From The Front Lines Of The "War on Christians"

[tdn]

@Little Nemo

Can somebody explain to me how sending college students off to Daytona rather than have them sitting in class will make us a more Christian nation?

“Christ, look at the tits on her!”

[Anne_Neville]

@Voyager

Something is fishy about this chaplain’s complaint. I was not aware that chaplains were not allowed to be sectarian - unless he did something like offering Christian prayers at the funeral of a Moslem.

Here’s an article about what might be going on. Sounds like chaplains are being asked to be nonsectarian at events where attendance is mandatory. They’re supposedly allowed to be as sectarian as they like if attendance at the event is optional.

I think chaplains should be free to decline to participate in nonsectarian prayers, and should be allowed to be sectarian in services where attendance is not mandatory, as the chaplains’ group does. If those things were done, I’d think it’s entirely reasonable to prohibit chaplains from using events where attendance is mandatory as a platform for promoting their specific form of religion.

@John Mace

For most of the country’s history, Christians had a hegemony over any religion in the public sphere. And by “public sphere” I mean government controlled institutions-- legislatures, courts, public shools and libraries, townhalls, and post offices. That hegemony is under attack, and many Christians seem to take that as an attack against their religion. It’s not.

Agree 100% with everything you said. At least some of these people are whining because non-Christians (or Christians with a different take on Christianity than theirs) are being allowed to do their thing without constantly hearing from those in authority that our religion is inferior.

[OtakuLoki]

@Anne Neville

Here’s an article about what might be going on. Sounds like chaplains are being asked to be nonsectarian at events where attendance is mandatory. They’re supposedly allowed to be as sectarian as they like if attendance at the event is optional.

I think chaplains should be free to decline to participate in nonsectarian prayers, and should be allowed to be sectarian in services where attendance is not mandatory, as the chaplains’ group does. If those things were done, I’d think it’s entirely reasonable to prohibit chaplains from using events where attendance is mandatory as a platform for promoting their specific form of religion.

Anne, with all due respect, I disagree.

Not whether chaplains can be forced to avoid being sectarian at mandatory evolutions. There I agree 100%.

But chaplains are in the military to see to the needs of all servicemembers. Not just those of their particular sect. For people stationed on bases in the US, it’s not so much of an issue, I’ll admit. But when deployed there may be one chaplain for the entire unit. If a chaplain isn’t prepared to put aside his or her sectarian issues to tend to all faiths in the unit, he should resign his commission.

No ifs, ands, nor buts.

Military chaplains have a moral and (I believe) legal obligation to be ecumenical. If they can’t stomp their sectarian impulses, get the Hell out. And right now, I’d be quite willing to tell anyone in the ICECE that their services are not wanted, if they can’t handle that obligation.

[tomndebb]

OtakuLoki, I am not sure where your disagreement lies.

You and Anne Neville both seem to be saying that chaplains may be sectarian during sectarian services and should refrain from sectarian displays when they address mixed groups where participation is mandatory.

I would certainly agree that a chaplain who tried to impose his or her personal religious beliefs on a servicemember of a different faith (as was occurring at the Air Force Academy in the events that led to all this hoopla) should be reprimanded, but I do not see Anne arguing otherwise.

(Given their stance, I would not mind seeing membership in the ICECE as a bar to being a military chaplain and their seminaries can keep their output in their local churches and off the military bases.)

[OtakuLoki]

Basically, what I meant to argue was that military chaplains have an obligation to be able to provide non-sectarian services at appropriate times. If they can’t, in good conscience, perform that duty I don’t think they should be in the chaplain corps.

There may be something I’m missing, I’ll admit that. But that’s my gut reaction. Of course I tend to think of chaplains as serving a crew of 600 out to sea with no other choice to go to but the ship’s chaplain. It may color my views, a bit.

The way I’m reading Anne Neville’s position is that a chaplain on said ship could end up offering only sectarian assistance to those members of the crew who are from his sect. Not the whole crew. Which strikes me as very wrong.

[Syntropy]

@John Mace

This is really simple. For most of the country’s history, Christians had a hegemony over any religion in the public sphere. And by “public sphere” I mean government controlled institutions-- legislatures, courts, public shools and libraries, townhalls, and post offices. That hegemony is under attack, and many Christians seem to take that as an attack against their religion. It’s not. Yes, it’s a relinqueshing of that historical hegemony, but them’s the breaks. Times change, and the last 50 years have been largely about breaking down those old strangleholds and making a more inclusive society. It’s a small price to pay, if it can even be considered a price at all.

Okay, you were right. We agree more than we disagree.

I’m re-reading The Battle for God right now. It addresses this, in a roundabout way. Armstrong theorizes that while there have always been zealots, fundamentalism as a movement is fairly recent, and it’s in direct response to widespread secularism and modern advancements that people of various religions see as breaking away from “the true faith.”

[Voyager]

Thanks Anne.

This struck me.

@Anne's link

But Baugham said evangelical chaplains must represent the church that endorses them for military duty, and “they are not authorized to give nonsectarian prayers.” He also said he does not believe that chaplains are truly free to pray as they wish in worship services.

This sounds like evangelical chaplains are not allowed to pray without Jesus. It sounds like if they are asked to pray for, say, a Moslem, they have to include a prophet the person being prayed for does not believe in. In other words, orthodoxy is more important than people. And they think not being allowed to do this is discriminatory.

No wonder they were such assholes at the Air Force Academy.

[Bippy_the_Beardless]

@cosmosdan

I heard of a student being told not to carry his Bible around at school because that violates church and state. By a teacher no less. What a load.

Can you give us more information on this event? In the interest of SDMB impartiality, I would like to pit that Teacher for acting in such a way. But it would be necessary to know more details, and if the Teacher had been punnished for such a missuse of power.

[Anne_Neville]

@OtakuLoki

The way I’m reading Anne Neville’s position is that a chaplain on said ship could end up offering only sectarian assistance to those members of the crew who are from his sect. Not the whole crew. Which strikes me as very wrong.

I see your point. I was thinking of it from the chaplains’ point of view. There certainly should be at least one chaplain offering nonsectarian assistance to all crew members. I suppose the best way to accomplish that is to require every chaplain to participate in nonsectarian services when those are held. You’re right, and I was wrong.

That said, if it were a choice between allowing chaplains to give sectarian prayers at events where attendance is mandatory and allowing chaplains to decline to participate in nonsectarian prayers, I’d much prefer the latter.

[Monty]

I was under the impression that military chaplains are permitted to decline leading or offering non-sectarian prayers. That impression, I guess, comes from the bit that they’re not required to do things they feel is against their religion.

That being said, chaplains are endorsed by their denomination. If the denomination has endorsed them, then the denomination has agreed that they may work in a multi-faith environment and are not to hijack non-sectarian events to proselytize their particular faith.

[Monty]

@Anne Neville

I see your point. I was thinking of it from the chaplains’ point of view. There certainly should be at least one chaplain offering nonsectarian assistance to all crew members. I suppose the best way to accomplish that is to require every chaplain to participate in nonsectarian services when those are held. You’re right, and I was wrong.

All chaplains in the military are required to give nonsectarian assistance to everyone. They’re just not required, to the best of my knowledge, to lead nonsectarian services. Big difference between praying and counseling, in other words.

[rjung]

Am I the only person who thinks the dustup over the “War on Christians” is just a political ploy to help increase Republican voter turnout for the 2006 elections?

Sorta like the “Gay marriage” issue in 2004, and the (IMO overrated) “immigration crisis” issue we have now – they’re all bogeymen to scare the righties into the voting booths…

[Voyager]

So, to review, this particular chaplain, who knew that a non-sectarian prayer was appropriate in this situation, chose to not decline the opportunity to lead the prayer, as was his right, but instead gave the inappropriate one.

And now he complains he was punished. :wally

I guess Dennis the Menace will be complaining about the War on Kids the next time he is sent to sit in the corner.

[cosmosdan]

@Bippy the Beardless

Can you give us more information on this event? In the interest of SDMB impartiality, I would like to pit that Teacher for acting in such a way. But it would be necessary to know more details, and if the Teacher had been punnished for such a missuse of power.

I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer. It was actually told to me by a doper in another thread. Her son was reading the Bible as literature not in a religious sense. He was told by a teacher that he couldn’t and when he mentioned it to his Mom they both wound up giving the teacher an ear full and a little lesson on what separation of church and state means.

I think the suggestion that A Christian or some other believer shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they might vote their religious beliefs is particularly stupid and morally repugnant.

[AskNott]

I learned from some of my Bible-thumping relatives that there is joy and redemption in being persecuted (see Jehosephat.) With that in mind, some Christians of that stripe might eagerly seek out persecution, and even see it where it does not exist.

That’s why I am polite when I turn away door-to-door evangelists. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of thinking I persecuted them. Daft punters.

[Anne_Neville]

@cosmosdan

I think the suggestion that A Christian or some other believer shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they might vote their religious beliefs is particularly stupid and morally repugnant.

Who’s saying Christians or other believers shouldn’t be allowed to vote? That would count as persecution, and then their complaints would be justified. I’m saying that, if they’re voted into office, they shouldn’t be allowed to use their authority to ram their religion, whatever it might be, down the rest of our throats.

[OtakuLoki]

Anne Neville, what I’d said I’d heard was that religious persons shouldn’t allow their religion to affect how they choose to vote. The usual example is that if one is religious one shouldn’t be allowed to vote based on abortion issues. It’s something I’ve heard in private conversation with friends and acquaintances. Usually on college campuses.

I do not claim it’s any kind of organized idea. It is one that is out there, and a number of people do use. Usually those who’ve not considered the implications of such an idea.

[Guinastasia]

@OtakuLoki

Anne Neville, what I’d said I’d heard was that religious persons shouldn’t allow their religion to affect how they choose to vote.

That’s different than saying that people who are religious shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Very different.

People in general should not allow their religious beliefs to dictate how the LAW should be, at least in general. It should encourage you to vote for what you feel is right, but it shouldn’t be, “Well I’m going to vote to outlaw this because it’s against my religion.”

That is NOT the same thing as saying religious people should be banned from voting period.

[OtakuLoki]

So, where does one draw the line, Guin? What it sounds like, to me, is that you want to restrict my right to vote because it might be influenced by my religion. I can see why that would be a seductive idea for people who view abortion, for example, as a right that has to be protected.

But here’s where it gets sticky: do you then want to extend that restriction against allowing a person’s religion to affect how they vote on other issues, too? Most religious people I know tend to look at the statues against murder as being derived, in spirit at least, from the Ten Commandments. If you reject that argument as being too close to being a strawman, consider the laws against prostitution: again, a large portion of the population, I believe, are against prostitution for no reason more informed than their own religion. Are you saying that religious persons shouldn’t vote in support of those laws because they’re doing it because they’ve been told to do it by their religion?

In my opinion, the moment you start restricting the reasons a person may choose to inform their vote you’ve taken their voice in government from them. An informed decision is always better than any kind of knee jerk, but you can’t control why someone chooses to vote the way that they do. And I think that any effort to do that is a violation of civil rights.

[Revenant_Threshold]

The problem lies in that an elected representative is supposed to be, well, representative of that community. Now, in the U.S., the majority is clearly christian to some extent, which is why to a good extent the law is based around “christian” morals - murder is bad, stealing is bad, prostitution is bad, etc. But, as some people aren’t religious, it would be wrong for elected representatives to pursue a fully christian society (unless their community is wholly christian, in which case that’d be reasonable).

Of course, christians don’t all agree with each other. Some are happy (or unhappy but accepting) of abortion, for example, while others are vehemently against it. So this and the fact that there’s a minority of non-christians means that a lot of “christian” values are not pursued.

Essentially what i’m getting at ( and this is purely my opinion ) is that if you’re elected to be a representative, you should be representive. If you’re a christian but your constituency is in favour of abortion, then that’s what you should act in favour of. If you’re pro-environment but your constituents are in favour of more industrial area, then that’s what you give them. You can try to change their mind, if you think they’re wrong; but you give them what they want, within reason and budget.