Military Veteran: Evangelism is a Dirty Word When It Comes to U.S. Sponsored Care Packages, Troop Shows

Michael L. Weinstein says he is “at war, but not with Christianity – but with a small subset of evangelical Christianity called dominionist Christians. Ted Haggard. Falwell’s dead. Pat Robertson. Dr. James Dobson at Focus on the Family.” – Interview in LA CityBeat, May

This Week’s Top Scrooge – August 24, 2007   

By ALEXANDER
TheScroogeReport.com   

Leading the charge in the latest “let’s-not-offend-anyone” movement is Michael L. Weinstein, author of With God on Our Side (co-authored with Davin Seay) and founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Weinstein is so blinded by his passion to separate “religion” from state, that he recently was successful in having a faith-based group drop plans for a care package to U.S. military members that included a Bible and a fictional Christian video.

He has been up to these kind of antics for a while, but I rank him as This Week’s Top Scrooge because of an opinion piece he co-authored for the Los Angeles Times published this week.

Here’s what I wrote earlier in the week:

Michael L. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has an opinion piece published in the L.A. Times in which his fear of Christians infiltrating the military is the central theme.

In “Not so fast, Christian soldiers,” Weinstein despises how anyone partnering with our government could even think of sending care packages to our military abroad that include, of all things, Bibles!

His other beef is that evangelical groups visiting our troops with permission from the U.S. government is wrong.

The fear in the hearts of these separation-of-church-and-state extremists is palatable, just as you can feel Weinstein’s anxiety in his opinion piece. And yes, I say “extremists,” because these people have taken our founder’s desire not to have a people ruled by religious oppressors and contorted the law to mean keep your personal expression of your belief in God out of our every day lives.

What are these people really afraid of?

One thing I know is that they confuse “religion” with “faith”. Religion does have the possibility of really screwing things up, while faith in the Lord can do no wrong, only to be challenged by man and evil.

Again, I say, Weinstein and his crew are confusing legitimate expressions of faith with religion. Their fear of being “evangelized” has simply distorted all sense of reason. Here is Weinstein being quoted in an interview for Los Angeles City Beat.

This is part of his answer for the question, “What’s wrong with them practicing their faith in uniform?”

Our founding fathers were well aware that, in Europe, most of the tyrannies had been conducted by men of the cloth who were also men in political power, so in Clause 3 of Article 6 of the Constitution, they stuck in the phrase that we will never have a religion test for any position in the federal government. Oh, I guess except the U.S. Air force, the Marines, the Navy and the Army, which will hold a Geiger counter up to anyone on planet earth and if it says, “Oh, we think you’re unchurched,” then you better be prepared to be evangelized. There’s no difference between them and Sharia – Islamic law – or Wahabiist Islam.

So, that’s his fear? A religion test? Well, where is that “religion test” now, Mr. Weinstein? I’ll tell you where, nowhere but in your mind.

It is correct to separate religious practice from government powers, but a very sad day when someone can not talk freely of their faith in God.

If stuffing a Bible and a fictional video about End Times in a care package is threatening, I can’t imagine what else you would want thrown out of packages designed with an effort to bring real comfort to our souls.

What a pity.

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Past Scrooges:

1-800-FLOWERS Lawsuit: Texas Man’s Dirty Laundry Aired in Public…World!

Sean Penn Takes ‘Love Thy Enemy’ to Another Level

Note to Lindsay Lohan: ‘Denial’ is Not a River in Egypt

More…

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