Grace and peace, Saints.
Last year, publicist Jack Chick addressed the growing hostility toward biblical Christianity in the military. He cited the following examples given by the World News Service that exemplify the military’s growing apostasy:
* An Army Reserve training brief on hate groups declares that evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics are extremists as dangerous as al Qaeda.
* A commander tells a chaplain to “stay in your lane” when he offers spiritual advice about the military’s exploding sexual assault problem.
* A superior tells an Air Force major to remove from his desk the Bible he had kept there for 23 years.
* An Army lieutenant colonel instructs his subordinates to recognize the “religious right in America” as a domestic hate group like the KKK and Neo-Nazis.
* An Army master sergeant with 25 years of service faces punishment for serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party.
* Christian prayers banned at veteran funeral services in Houston’s National Cemetery.
* Bibles temporarily banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
* A Christian cross, banned from a military chapel in Afghanistan.
* A chaplain called into his supervisor’s office and chewed out for closing a prayer with the words “In Jesus’ name.”
These are just a few of the examples cited in the article. As you can see, the situation is pretty grim. And I can tell you from personal experience that it’s a lot worse than that.
I had forgotten about this issue, until the other day, when, while filing some old magazine articles, I came across the following leaflet I picked up from a U.S. Army installation last year:
iWatch Army is a program that encourages soldiers and their families to be on the lookout for suspicious activity that may indicate terrorist activity. This is a good idea, especially when you consider what happened at Fort Hood a few years ago.
But, while reading the leaflet, I came across this (note the highlighted area):
It is important to note that, according to this leaflet, iWatch Army asks soldiers “to report behavior and activities that are unusual or seem out of the ordinary,” and it lists examples of behaviors and activities to watch out for. But notice that soldiers may also use iWatch to not only report suspicious behaviors, but behaviors and activities “that make you feel uncomfortable.” Given the program is intended to heighten awareness of potential terrorist activity, where does discomfort fit in? Are activities that “make you feel uncomfortable” necessarily terrorist activities? Think about this.
On any given day, the average person is faced with myriad situations that are uncomfortable: Sitting next to a person with a flatulence problem on the subway is uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to be considered terrorism.
Standing on the bus stop with a dog humping your leg is uncomfortable, but not enough to report as terrorist activity.
Your phone bill might make you uncomfortable, but would you consider it terrorism? (Hmmm. Maybe that’s not the best example.)
The point is that what is uncomfortable for one, may be very comfortable or even pleasurable to another. Comfort is subjective. And what does comfort have to do with terrorism? Shouldn’t the litmus test of whether an activity is suspicious be the possibility that the activity could b...
