Air Force Academy

Published On: November 8, 2011|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|0 Comments|

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Dear Mikey,

You souuld be ashamed for your selves for threatening a law suit against the Air Force Academy for assisting in Operation Christmas Child this year. This is the only chance many of these children will have all year to recieve gifts!

As for calling Franklin Graham a fundamentalist…so were our founding fathers who wrote the constitution. As for calling him an Islam-a-phobic… we should all be – they mean us harm. I think your organization is Christian-a phobic.

I am confident that God will deal with your organization in an appropriate way.

(name withheld)


Dear (name withheld),

Your email is affirmation as to why we work so hard to preserve separation of church and state and preserve freedoms for ALL Americans. We are not, and have never been, “Christian-a-phobic”. To even assert that you are letting your anti-Semitic side show. Mikey Weinstein is, in fact, Jewish. I am a Christian raised as a Lutheran. 98% of our nearly 30,000 clients who serve in the armed forces are, in fact, Christian. Here is where the disconnect comes in…it appears that folks like you view the majority of Christians in America as being “not the right kind of Christian.” I clearly missed that training where we were charged with judging one another while learning the teachings of Jesus Christ who reiterated the message in numerous ways that we are to be tolerant of one another and love our neighbors as we do ourselves. Or that God loves ALL the children of the world – red, yellow, black and white, etc….while never asserting only if they were the “right kind of Christian”.

Franklin Graham is a Dominionist Christian. Our founding fathers were diverse in their beliefs and non-belief and an overwhelming majority were in favor of terminology that included “God” from the deist perspective…not the Christian definition.

I do understand the desire to make ideologies “fit” our own views…but it does not make it so. We at MRFF are 100% anti-EXTREMIST. Period. So if that extremism presents itself as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Wiccan, Atheist, et al…we take the same position as we do in our position with Samaritan’s Purse. I am heartened by by colleagues who are mainstream Christians who recognize that simply because one invokes the name of God or Jesus Christ – they are not always Christian. The Muslim community has had to learn this as well with the minority of violent fundamentalist believers who are devout in their quest for world domination. We as mainstream Christians are becoming increasingly aware of the minority of Christian fundamentalists/Dominionists who have the same agenda from a different perspective.

Do children need toys? You bet! But do their parents and community leaders need to be aggressively proselytized into signing Statements of Faith before the gifts/mosquito netting/food/supplies are handed out to them? I say a resounding NO! Did Jesus say, once you sign this promise of conversion, you too shall heard the Word? Not in the Bible that I read.

God will shine His light on all of us – including you. And I strongly suggest that those who continue to seek the answer to the oft asked question, “What Would Jesus DO?” – be careful what you ask for.

Your short email is chock full of hate, anger and name-calling. WWJD? I am certain that this is not his vision of how his message of love, compassion and brotherhood would be spread by those declaring piety in his name. May God truly grant you peace, understanding, compassion and love. I pray for these things in all my neighbors who inhabit this earth regardless of their beliefs. Given that I have friends in high places in some of these African countries who are the subjects of Mr. Franklin’s “love” I can assure you that I pray the same prayer for him…even when he incites unrest by calling another religion “evil” and uses bright shiny objects to enlist them in his army for Jesus.

The shame is on you for daring to hide behind Jesus while spewing such intolerance and demonstrating such ignorance of his message.

Leah L. Burton
Board Member, MRFF

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