I agree with the post you made in the military subforum and, in all the years I spent in the military, I never saw anyone trying to proselytize or impose their religious beliefs on anyone. Religion was always a personal thing to me and those under me and always sacrosanct. No one ever made an issue of religion period! Now, with the rise of Islam within the U.S., even the military has taken the position of being oppositional to apparently any religious thought other than that of Islam. POTUS is defending Muslims like Major Hasan in not describing him as a Islamic terrorist and calling the incident "workplace violence." FBI manuals have been amended do delete mention of Islamic terrorists. Military chaplains are prohibited from using the name of Jesus Christ in their services, senior military commanders issuing email to subordinates describing "domestic hate groups" like Christian rights leaders and the religious right and warning that such behavior is inconsistent with Army values. When I first became acquainted with the military some sixty years ago, such crap as this was unheard of. There was a war going on and no one complained about religion. As a matter of fact, a lot of men turned to religion in a hurry. In Vietnam, everyone seemed to turn to a religion of some sort, knowing that they could die at any time. In every war we have fought, we have always had religious freedom, however, since we have gotten involved in the Middle East, Islam seems to have very insidiously worked it's way into our military and to our government. American military units aren't allowed to have a cross over their chapels, military men can't have a Bible. Our government has bowed down to Islam. And we call this being American? I think we have reached the rubicon, one more step and we are lost.
to where we are today, because the many have allowed the few to dictate policy.
THIS IS SICK AND A TRAGEDY.
Always remember that God who knows the future controls the future. These things are all Signs of the End of the Age & the Last Generation. The end of The Book was written over 2,000 years ago and everything is falling perfectly into place according to God's Prophetic Timepiece. Of course this world becomes more sick with each passing day, God said everything would wax worse & worse. Nowhere in the Bible will you find one verse of scripture that says anything will get better before the Lord returns. One of the major signs in scripture describing the church in this Last Generation is APOSTASY, which explains why this cancer has been allowed to grow to where we are today. "SICK AND A TRAGEDY" for the secular world. However, for those who are "Born Again" in Christ it should be very exciting to witness prophecy being fulfilled daily and knowing that you are "SO BLESSED" to be alive in the only generation in history that will never experience death, but instead, the Rapture!!
Beautifully stated. 100% agreement. Thank you for your service.
nosreme: I don't dispute your word about high ranking officers and people in positions of authority forcing their religious views on others. You may have seen that happen but I have not. I am not saying it didn't happen, only that I never witnessed it personally. Having been on a division level staff, I encountered many people of different faiths and all got along quite well. Your experience in the Air Force may have been different as well as that of the person who is running the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, also a former Air Force officer. I don't know what experiences he may have had to send him off on that tangent but the effects of this war on religious freedom in the military will have profound effects on morale and eventually discipline. My biggest gripe is that those in DOD and the various services do not seem to be looking out for the welfare of all who serve. How is a Protestant chaplain supposed to minister if he can't mention Jesus Christ in services and religious counseling? Will the Catholic priest be forbidden to make the sign of the cross in services? At meals? Will communion be banned as a religious sacrament? Baptism? Marriage? All religious sacrements and an outward expression of belief in God will be under attack at the rate we are going. What is the Chief of Staff of the Armed Services and the subordinate chiefs doing to stop this insanity that is infecting the military? Are they job scared or are they complicit in what is happening? When it gets to the point that an individual service member can be court-martialed for showing a Bible or even casually mentioning his personal beliefs, not proseltyzing, and be punished, we should all be ashamed of what our country and military have become. But it seems that I am in the minority in my beliefs today. I will wait and continue to place my trust in the Lord! Here is another article I found interesting on the subject: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors...m#.UYQ03Yz8WyA.
nosreme: I will admit to being an anachronism and totally out of touch with modern day thinking. I have great difficulty in seeing the military change in it's attitudes and actions as compared to those of so many years ago. Technological changes I can readily accept and see the need for even newer methods of accomplishing the military mission. I look back on my time in the military and our way of life then and can't understand the changes in attitudes, lack of morality and the basic elimination of human values we all had. Religion then was an accepted fact and no one argued either for or against it, at least on my level. It just was. No one said anything if you missed Mass or regular church service. No one hung a shingle denoting a particular denominational preference. I raised a family in the military and my wife and children benefited greatly from their experiences. Everything was totally different from today. Apparently, the Liberal/Socialistic ways are permeating the military as well and is reflective of our society in general. I did enjoy your above response and will agree on the competing interests being balanced as well as possible, under the circumstances.