QUANTICO SENTRY – Religion Pervades Military Publications by Chris Rodda

By Chris Rodda

For the past seven weeks, the Quantico Sentry, the base newspaper at Marine Corps Base Quantico, has been running a weekly series of articles on the “seven deadly sins,” with various chaplains each taking turns writing about one of these sins. These articles also appear on the Quantico website, with links to them appearing on the site’s homepage.

The series, which began on January 28 with Cmdr. John Hannigan, H&S Battalion Chaplain, taking on the sin of greed, began with an introduction from the base’s Command Chaplain’s Office, informing the Marines that the only truly unforgivable sin is not believing in Jesus. The following is from that introduction, which appeared in the January 28 print edition of the newspaper, and also appears before every installment on the web version.

“The misconception about the list of seven ‘deadly’ sins is that they are sins that God will not forgive. The Bible is clear that the only sin God will not forgive is that of continued unbelief, because it rejects the only means to obtain forgiveness — Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death on the cross.”

Here are a few excerpts from some of the other installments of the series.

February 18 — Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Etheridge, Marine Corps Recruiting Command Chaplain, writing on the sin of anger, using the story of Jesus and the money changers at the temple as an example of non-sinful anger, explains:

“The anger you feel may be the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit to use you
to take action to correct the wrong you see.”

He then advises:

“The next time you are angry, first think about ‘Why am I angry in the first place?’

“Is this a personal attack or is this an attack on the law of God?”

February 25 — Cmdr. Brent Johnson, Marine Corps Security Group Chaplain, on the sin of gluttony:

“… I meet a lot of Marines who practice temperance in their diets, in their daily habits, in the way they patiently work towards proper fitness. As a result they look like the proper temple that should house the Holy Spirit of God. I wish I could get them all to church at Marine Memorial Chapel on Sunday so that they could invite the Holy Spirit in to dwell in those fine temples. The problem is many do not know they were created to glorify God, not just with their mouths in praise, but also with the frames as vessels of the Living God.”

March 11 — Lt. Cmdr. Paul Hyder, The Basic School Chaplain, on the sin of laziness:

“There is no room for laziness in the life of a Marine or sailor. There is no room for laziness in the life of a Christian either. A new believer is truthfully taught that ‘…it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast’ (Ephesians 2:8-9). But a believer can become idle if he falsely believes God expects no fruit from his or her new life. ‘For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2:10).

“God’s people are not saved by works, but they do show their faith by their works (James 2:18, 26). Slothfulness violates God’s purpose — good works. The Lord, however, empowers His people to overcome the flesh’s propensity to laziness by giving us a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“In our new nature, we are motivated to diligence and productiveness out of a love for our Savior who redeemed us. …”

The full articles in this series, which ran from January 28 to March 11, can be found in the Quantico Sentry archive at http://www.dcmilitary.com/quanticopdfs/