TruthBook Religious News Blog

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 28, 2009

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WASHINGTON — Terry Bradshaw stared intently into the camera, his eyes moist, as the interviewer asked him if his faith in God had helped him through his bouts with depression.

“Oh, yeah,” answered Mr. Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame quarterback. “Well, I’m a Christian for one thing so, yeah, I’d been praying.”

The viewers of this video were military personnel who were watching an official military production dealing with depression, suicide and “the importance of faith.”

The screening of the suicide-prevention video and other recent incidents are reviving questions that the Pentagon had hoped to put behind it years ago: what the proper role of religion should be in the military and whether a pro-Christian culture permeates the armed forces.

Military officials have worked to enforce tougher restrictions on proselytizing and religious bias since a flare-up over religious discrimination in 2005 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where the football coach posted a locker room banner for “Team Jesus.” Officials said they had made great strides in the last few years, with training for officers and a concerted effort at the inclusion of all faiths.

“I’d be wrong to state that every chaplain does it right 100 percent of the time, but we work very hard at it,” said Carleton Birch of the Army’s Chief of Chaplains Office. “Chaplains ascribe to pluralism. We represent our own faith while respecting other faith groups.”

Signs of continued friction over the issue still abound, however. In a memorandum distributed last month at the Air Force Academy in response to several recent complaints about religious bias, base leaders reminded faculty members that “the Air Force is ‘officially neutral’ when it comes to belief systems.” The memorandum said cadets should not be made to feel that they would get better jobs by going to optional Bible study sessions.

Still, some military personnel and activists opposed to what they see as “forced religion” in the military said they believed the problem had continued largely unabated, and they said private groups like the Officers’ Christian Fellowship and the Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry maintained an outsized influence on many bases.

“The Army enforces policies against racism and sexism, but doesn’t bat an eye at these kinds of religious discrimination,” said Specialist Dustin Chalker, an Army medic based at Fort Detrick, in Maryland, who was raised in a Christian home but is now an atheist. “Why is it acceptable that soldiers are unable to serve this nation without attending state-led religious practices they find offensive and false?”

Specialist Chalker is now a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that accuses the military of ignoring laws and policies banning mandatory religious practices. Specialist Chalker, who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, remembers returning from the war in 2007 and attending a mandatory ceremony that began and ended with a Christian prayer. The experience, Specialist Chalker said, was “humiliating and dehumanizing.”

Leaders of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit group that brought the lawsuit against the Pentagon, point to episodes that they said represented a pattern of improper religious influence: official military retreats at off-base churches, the appearance of uniformed officers at religious events, displays of crucifixes at military chapels in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the practice of “dipping” the American flag at the altar of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., among others.

The foundation says the Terry Bradshaw video represents only the latest example of what it considers an improper blurring of secular and religious issues.

Mr. Bradshaw appears in a half-hour interview to discuss his experience with depression, with outtakes appearing in a six-minute video that includes a segment called “the importance of faith.” A suicide-prevention manual, training Army leaders in using the Bradshaw video, includes a “talking point” saying, “Spirituality is an invaluable ingredient in his battle with this disease.”

Chaplain Birch said testimonials like those from Mr. Bradshaw helped soldiers deal with depression. “No one’s trying to force religion on anyone,” he said of the video. “But someone’s personal faith testimony is part of their story, and we’re not going to go around and censor it.”

Labels: Eric Lichtblau, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Pentagon, religion

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Friday, September 21, 2007

Group Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Religion Issue

Yesterday, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and U.S. Army Major Paul Welborne. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, alleges that Army specialist Jeremy Hall, who is currently serving in Iraq, had his First Amendment rights violated last Thanksgiving when he was threatened and otherwise harrassed because he declined to participate in a Thanksgiving prayer ceremony.

According to Hall, who is an atheist, when he refused to join hands with other soldiers and pray, he was told by a staff sergeant (who first had to ask someone what an atheist was) that he could not eat Thanksgiving dinner with his peers. Hall, however, continued to eat his dinner at the table.

According to the complaint, in August, Hall received permission from a military chaplain to organize a group for atheist soldiers, but when the group met, Major Welborne broke it up, and also threatened to charge Hall with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Hall's complaint is not unique. Just last month, the Pentagon's Inspector General responded to a complaint by an MRFF that Defense Department officials violated their own regulations by appearing in a video to promote a fundamentalist Christian organization.

A spokesman for the MRFF has indicated that the Hall lawsuit is just the first of many.

Labels: Army, atheism, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Pentagon