your cause

Dear Mr. Weinstein,

Your cause to stop Christians and other religious groups from proselytizing is in vain. Just as you have the “right” to demand they stop exercising their religious beliefs, they have a right to exercise them. Your goal is to demand tolerance while, at the same time, being intolerant.

This is not a hate mail message. I don’t care what you do with your time. I just want you to know, there are religious people in the military (I was one of them) that are fighting for your freedom to live your life however you want. So to use that power to take away more freedoms from these service men and women, is a douche bag move.

Being a former service member (Marines), I can assure you they have signed away the majority of their freedoms. Someone like you would hate to live in a world that your told where to do every minute of everyday, being forced to wear clothes that you didn’t choose, doing things that you didn’t choose to do. That’s what they do. Freedom is what they give up. Regardless of their motives. Whether or not they joined to get a job, just wanted to do the right thing, or joined to avoid going to jail, the end result is still your freedoms being protected. So cut them some slack. if people don’t want to talk about Christianity, then they need to get new friends. its the same situation if a democrat wants to talk politics all the time, are you going to fight against that as well?

Your supporters are weak minded, regardless if they are service members. Don’t try to take away more things from these people, as they have so little as it is. If you haven’t been to war ( I don’t know your background), then you wouldn’t know what its like finding hope in the middle of something that has very little hope.

Your cause would do more harm than good. Therefore, if you go on with it knowing that, then you’re knowingly doing not good things. In which case you’re not a decent person and your cause is in vain, and you will not succeed. Respect their freedom of religion. Its one of the few they have.

Again, this isn’t hate mail, I don’t care what you do. I just felt strongly enough about this to write to you, which is something I very rarely do.

Take care,
(name withheld)

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Dear (name withheld),

Thank you for your service to our nation and taking the time to contact us with your concerns. It is, and always will be, greatly valued and appreciated. Although I have no military experience, I am very proud to work with many retired and active duty military members at MRFF, many of them having substantial combat experience.

As a Christian (Episcopalian in fact) supporter of MRFF I have the freedom (as do you) to demonstrably agree with any proselytized message, disagree, or totally ignore with no chance of repercussions (excluding of course potential repercussions of hard core fundamentalists of any faith proselytizing their message). If on the other hand you chose to proselytize a faith based message to me in a government controlled situation where your official capacity was superior and mine subordinate, your message becomes immediately oppressive, and unconstitutional, due to the loss of my freedoms as listed above. Now that truly is the move of a ‘douche bag’.

Let me use the words of another in further explanation:
No one will be prosecuted simply for sharing one’s faith in the military. Sharing your faith – in a non-official context – is fine. What’s wrong is when it is in a mandatory, official, or any other context in which the power dynamic between the individuals is out of balance (e.g., a commander recommending church attendance to subordinates).

Should fundamentalist of other religious faiths engage in the same type of activity within the U.S. Military, MRFF’s response will be exactly the same. You should also be aware that MRFF fully supports the military chaplaincy role in its passive (i.e. without proselytization) ministrations to the religious needs of all U.S. Service Members of any faith.

Peace be with you,
Andy Kasehagen

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Thank you, Andy, for your response. Just so I can understand it right: the reason for your movement is not the message that is being promoted, it is who is doing the promoting that makes it “oppressive” in nature.
I would have to disagree with you, based only on: if I heard a speech from a superior officer and in that speech he referenced teachings of Islam, as an individual I would just disagree with him and not believe the same things as him.

The only situation that I can see it being “oppressive” is if it came from a Father figure or family member. I do, however, recognize that my perspective is very limited.

Looking at the situation of someone telling someone else about the peace they’ve found in Christ, regardless of the receiver’s belief system, it can only do more good than harm. Since, if the message is not received at all, the person is left feeling the same as if he had heard it and chose not to believe it. Therefor, regardless of who is saying it, it’s not oppressive.

But again, I realize my scope is limited and my perspective isn’t as broad.

Could you elaborate on how you came to find that it is taken as oppressive?

(name withheld)

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Dear (name withheld),

Communication of any message in a constrained setting that contains a superior/subordinate context between the transmitter and receiver is by definition oppressive.

oppressive

Unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, esp. on a minority or other subordinate group.
Weighing heavily on the mind or spirits; causing depression or discomfort.

When combined with the definition to proselytize (e.g., to induce someone to convert to one’s own religious faith), the hardship quit obvious. Many of my fellow Christians (as I’m sure is also common practice in other faiths) attempt to soften the concept by use of the euphemism “Sharing the Good Word”. This again is absolutely fine with MRFF in a non-oppressive and completely free setting.

Andy