U.S. soldiers launch campaign to convert Iraqis to Christianity
By Jason Leopold
Jun 2, 2008, 00:17
Some U.S. military personnel appears to have launched an initiative to
covert thousands of
Iraqi citizens to Christianity by distributing Bibles and other
fundamentalist Christian
literature translated into Arabic to Muslims.
A recent article published on the website of Mission Network News re****ted
that Bible Pathway
Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian organization, has provided
thousands of a special
military edition of its Daily Devotional Bible study book to members of
the 101st Airborne
Division of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, currently stationed in Iraq, the
project "came into being
when a chaplain in Iraq (who has since finished his tour) requested some
books from Bible
Pathway Ministries (BPM).”
“The resulting product is a 6"x9" 496-page illustrated book with embossed
cover containing 366
daily devotional commentaries, maps, charts, and additional helpful
information," the Mission
Network News re****t says.
Chief Warrant Officer Rene Llanos of the 101st Airborne told Mission
Network News, “the
soldiers who are patrolling and walking the streets are taking along this
copy, and they're
using it to minister to the local residents.”
"Our division is also getting ready to head toward Afghanistan, so there
will be copies heading
out with the soldiers," Llanos said. “We need to pray for protection for
our soldiers as they
patrol and pray that God would continue to open doors. The soldiers are
being placed in
strategic places with a purpose. They're continuing to spread the Word.”
Karen Hawkins, a BPM official, said military chaplains "were trying to
encourage [soldiers] to
be in the Word everyday because they're in a very dangerous situation, and
they need that
protection."
That would appear to violate the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment prohibiting
government officials, including military personnel, from using the
machinery of the state to
promote any form of religion. The book’s cover includes the logos of the
five branches of the
armed forces giving the impression that it’s a publication sanctioned by
the Pentagon.
The distribution of the Bibles and Christian literature comes on the heels
of a re****t
published Wednesday by McClatchy Newspapers stating that U.S. Marines
guarding the entrance to
the city of Fallujah have been handing out “witnessing coins” to Sunni
Muslims entering the
city that read in Arabic on one side: "Where will you spend eternity?” and
on the other side:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."
A Pentagon spokesman said he was unaware of the issue involving the
distribution of coins and
Bibles and declined to comment.
The issue comes at a particularly sensitive time for Sunnis who recently
clashed with U.S.
military in an area west of Baghdad a week after an American soldier was
found to have used a
Koran, the Islamic holy book, for target practice. Following a daylong
protest by Iraqis that
threatened to turn violent, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond issued a public
apology to Sunnis in the
area.
"I come before you here seeking your forgiveness," Hammond said. "In the
most humble manner I
look in your eyes today and I say please forgive me and my soldiers."
The soldier who shot up the Koran was disciplined and removed from duty in
Iraq.
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the watchdog agency, The
Military Religious Freedom
Foundation (MRFF), said the religious intolerance among U.S. military
personnel calls for a
federal investigation.
"The shocking actions revealed just last week of American soldiers in the
combat zones of Iraq
and Afghanistan callously using the Koran for automatic weapons 'target
practice' is absolutely
connected to the same issues of national security breach wrought by our
United States armed
forces proselytizing the local populations via the distribution to them of
fundamentalist
Christian coins, bibles, tracts, comics and related religious materials
written in Arabic,"
Weistein said.
"The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been acutely aware of such
astoni****ng
unconstitutional and illicit proselytizing in Iraq and Afghanistan for
over three years now and
knows how massively pervasive it really is. These proselytizing
transgressions are all blatant
violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and MRFF is now
demanding that any
and all responsible military personnel be immediately prosecuted under
Failure to Obey an Order
or Regulation," Weinstein added.
Members of the U.S. military first started actively proselytizing Iraqi
Muslims soon after the
U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.
In a newsletter published in 2004 by the fundamentalist group
International Ministerial
Fellow****p (IMF), Capt. Steve Mickel, an Army chaplain, claimed that
Iraqis were eager to be
converted to Christianity and that he personally tried to convert dozens
of Iraqis, which is
also an apparent constitutional violation.
"I am able to give them tracts on how to be saved, printed in Arabic,"
Mickel said, according
to a copy of the IMF newsletter. "I wish I had enough Arabic Bibles to
give them as well. The
issue of mailing Arabic Bibles into Iraq from the U.S. is difficult (given
the current postal
regulations prohibiting all religious materials contrary to Islam except
for personal use of
the soldiers). But the hunger for the Word of God in Iraq is very great,
as I have witnessed
firsthand."
Mickel evangelized Iraqis while delivering leftover food to local
residents from his unit's
mess hall. He handed out Bibles translated into Arabic in the village of
Ad Dawr, a
predominantly Sunni territory where Saddam Hussein was captured.
"Such fundamentalist Christian proselytizing DIRECTLY violates General
Order 1A, Part 2,
Section J issued by General Tommy Franks on behalf of the United States
Central Command
(USCENTCOM) back in December of 2000, which strictly prohibits
'proselytizing of any religion,
faith or practice,'" said Weinstein, a former Reagan administration White
House counsel and
former Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG).
In addition to coins and Bibles, there have been re****ts of the
distribution to Iraqi children
of Christian comic books published by companies such as Chick
Publications. These inflammatory
comic books, published in English and Arabic, not only depict Mohammed,
but show both Mohammed
and Muslims burning in hell because they did not accept Jesus as their
savior before they died
Chick Publications states on its website that its literature "is
desperately needed by Muslims,
but getting it to them without endangering our soldiers or enflaming the
Muslim leader****p will
not be easy."
Postal regulations prohibit sending bulk religious materials contrary to
Islam into Iraq, but
allow religious materials to be sent to an individual soldier for their
personal use.
Sending more of these materials than would be necessary for an
individual's personal use, but
not a large enough quantity to risk being flagged by the postal service,
is one way that these
materials are making their way into Iraq. Chick Publications advises those
wanting to send
their literature to military personnel to first find out "just what tracts
would be most useful
and how many they can effectively use," and "to find out whether the
tracts can be drop ****pped
from Chick Publications or if they should be sent as personal mail from
the soldiers' families."
A spokesman for Chick refused to comment for this story about the comics
handed out to Iraqis.
Meanwhile, members of the 101st Airborne stationed in Iraq will continue
their work
evangelizing Iraqis unless it is told otherwise.
Llanos, the division's chief warrant officer, said about 2,000 copies of
the military edition
of the Bible provided to the 101st Airborne will soon be distributed to
Iraqis.
However, according to re****ts on the Bible Pathway Ministries website, up
to 30,000 of the
Christian books have been distributed to military personnel, some of which
will presumably end
up in the hands of Iraqis.
Jason Leopold is the author of "News Junkie," a memoir. Visit
www.newsjunkiebook.com for a
preview. His new website is The Public Record.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com
**
|
