible to users of assistive technology. If you need help accessing this content, please reach out via email.Dear Mikey,
I enjoyed reading MRFF’s recent headliner in the Huffington Post “A Spiritually Transformed Military with Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform.”
You may recall that I wrote you last year about my experience with the National Guard Bureau Inspector General’s where a cabal of anti-Semitic, evangelical officers (mostly IG branch chiefs) accused me of (accusation withheld). I beat their attack and subsequent investigation and am currently pursuing legal action again two of them pending documents I requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
I thought I’d share with you what happened to my wife, (spouse’s name withheld), and me recently while attending an Army National Guard sponsored, “Strong Bonds” marriage seminar. The National Guard holds these seminars a few times a year for married service personnel where they take place on weekends, usually at a posh (4-star or above) hotel in (location withheld) all at tax payer expense. The National Guard Chaplain’s Office leads the seminar.
(spouse’s name withheld) and I participated in one of these seminars about 3 years ago. Although the chaplain who led it was a christian, he used non-religious training aids and kept religious references out of his discussions. (spouse’s name withheld) and I enjoyed the weekend and were impressed with the seminar.
As we had such a good time at our first Strong Bonds seminar, we decided to attend another one last weekend, again in (location withheld). This time it was led by two evangelical christian chaplains who did not participate in the seminar (spouse’s name withheld) and I attended 3 years earlier. The seminar was much different this time. Saturday, they spent a lot of time using materials with a religious bent to them. Specifically, they showed a DVD of a “motivational speaker” who also happened to be an evangelical christian pastor. I don’t recall the guy’s name, but he laced his presentation with biblical verses, and was filmed at what appeared to be a large mega-church. The Saturday piece was borderline with us (souse’s name withheld is a very liberal catholic and I’m an agnostic jew), but we felt that no lines were crossed. However, the presentation the following day left us speechless! (spouse’s name withheld) was so upset that she stormed out of the room (she didn’t make a scene). I remained to see how far the presentation would go.
Sunday’s seminar started out with a presentation about how masturbation is a lead destroyer of marriages. This discussion lasted about 45 minutes. The “evils of masturbation” segment was followed by the evils of pornography! My wife immediately left in disgust! I stayed and listened to about an hour of evangelical arguments about why these two “evils” must be avoided. He then went around the room asking the class (socratically) why porno was “bad.” he randomly call on about 5 people and they all had reasons that confirmed why porno was bad. I regret not raising my hand to challenge him, but the Chief of Staff, a 1-star, and his wife were sitting near me and I didn’t want to be labeled a trouble maker. As difficult as it was to listen to this BS, I wanted to see how far these chaplains would cross this line. After the second brake, my head was hurting from hearing all this nonsense and bible thumping that I left!
The senior chaplain was an Air National Guard Lt.Col. who told the class that he was an Air Force Academy grad and a proud christian. During one of the Saturday breaks, before he let loose on the evils of masturbation and porno, I asked him if he knew you. His friendly demur and outgoing personality INSTANTLY changed to that of a dark and angry man! He looked at me as if I was the devil himself for simply asking the question! He abruptly ended our conversation and walked away. Very rude guy.
Despite all of the good work you and other similar organizations are doing, the evangelical christian cancer has made many gains in my organization. It appears that the USAFA religious mafia has infiltrated the Army National Guard. From my vantage point, I have seen the decline begin with officers inserting biblical passages into their email signature blocks, religious bigots attacking me in the IG office, and evangelical chaplains TAKING OVER the Guard’s chaplain office.
I don’t have a solution, but I thought you’d like to know that the religious evangelicals, spawned at USAFA have extended their tentacles to the National Guard Bureau.
Thank you for all that you and the MRFF do for service personnel!
Be well,
(U.S. Army National Guard Officer’s name, rank, MOS and military installation withheld)
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