Along with unmodified Judaism (code JJ). The new list has Reformed without saying what was reformed. There’s several on the old list that are some kind of Reformed (Reformed Episcopalian, Reformed Presbyterian (two flavors) and various others). It’d be silly to lump all of them into one code, but that’s what the new list seems to have done.
Also I note the old list has Heathen (code AH). Does anyone actually consider themselves to be Heathen?
The only think I know about Mennonites is that I confuse them with the Amish. Evangelical on its own is not even really a religion, is it?
Orthodox would need accommodations not to work on the Sabbath and to get Kosher food that Reform Jews don’t need. Orthodox likely need a clothing accommodation for the prayer shawl, too, right? Ultra Orthodox may need facial hair (for men) accommodations, too.
I am not sure why you are so stuck on this. There are Orthodox Jews that don’t wear beards. There are Reform Jews that keep kosher. You can’t lump us into three separate boxes.
My point was that three separate boxes is more than the new list is offering.
And more than many faiths are given.
OK, and I don’t understand why there are even variations of mainstream Protestant churches listed. You can definitely lump Methodist and Lutheran together for anything that might matter to the armed forces.
The only reason to split into so many variations of Christianity, and lump everyone else together into giant categories like “Muslim” or “Jewish” is because, in the eyes of the army, the Christians are more important.
As another example, a Reform Congregation in New York might be more observant than a Conservative Congregation in California.
The Reform temples around me in NJ are practically just culturally Jewish. I went to a bar mitzvah that was serving shrimp as an appetizer.
You’re likely right. I can’t speak for Protestants but I suspect that they want to be counted separately and being Christians the Government is catering to them.
Jews consider all Jews to be Jewish. On the whole we don’t want to be categorized separately. It completely goes against our hertiage.
Woody Allen: “We were married by a Reform rabbi. A very Reform rabbi. A Nazi.”
Yeah, the joke I heard is “There are three kinds of Jews, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. The first two call the last one “Gentiles”.”
There are three kinds of people. Those who understand math, and those who don’t.
I don’t understand the recent set of posts. This list is not a set of distinctions being forced on soldiers. It’s a set of options that allows people to pick the one that best suits them. Surely the option to choose among Reformed, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism is better than one single Jewish option, even if it were true that all Jews think all people declaring themselves Jewish are Jews, which I strongly doubt. (Jews for Jesus didn’t even make the old long list, for one data point.)
And from comments above, the listing has little or nothing to do with what accommodations the military makes for religions for living soldiers, so that argument is also irrelevant.
Also meaningless is how ardent a believer is, how believers determine the validity of other religions, or any other factor that is outside the military’s purview.
The only issues concern the military’s reasons for cutting the listing as they did, the way they worded the listing, and the reasons why and how they reworded the listing. Religion per se religion is a different ballpark.
I get the joke of course but the reality is that the most Orthodox of Orthodox would never ever think that way. It’s goes completely against what they actually believe.
As has been observed elsewhere, the Emo Philips joke doesn’t really work if you try repurposing it for Judaism. The closest equivalent is probably this one:
A Jewish man, miraculously rescued after years stranded alone on a desert island, welcomes some news crews. He shows them a bucket and says, “This is how I got my rainwater.” He shows them his coconut tree, and walks them past a snake patch he learned to avoid. Then they arrive at a clearing, with two shining temples. The man says, “These are my two synagogues.” The reporters ask, “If you were here all alone, why did you build two synagogues?” He points to the first one: “This one, I go to every week.” And he points to the other one, with a look of disgust. “That one…I would never set foot in!”
Yes. I think those who haven’t been in the military or haven’t for a long time are missing one piece of the puzzle, the War on Beards. I think everyone who has been in the Army for the last decade or so knows at least one guy who started claiming to be Heathen or Ásatrú or Troth seemingly in order to get around restrictions on beards. It’s harder to ignore culturally entrenched religions like Sikhism but thinking that some plain white dude started wearing a hammer necklace in order to grow out a beard has to annoy the shit out of Hegseth. Remember this is the guy who is eliminating the legitimate medical exemptions for growing a beard.
I’m not saying that some of the other reasons mentioned in the thread aren’t valid but I’d put money on the beard thing being a factor behind closed doors.
Just show Hegseth a bunch of Civil War movies and he’ll see his (and Trump’s) Confederate general heroes wearing big bushy beards and he’ll give up his war on beards altogether on the basis that wearing a beard is masculine. Which seems to be Hegseth’s sole criterion for being a “warrior” despite the technology of war having moved on significantly from spears, shields, and bronze helmets. 
Right. This is the guy who summoned the world’s generals on short notice to a meeting so he could harangue them on being fatties and beardos.
This is also the guy who left the religious exemption for beards in place but removed the medical exemption for people who get painful bumps from shaving. And who are these soldiers? “Pseudofolliculitis barbae, the study said, affects about 45 percent of Black service members, ‘a much lower percentage of Hispanics’ and about 3 percent of white service members,” according to the NYTimes.
Hegseth is competent at evil if nothing else. He knows what he’s doing.
So they couldn’t stomach the thought of labeling LDS as Christian, so they decided that nobody is to be labeled Christian?
Exactly
The beard issue may be a bit of a hijack but I sincerely believe it is at least part of the issue with Hegseth.
We were both in similar positions in the military at the same time. In fact I just recently learned we were deployed to the same unit at the same time. I had to have been in the same room with him on multiple occasions. I do not remember him. It does make for a strange coincidence. I happen to have been in the same room as the last two SECDEFs. I do remember being next to Lloyd Austin. A giant 3 star general is easy to notice.
Coming from a similar military background I understand some of the attitudes even if I don’t agree. For the beard issue there is a feeling among junior leaders that too many people were getting away with pushing the limits of what is allowed due to a desire to be different and flaunt beating the regulations. The first part of that is soldiers who claim to have folliculitis. Not only is it felt that doctors give out exemptions too often, but the soldiers who get the exemption then flaunt it by keeping their beard too long. You can look up recent changes to the policy that Pete has made regarding shaving profiles.
The second part of the beard issue are religious exemptions. I’m sure as a former officer Hegseth hates all the exemptions. He knows that he can’t get rid of all of them, at least not yet. There is a feeling that a bunch of soldiers pretend to be born again Vikings in order to claim a beard exemption. In order to get the exemption you must prove a sincerely held belief. Easier to prove if you were born into a Sikh family. Much harder to prove if you claim allegiance to a religion the military doesn’t recognize.
Hegseth won’t be swayed by Civil War movies. The move away from beards was only partially due to changes in fashion. The chemical warfare of WWI brought gas masks into the inventory. A beard makes it difficult to impossible to get a seal on your mask.