Operation Christmas child
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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.You people have alot of balls trying to shut down a Christmas toy drop for children in need or low income family’s and even miltary family’s. … Christmas is a Christian holiday and for you people to want punishment for the 436th FSS commander’s secretary is absolutely ridiculous. Tell your so call leader of a husband to back off… who cares if the miltary wants to give toys away to children… hope you have a nice day
(name withheld),
Dear (name withheld),
Your media source has deceived you by lies, omissions and distortions.
We have not stopped nor are we against the soldiers packing Christmas shoeboxes.
What we are against is the Air Force breaking their own rules, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, Reynolds vs. US, the Lemon Test and Parker v. Levy.
September 1, 2011, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, issued a memorandum for all USAF commanders that stated plainly:“Although commanders are responsible for these programs, they must refrain from appearing to officially endorse religion generally or any particular religion. Therefore, I expect chaplains, not commanders, to notify Airmen of Chaplain Corps programs.”
In Air Force Instruction 1-1, USAF top brass laid down the letter of the law in regards to religious proselytizing:“2.12. Balance of Free Exercise of Religion and Establishment Clause. Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for their own free exercise of religion, including individual expressions of religious beliefs, and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. They must ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed to be officially endorsing or disapproving of, or extending preferential treatment for any faith, belief, or absence of belief.” (Emphasis added)”
“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.” Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808) ME 16:320.
This is his second known use of the term “wall of separation,” here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter.
This wording of the original was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause.
Jefferson’s concept of “separation of church and state” first became a part of Establishment Clause jurisprudence in Reynolds v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145 (1878). In that case, the court examined the history of religious liberty in the US, determining that while the constitution guarantees religious freedom, “The word ‘religion’ is not defined in the Constitution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted.” The court found that the leaders in advocating and formulating the constitutional guarantee of religious liberty were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Quoting the “separation” paragraph from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, the court concluded that, “coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured.
In 1878 “separation of church and state” became part of the Establishment Clause BY LAW.
The Supreme Court heard the Lemon v. Kurtzman case in 1971 and ruled in favor of the Establishment Clause.
Subsequent to this decision, the Supreme Court has applied a three-pronged test to determine whether government action comports with the Establishment Clause, known as the Lemon Test.
Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it:
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion,
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion,
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.
Parker v. Levy:
“This Court has long recognized that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society… While the members of the military are not excluded from the protection granted by the First Amendment, the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections. … The fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for imposition of discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it… Speech [to include religious speech] that is protected in the civil population may nonetheless undermine the effectiveness of response to command. If it does, it is constitutionally unprotected.” (Emphasis added) Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 1974
We fought the total disregard for the laws and regulations stated above and that’s what we won. Period.
Operation Christmas Child is now in the hands of the chaplain(s) on base, where it always belonged, and is moving forward.
Have a nice day.
Pastor Joan
MRFF Advisory Board Member
Dear (name withheld),
Wake up and get the facts before you shoot your mouth off, will you? The fact that “Christmas is a Christian holiday,” as you put it so clearly, is exactly why the military cannot be in the business of promoting it. No one wants to take anything away from children in need. What is wanted is to have overtly religious campaigns, greetings and events promoted by the chaplain and not by the command structure.
Perhaps if you understood the law and military regulations the way you should you’d not only be a better “current military member,” you’d also make less of a fool of yourself.
Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)
Dear (name withheld),
Thanks for writing to the MRFF, because it gives me an opportunity to correct a terrible misconception on your part. In addition to being an MRFF supporter, I’m a lifelong, committed and active Christian, a USAF Academy graduate (’85), and a veteran Air Force officer.
As I said, you have been misinformed. The MRFF has not tried to “shut down a Christmas toy drop for children”. Not even close to the truth, although I realize that is the way the situation is being misrepresented by conservative media outlets.
The ONLY thing to which we’ve objected is the manner in which Operation Christmas Child was communicated. Specifically, the communication was done via the ‘official’ command structure, and that is contrary to governing law and regulation. As a ‘current military member’, you should know as well as I do that the military is very hierarchical, and that military leaders wield a tremendous amount of authority over subordinates. As such, military leaders at all levels are enjoined from using their official position or the color of their authority to promote any sort of sectarian religious belief, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, or any other conceivable belief.
So again, our objection is only to the time, place, and manner in which this particular charity was promoted. Make no mistake, Operation Christmas Child exists for the primary purpose of Christian evangelization, it’s not a non-sectarian effort. Personally, I have no beef with Franklin Graham and his charity. In fact, when my kids were growing up we participated in this charity every year, and we have wonderful memories of preparing the shoeboxes and sending them off with homemade Christmas cards included. With regard to military involvement in such an event, and as I’d hope you well know as a ‘current military member’, the military has other appropriate means of promoting this sort of charity, notably the chaplaincy. That is the avenue that should have been taken in this case.
Lastly, I give great credit to the commander at Dover for responding quickly and appropriately to this issue. It’s a crying shame that so many conservatives are calling for his head, accusing him of lacking leadership skills, or lacking a spine, or both. The truth is that he recognized that the manner in which this particular event had been communicated was not appropriate, and he took decisive action to set things straight.
From my perspective, those who are screaming about the objection raised by the MRFF, and the response by the commander, may be ignorant of the rules that govern this sort of thing in the military. Or perhaps more likely, they may suffer from the malady of Christian Exceptionalism — that is to say, a belief that Christian proselytizing is immune from the rules that govern such activity and is not bound by the limits of the US Constitution. Such people are wrong, of course.
Thanks again for writing, and thanks for your service.
Peace,
Mike Challman
Christian, USAF veteran, MRFF supporter
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