[R-G] Military Deeply Involved in Christian Reality Television Show

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.pubrecord.org/religion/565-military-deeply-involved-in-christian-reality-television-show.html

Military Deeply Involved in Christian Reality Television Show
Written by Jason Leopold
Wednesday, 06 May 2009 00:00

By Jason Leopold

The Pentagon was involved in the production of a cable program that  
featured two so-called “extreme” missionaries embedded with a U.S.  
Army unit in Afghanistan trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

The popular reality series, "Travel the Road," aired on the Trinity  
Broadcasting Network and featured Will Decker and Tim Scott, two so- 
called "extreme" missionaries who travel the globe to “preach the  
Gospel to the ends of the earth and encourage the church to be active  
in the Great Commission.”

The other cable program green-lit by the Pentagon is “God’s Soldier,”  
which aired in September on the Military Channel, and was filmed at  
Forward Operating Base McHenry in Hawijah, Iraq. It features an Army  
chaplain openly promoting fundamentalist Christianity to active-duty  
U.S. soldiers in Iraq in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog  
organization, amended a federal lawsuit it filed against the  
Department of Defense last year, currently in federal District Court  
in Kansas City, Kansas to “include these despicable unconstitutional  
promotions of fundamentalist Christianity in the combat zones of Iraq  
and Afghanistan,” said MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein.

Part of the second season of “Travel the Road” was filmed on location  
in Afghanistan and aired in April 2006, where Decker and Scott were  
embedded with the Army, and shows numerous scenes of the men  
accompanying U.S. Army soldiers on patrol.  The missionaries are also  
filmed evangelizing the local Afghans by distributing New Testaments  
to them in their native Darri language.

In one scene, an Army Chaplain named Capt. Brad Hanna of the Oklahoma  
National Guard, talks about the possibility of a “revival” in  
Afghanistan and says he frequently speaks to Afghans about converting  
to Christianity. Hanna was made a full-time support chaplain for the  
Oklahoma National Guard after he returned from Afghanistan.

Additionally, Decker and Scott prominently cite SSgt. Sheldon Hoyt,  
who was stationed in Afghanistan with the Oklahoma National Guard’s  
45th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, as  
playing a hands-on role in helping the missionaries facilitate their  
proselytizing as opposed to simply being a tour guide of sorts.

In sanctioning Decker and Scott’s work, the Pentagon appears to have  
committed numerous constitutional violations as well as breached  
military regulations such as United States Central Command's General  
Order 1-A, which strictly prohibits any proselytization in the Middle  
Eastern theater of operations.

Last year, U.S. military personnel launched a major initiative to  
convert thousands of Iraqi citizens to Christianity also by  
distributing Bibles and other fundamentalist Christian literature  
translated into Arabic to Iraqi Muslims.

An article published on the website of Mission Network News reported  
that Bible Pathway Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian  
organization, disclosed that the organization 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  
report said.

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."

The distribution of the Bibles and Christian literature came at the  
same time that U.S. Marines guarding the entrance to the city of  
Fallujah handed out “witnessing coins” to Sunni Muslims entering the  
city that read in Arabic on one side: "Where will you spend eternity?”  
and "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" on the other.

But it’s the military chaplains who have been criticized for allegedly  
force-feeding soldiers a form of fundamentalist Christianity  
originating from highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times"  
evangelists and their mega-churches. Evangelical Christians have  
become such a dominating presence in the military’s chaplain corps  
that the Air Force held a four-day Spiritual Fitness Conference at  
Hilton Hotel in Colorado Springs in 2005 for chaplains and their  
families.

The U.S. Constitution says the federal government is prohibited from  
using the machinery of the state to promote any single religion. But,  
disturbingly, “God’s Soldier,” produced with the full co-operation of  
the 2-27 Infantry Battalion "Wolfhounds,” and “Travel the Road” comes  
off more like an advertisement for fundamentalist Christianity and a  
promotional tool for the faith.

“God’s Soldier” was co-produced by Jerusalem Productions, a British  
production company whose "primary aim is to increase understanding and  
knowledge of the Christian religion and to promote Christian values,  
via the broadcast media, to as wide an audience as possible."

Before “God’s Soldier” aired on Sept. 10, the Discovery Channel, which  
owns the Military Channel, advertised the program by stating that it  
would feature several Army Chaplains from a wide variety of  
denominations discussing their work in the military.

“Follow a group of U.S. Army Chaplains from different faiths on a tour  
of duty in Iraq as they comfort wounded and dying soldiers, reassure  
panicked and depressed soldiers, as well debriefing those soldiers  
that return from their tours of duty," the marketing literature for  
“God’s Soldier” said.

Instead, “God’s Soldier,” zeroed in on one chaplain, Capt.. Charles  
Popov, who appears in the first scene of the program in a godlike pose  
looking down upon the military base and urging soldier to attend  
Christian Bible study.

"Hey this is God,” Chaplain Popov says. “Come to Bible study tonight  
at 1900. Purpose Driven Life. You only have 25,000 days in your life,  
and probably half of it's gone.”

The author of the book, “Purpose Driven Life,” that Popov referenced  
is Rick Warren, the leader of a fundamentalist mega-church in Southern  
California. In a recent interview with Fox News pundit Sean Hannity,  
Warren said, "the Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It  
has to just be stopped.... In fact, that is the legitimate role of  
government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish  
evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers."

MRFF’s research has found that “The Purpose Driven Life” is second  
only to the Bible itself as the most widely promoted religious book to  
our military.

In another scene from “God’s Soldier,” Popov is featured blessing a  
group of soldiers about to go out on a patrol.

"I pray that you would give them the ability to exterminate the enemy  
and to accomplish the task that they're been sent forth by God and  
country to do. In Christ's name I pray. Amen,” Popov says as he leads  
the group of soldiers in prayer. “Every soldier should know Romans 13,  
that the government is set up by God, and the magistrate, or the one  
who wields the sword -- you have not swords but 50 cals and  
[unintelligible] like that -- does not yield it in vain because the  
magistrate has been called, as you, to execute wrath upon those who do  
evil."

Popov is studying toward a Brigade Chaplain supervisory position and  
the rank of Major at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina's US Army Chaplain  
School in the Army C-4 class.

Another clip from “God’s Soldier” contains what appears to be a  
violation of strict regulations governing Army chapels: a large cross- 
shaped window covering about a third of the height of the door.

"The actions of Army chaplain Popov are abominable beyond measure even  
when slightly judged by constitutional standards,” said Mikey  
Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom  
Foundation. “Look, damn it, let’s call it what it is. [Popov] and his  
approving Army superiors are the quintessential poster-child for the  
treason; yes treason, of aiding and abetting our enemies.

“Indeed, they are creating the most prolific recruiting weapon ever  
imagined for the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists comprising al- 
Qaeda, the Taliban, the insurrectionists and the Jihadists. Chaplain  
Popov and his lickspittle Army lapdogs have tragically painted the  
wretched perception that this conflict is between the righteous armies  
of Jesus against the evildoers of all Islam. This conflict of  
religious extermination has happened before. They called it The  
Crusades.”

Since he launched his watchdog organization four years ago, Weinstein  
said he and MRFF have been contacted by more than 10,000 active duty  
and retired members of the U.S. Armed Forces, many of who served or  
serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who identify themselves as  
Christians. They told Weinstein that they were “severely” pressured by  
their military chain of command to convert to Christianity.

Weinstein, the author of "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against  
an Evangelical Coup in America's Military." and a former White House  
attorney under Ronald Reagan, general counsel H. Ross Perot and an Air  
Force Judge Advocate (JAG), has exposed scores of cases in which the  
Department of Defense has promoted and sanctioned fundamentalist  
Christian proselytizing among U.S. soldiers in violation of the U.S.  
Constitution, established federal case law and military regulations.

The most egregious case of the Pentagon’s close ties with Christian  
fundamentalist groups was formally investigated by the Pentagon’s  
inspector general, as a result of a highly publicized complaint lodged  
by Weinstein’s group, in 2007 in which high-ranking Defense Department  
officials appeared in a promotional video in uniform promoting the  
fundamentalist organization Christian Embassy.

In a 45-page inspector general report, Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack  
Catton, Army Brig. Gen. Bob Caslen, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Maj.  
Gen. Peter Sutton, and a colonel and lieutenant colonel whose names  
were redacted were found to have "improperly endorsed and participated  
with a non-Federal entity while in uniform."

Caslen was formerly the deputy director for political-military affairs  
for the war on terrorism, directorate for strategic plans and policy,  
joint staff. He was reassigned to the prestigious position of West  
Point Command of Cadets overseeing the 4,200 cadets at the US Military  
Academy at West Point. Caslen told DOD investigators he agreed to  
appear in the video upon learning other senior Pentagon officials had  
been interviewed for the promotional video.

At least one senior military official defended their actions,  
according to the inspector general's report, saying the "Christian  
Embassy had become a 'quasi-Federal entity,' since the DOD had  
endorsed the organization to General Officers for over 25 years."

“These unconscionable efforts by the leadership of our American armed  
forces to portray our United States military as the avenging Army of  
Jesus must stop here and now,” Weinstein said. “It is directly leading  
to the emboldening of our enemy which, in turn, is maiming and killing  
brave American service men and women.