True Christianity

Date: April 16, 2025 at 8:58:59 AM MDT
To: [email protected]
Subject: True Christianity

Mr. Weinstein,

I am a US Army veteran who like you believes in Constitutional freedom.  I am sorry for the pain that was caused to you by other Christians.  True Christianity is not about religion or condemnation.  It is about Hope and redemption through sacrificial love.  Jesus said to go into all the world making disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  (Matthew 28:19) Sir I am a follower of Jesus and I take him at His word.  It is not my position or anyone else’s position to condemn, but to pray and when hearts are open to listen show them the way.   My prayer for you is that you will see the Light of Jesus and recieve him in your heart.  As I think of this Passion week my heart cries for those who did not see the fruition of God’s promises come to pass.  I pray that your heart will become a heart of flesh so you can enjoy the same hope and love Yahweh has shown his people.  It is very true that you are still God’s chosen people I pray also that you will see as King David saw when he wrote the Psalm 22.  Jesus spoke these same words “my God my God why have you forsaken me” this was when he was on the cross.  Psalm 22 talks all about his day of crucifixion.  Not one bone was broken, the Roman soldiers casting lots for his clothes, and the spear piercing his side.  He was laid in a rich man’s tomb.  Then Sunday comes and he has conquered death for you!!!!!!  How great of a love is that?!?!?  Jesus loved all of us enough to give his life so that we can have eternal life with Yeshua Hamashiach.  I praise Abba Father for his goodness and mercy.  I pray you will see his Love and Grace for you my friend.  I am praying for you and all of Israel.  I pray this gives you Hope in Jesus Christ.

A follower of Christ and former soldier,

(name withheld)

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Response from MRFF Supporter Steve Dundas

On Apr 16, 2025, at 1:00 PM, Steven Dundas wrote:

Dear (name withheld)

My name is Steve Dundas and I am a friend and advisor to Mr. Weinstein. I want to begin by thanking you for your service in the U.S. Army. Since under 1% of the American population has served in the military, a number that gets fewer by the day as the men and women who served in World War II, Korean, Vietnam and the Cold War pass away, I value your service. 

I am a retired Navy Chaplain who served in the Army too as a Chaplain, a Medical Service Corps and Armor Officer and enlisted Field Artillery Forward observer. I served as a Medical Company Commander on the Fulda Gap at the height of the Cold War, supported Operation Joint Endeavor (Bosnia) in the 1990s, during Operation Enduring Freedom leading a boarding team from a Navy Cruiser in the Arabian Gulf in 2002, and as Chaplain to U.S. Marine Corps and Army advisors to the Iraqi Army and police in Al Anbar province during the surge of 2007-2008.

If you did not know, Mr. Weinstein comes from a long line of military officers. His is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, a former Major in the Air Force JAG Corps, and member of the Reagan Administration. He is no “wild-eyed liberal or socialist bent on destroying religious freedom and expression, he simply protects the religious liberties of people.

Mr. Weinstein’s organization, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has helped over 90,000 American servicemen, veterans and their families with cases of the abuse of their constitutional rights by officers and officials representing the military and the Veterans Administration. Over 95% of those who sought and received his help are Christians who found their rights violated by government officials, many of whom were trying to impose their religious beliefs, often of various denominations of the Christian faith on subordinates using their power as officers or civilian military officials to do so. 

As you know as a former junior enlisted soldier, their superiors, whether they be NCO, Officers, or military civilians supervising personnel, especially in command positions have much power over their subordinates. These include so many things, granting a three day pass, granting leave, assigning extra military instruction or duties, performance evaluations, recommendations for advance training or schools, and promotion. A superior who uses his faith, or lack of faith to punish those who disagree with him, or to give special favors to those of his faith, even if he is Christian is not really advancing the faith that you proclaim.

What Mr. Weinstein does it to protect the religious rights and freedoms of military personnel, veterans and their families from being discriminated against by superiors that are violating the law and Constitution who force their religion down the throats of personnel who do share those beliefs. This happens all too frequently and it is the reason why Mr. Weinstein does what he does. Unfortunately, many power hungry people, many of whom are Christians seek to impose their beliefs on their subordinates.

Mr. Weinstein’s organization defended me as a Christian chaplain from a man who lied about a biblical sermon that I preached in my Navy Chapel. My Commanding Officer had me undergo a very serious investigation to determine if I would be charged with felony crimes for it. Thankfully, the investigator found that the man had lied about everything as none of the congregation that he interviewed or my staff substantiated the man’s allegations. I was a senior Chaplain who had been in the military 37 years at that point. Mr. Weinstein’s legal team was very helpful in getting me help. I could cite other examples where I and others were discriminated against when I was a young Army officer by people using their religion in positions of authority. That was before Mr. Weinstein’s organization existed.

Mr. Weinstein has no objection to people living their faith and even sharing their faith so long as they are not in a position of power over those he or she shares their faith with. However, when leaders of military organizations and other government departments use their power to impose their faith on others, he understands the constitutional obligation to protect those people. He is not being anti-Christian in doing so. Mr. Weinstein is Jewish and has Christian family members and over 95% of is paid staff and volunteers are Christians.

The great Virginia Baptist, John Leland fought for religious liberty for all and against the establishment of state religion. His churches in Virginia were being attacked and persecuted by Anglicans who wanted to establish their church as the State Church in Virginia and elsewhere. He was a friend and colleague of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and helped Jefferson write the Virginia Statue on Religious Liberty and Madison write the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Leland wrote:

“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

Leland also wrote:

“Is conformity of sentiments in matters of religion essential to the happiness of civil government? Not at all. Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear–maintain the principles that he believes–worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse or loss of property for his religious opinions. Instead of discouraging him with proscriptions, fines, confiscation or death, let him be encouraged, as a free man, to bring forth his arguments and maintain his points with all boldness; then if his doctrine is false it will be confuted, and if it is true (though ever so novel) let others credit it. When every man has this liberty what can he wish for more? A liberal man asks for nothing more of government.”

This is the liberty that Mr. Weinstein fights for when asked. Those who founded our country knew what nations where the Church and State were united were the tyrannies that they fled to America to escape. They knew that once free they could not allow this nation, founded upon liberty subjected to the often malevolent intentions of religious leaders. Robert Ingersoll wrote of the founders:

 “They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping or in the keeping of her God the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship or not to worship that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all to prevent the few from governing the many and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.”

Finally, another great Southern Baptist, George Truett a President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (my Alma Mater) and pastor of First Baptist Church Dallas in the 1920s and 1930s understood the foundation belief of the Baptists in England who founded the denomination, and the Baptists who came to American understanding the necessity of the absolute separation of Church and State. He wrote:

“Constantine, the Emperor, saw something in the religion of Christ’s people which awakened his interest, and now we see him uniting religion to the state and marching up the marble steps of the Emperor’s palace, with the church robed in purple. Thus and there was begun the most baneful misalliance that ever fettered and cursed a suffering world…. When … Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars…. The long blighting record of the medieval ages is simply the working out of that idea.”

Thank you for your letter. On behalf of Mr. Weinstein, I wish you a happy Easter and hope that you now understand why Mr. Weinstein does what he does and why it is necessary for people like you. Those who attack or mischaracterize his work in the allegory “conservative” media are bent on imposing their form of Christianity on people who do not have to power to resist.

I wish you the best,

Fr. Steve Dundas, Commander, Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy (Retired)

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