DoD Yanks Consent for Military Seals on Bibles

This is not something they are given or forced to have. This is something they purchase or not. Much like anything else, who gave anyone the right to stop something from being sold to people wanting to buy it with their own money? Do they stop selling anything else? Will diabetics now have the right to demand products with sugar are no longer sold? How about recovering alcoholics demanding all alcohol be removed so they won't have to see it? Where does this end?

DoD Yanks Consent for Military Seals on Bibles
Jun 14, 2012
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan

Homan also produces Bibles for police, firefighters, sportsmen and students, each tailored to its particular audience.

Bowing to a complaint from a religious watchdog group, the Pentagon will no longer give consent for a publisher to use the official emblems of the military services on a line of Bibles sold on base exchanges.

The group claimed victory, but an association of former military chaplains is demanding that Congress overturn the Defense Department’s decision.

The Bibles, branded for each of four services as “The Soldier’s Bible,” “The Sailor’s Bible” and so on, are published by LifeWay Christian Resources’ Holman Bible Publishers, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Bible Convention, said Chris Rodda, the senior research director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Rodda, writing on the website Alternet.org, said MRFF has received nearly 2,000 complaints about the Bibles from servicemembers who have seen them displayed and sold in base exchanges. Holman has been publishing its service-specific Bibles at least since 2003, when the Army granted permission to use the U.S. Army seal on the Bible covers.
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Forcing religious beliefs on anyone is wrong but so is taking away rights of people to worship as they see fit.

VA Cemetery Accused of Censoring Religious Speech

First let me say that I am against forced religious talk of any kind. This includes forcing people to not say what they believe. I do not support someone saying that someone else is going to hell if they do not covert or believe the "right" way, especially when they are in need of spiritual help. It's one of the reasons why I became a Chaplain. I have no church. While I am Greek Orthodox, my own branch of Christianity does not support the role of women as ministers. It is my job to address people in need no matter what faith they have or if they have no faith at all and I am free to discuss whatever will help them heal spiritually but I am careful to not cross the line and offend them. If I know I am talking to a non-Christian, I will invoke "God" but limit the use of "Christ" even though they know I am a Christian.

This is also the reason why I do not believe a speaker addressing a mixed group should focus on Christ instead of God, but that is what I believe much like I believe no one in the government should attempt to force anyone to convert or force them to listen. They are supposed to be able to say what they want and use their own judgment. If this nation can protect the free speech rights of the hateful Westboro Group because they use the title of a church, then they should also protect the rights of everyone to use their own judgment of what they will or will not say.

VA Cemetery Accused of Censoring Religious Speech
June 29, 2011
Houston Chronicle

Local veterans and volunteer groups are accusing Department of Veterans Affairs officials of censoring religious speech -- including banning the word "God" -- at Houston National Cemetery.

In one example cited in documents filed this week in federal court, cemetery director Arleen Ocasio reportedly told volunteers with the National Memorial Ladies that they had to stop telling the families, "God bless you," at funerals and that they had to remove the words "God bless" from condolence cards.

The new allegations of "religious hostility" by VA and cemetery officials follow on the heels of a controversy over a prayer in Jesus' name by Pastor Scott Rainey at a Memorial Day service in the cemetery.

U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ruled May 26 that Ocasio couldn't stop Rainey from using the words "Jesus Christ" in his invocation.

Attorneys with the nonprofit Liberty Institute, which represented Rainey, filed an amended complaint this week after allegedly finding other instances of religious discrimination by cemetery officials against members Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4, The American Legion Post 586, and the National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends funerals of fallen service members.

The complaint accuses VA of "a widespread and consistent practice of discriminating against private religious speech" at the cemetery.
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VA Cemetery Accused of Censoring Religious Speech

Military accused of pushing Christian faith again

I have two videos that talk about God. One is I Grieve and the other is PTSD Not God's Judgment. I did not talk about being a Christian in any of the videos I've done. In PTSD Not God's Judgment, I did include a picture of Christ because He addressed that there is no great love than being willing to lay down your life for your friends. Other than that, I try very hard to keep my branch of Christianity, as well as Christianity itself out of the videos I do. While I am a Christian, a Greek Orthodox Christian, I fully understand that there are many branches of Christianity itself along with other faiths. While they Bible is used by the major religions of the world, each group has their own ideas of what to believe.

For those who still find no problem with what the military is doing pushing one particular branch of Christianity, you need to be wondering what happens to your own views and your own choices? There are Christian sects who do not believe in the Holy Trinity or the Divinity of Christ. Some do not believe in the Saints. What do you think happens if a commander is allowed to enforce his theology upon his command? Still find this kind of pushing faith harmless? What is you have a commander who believes that you have to speak in tongues to be true but no one under his command can even pretend to? What if the commander does not believe in any of this but his men do? Do you see how damaging this all can be?

While the Purpose Driven Life is a good book for those who are exploring their faith, I cannot recommend it for people who are dealing with PTSD because it is not helpful for that. I've read it but you also have to consider that I've been reading religious based books all my life and was the head of Christian Education for a church. There are many books I've read that would be more appropriate in helping Christian soldiers and veterans heal but I would not recommend any of them be suggested by the military and certainly not enforced reading.

If I can draw the line when I am invested in the spiritual health of people as a Chaplain, why can't the military do the same?

Soldier alleges religious bias at Lakenheath

By Sam LaGrone - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Oct 1, 2008 13:08:22 EDT

An atheist serviceman has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Defense Department of several counts of religious discrimination, including at least one instance on an Air Force base.

Army Spc. Dustin Chalker and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation are accusing DoD of a laundry list of violations of separation of church and state.

Chalker and the MRFF cite more than a dozen violations, from military installations around the world, that promote the “practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense and the United States Army,” according to the suit.

Among the violations, the suit complains about a mandatory suicide-prevention briefing from an Air Force chaplain that borrowed heavily from a wildly popular Christian self-help book.

Chalker alleges that at a commander’s call at RAF Lakenheath, England, last March, an Air Force chaplain gave a talk on suicide prevention that heavily referenced concepts from “The Purpose-Driven Life,” a self-help book based on evangelical Christian theology.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/airforce_lakenheath_suit_093008/