MRFF Demand Leads to Immediate Investigation of 3-Star Pentagon General’s ‘Oath Defying’ Active Support of Domestic Enemy Openly Seeking to Destroy the U.S. Constitution

September 25, 2024

Over the years a significant number of our over 90,000 clients have sought MRFF’s assistance in responding to unconstitutionally overbearing and highly divisive sectarian religious proselytizing activities by their superiors that all too often is actively aided by their spouses.  Sometimes these extremely divisive activities by commanding officers and their spouses have included open and obvious challenges to the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution over some vague and extremely self-serving interpretation of the Bible.

However, as reported by MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda in her DailyKos article of September 13, 2024, MRFF was recently asked to help investigate the most blatantly unconstitutional activities we have ever seen from an extremely high-ranking Pentagon officer and his spouse:

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Brian Eifler, who recently got his third star and a new position as Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel of the United States Army, moving to D.C. after three years in Alaska as Commanding General, 11th Airborne Division.

During the Eiflers’ three years in Alaska, Lt. General Eifler’s wife, Sherry Eifler, became a member of “Alaska’s War Council,” part of the extensive network of prophets and apostles and prayer warriors known as the New Apostolic Reformation [NAR].

While many are unaware of the NAR’s mission or activities, Chris Rodda and MRFF have been tracking their highly corrosive and disruptive influence within the U.S. Military since MRFF’s founding in 2005.  Chris Rodda shared the following succinct background information on the NAR in her 9/13/2024 article:

A November 17, 2020, Religion Dispatches article by Frederick Clarkson titled “Beneath the ‘Wacky’ Paula White Video is a Dark and Deeply Undemocratic World Propping Up the President” included the following quotes from Rachel Tabachnick, that do a good job of concisely conveying the growth and dominionist ambitions of the NAR (emphasis added):

“The apostolic and prophetic networks that now dominate organized Christian Zionism have transitioned from more passive narratives of events to take place in the afterlife toward narratives requiring dominion over the world in this life. The political implications of this transcend the role of the U.S. alone, and engages many “nationalisms” around the world, as millions are taught an increasingly politicized interpretation of the prerequisites required for the return of Jesus and the end of the natural world.”

and …

“White and many other prosperity doctrine evangelists have adopted the church governance models of the New Apostolic Reformation. White began 2012 with a sermon titled ‘Season of Apostolic Reformation,’ telling her congregation that they must align with this new order. ‘God is a theocracy, not a democracy,’ White stated, and warned congregants to ‘get in, get out, or get run over.’” 

Similarly, in the second part of his “Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation,” titled “When it Comes to Societal Dominion, the Details Matter: A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation, Part II,” Frederick Clarkson writes (emphasis added):

“The NAR doesn’t merit our considered attention because some of the leaders may sound nutty to those outside the movement, but because it’s driven by theocratic notions of total societal dominion, including the end of democracy as we’ve known it; and it deserves our attention because it’s developed the political capacities to make these ambitions a lot less of a pipe dream than they seemed even five years ago.”

The NAR are Christian dominionists, meaning, for those unfamiliar with the term, they believe that fulfilling the “7 Mountains Mandate” — conquering the seven spheres of influence, or “mountains,” (family, religion, government, education, business, arts/entertainment, and media) — is a prerequisite for Jesus to return.

Chris Rodda also pointed out that the newly minted Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel of the United States Army (U.S. Army Lieutenant General Brian Eifler) was not just ‘along for the ride’:

And it wasn’t as if Lt. General Eifler was just tagging along with his “Alaska’s War Council” wife and her New Apostolic Reformation pals to this NAR event. Oh no! This 3-star general was an active participant, giving a presentation (that, for some reason, involved a map of the Asia-Pacific region) to an audience that included Apostle Cindy Jacobs herself! And he even put on his 3-star Army general uniform for the occasion, as photos on the Indiana Canopy of Prayer’s Facebook page show. (H/T to NAR researcher Kira Resistance for spotting the photos and NAR expert Frederick Clarkson, a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, for passing them on to MRFF.)

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), as anybody who follows us knows, routinely goes after military personnel, especially high-ranking officers, who blatantly violate the Department of Defense and service branch regulations that strictly prohibit the wearing of military uniforms while participating in religious events. There’s no question that Lt. General Eifler violated these regulations when giving his presentation at NAR Apostle Cindy Jacobs’s Reformation Prayer Network gathering in uniform. But this is infinitely more serious than that, given that the NAR isn’t just a religious movement but also a powerful, dangerous, and growing political movement that seeks to end democracy as we know it. 

It should also be noted (at least once again for Lt. Gen. Eifler’s benefit), that the oath taken by all commissioned officers within the U.S. Military requires a allegiance to one foundational document of these United States…. And it isn’t some weird interpretation of the Bible:

I ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [emphasis added]

MRFF President/Founder Mikey Weinstein immediately contacted The Honorable Kathleen H. Hicks, United States Deputy Secretary of Defense with the following demand:

When your boss, DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin, assumed his current position in January of 2021, he promised ON THE RECORD to America and to Congress that he would proudly serve as a lodestar for religious and racial equality at DoD. He also swore to eradicate racial and religious extremism in the U.S. military ranks.

So, Madame Deputy Secretary, how the HELL do you explain these rancid, alleged actions of exactly THAT by YOUR U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Lt. General Eifler?!

Fix this unmitigated, disgraceful disaster NOW, Madame Deputy Secretary!

MRFF DEMANDS, IN THIS SPECIFIC REGARD MADAME DEPUTY SECRETARY, THAT YOU TAKE THE REQUISITE, EXPEDITIOUS AND AGGRESSIVE ACTIONS TO HAVE THE U.S. ARMY’S CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION (CID) THOROUGHLY AND AGGRESSIVELY INVESTIGATE LT. GENERAL EIFLER’S ALLEGED TREASONOUS ACTIONS AND PROSECUTE HIM, AND ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN DETERMINED TO HAVE AIDED AND ABETTED HIM EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, TO THE FULL EXTENT OF MILITARY AND RELATED FEDERAL LAW AT A PUBLIC TRIAL BY GENERAL COURTS MARTIAL.

Lt. General Brian Eifler (and perhaps an unknown number of colleagues of his throughout DoD?) has allegedly comprehensively disgraced this uniform and the oath he swore to our nation’s Constitution. His alleged actions of support, succor, and advancement of the extremist, Christian nationalist NAR lay to utter waste the good order, morale, discipline, and unit cohesion necessitated to ensure an effective American fighting force. 

His alleged radicalized support of the vicious Christian nationalist NAR is a nefarious, metastasizing cancer on our honorable United States military and its nonpareil national security mission. 

SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Madame Deputy Secretary, profoundly and swiftly investigate Lt. General Eifler, and any and all enablers at DoD, and, if his actions of treason to the United States are found to be substantiated as MRFF believes they will be, publicly and visibly prosecute him and any others at general courts-martial proceedings IMMEDIATELY!

Your solemn and official duty to the American people and our beloved Constitution requires nothing less.

On September 23, 2024, MRFF received an e-mail from a Senior Investigator with the Department of the Army Inspector General Agency – Investigations Division, informing us that his office has opened an “investigative inquiry” into Lt. General Eifler’s NAR activities. An Inspector General’s “investigative inquiry” is comparable to a grand jury in the civilian world looking at the evidence to determine if that evidence is damning enough to indict someone. If this investigative inquiry by the Army’s highest level IG office finds the requisite evidence (which MRFF intends to supply on a silver platter), a full-blown IG investigation would be the expected next step of the several actions that could be taken against Lt. General Eifler.