Posted on 11/17/2019 11:31:25 PM PST by Jyotishi
Vice President Mike Pence joins military officers and a chaplain on Aug. 23, 2019, in a prayer for two Army men who died during operations in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
(The Conversation) -- In 1919, Lee Levinger buried four soldiers in France. The responsibility to preside over a funeral was not unusual for military chaplains. But during World War I, most Americans would have been surprised to learn that a rabbi led a service for four Christian soldiers.
In 1917, when the United States entered the war, chaplaincy was a majority white and fully Christian organization.
No law specifically stated the acceptable religious backgrounds of military chaplains, but only mainline Protestant ministers and Catholic priests wore the insignia of the military's religious officers.
By Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, Jews, Mormons and Christian Scientists had joined the ranks of the chaplain corps. As I write in my book, "Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America," this significant change inaugurated a century-long project to redefine what counted as American religion.
History of chaplaincy
American military chaplains predate the founding of the republic. The Continental Congress, which served as the government for 13 American colonies, authorized military chaplains to minister to soldiers in 1775. The armed forces have employed clergy ever since.
Within the shadow of the cruciform monument to Father Francis P. Duffy, chaplain of the Rainbow Division's "Fighting 69th" regiment in World War I, the Rev. Joseph Stedman holds aloft a cross as he blesses a group of war veterans, church, civil and military dignitaries in New York on April 3, 1942. (AP Photo/John Rooney)
It was not until the early 20th century, however, that the chaplain corps professionalized and became fully integrated into the military's organizational structure....
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The Manchurian Candidate was subtle.
Just like his actual spiritual father in the Garden.
At other times, the Manchurian Candidate was in-your-face.
1/2 of America is so spiritually-dead inside they never woke up to it.
As I’ve said before, I’m reminded of a certain religious organization (nobody bother asking, open forum or FReepmail) that held “church” services. I attended an hour each month for 2.5 years. Not once, not once was a Bible cracked open and the Word of God taught. Not once.
Lots of praise and worship. Absolutely zero Bible preaching.
The Antichrist is going to just walk right in.
I've heard Mass on the deck of a Navy vessel, in a tent under field conditions, in missionary chapels in some pretty strange places, as well as in full-fledged Cathedrals. I really appreciated the work of the members of the Chaplain's Corps. Being spiritually fortified before going into dangerous circumstances s really important.
It is God who opens the eyes to see and ears to hear. But they must hear the Word of God. God's truth will prevail.
It is true that everyone from Adventists to Swedenborgians can be good soldiers in America, which does not require assent to a specific faith or denominations, though is does require obedience to precepts and principals which most closely and sometimes rather uniquely flow from the Christian faith, which at the least influenced the Founders, and the people who choose them. However, when certain doctrines are contrary to those precepts and principals - whether it be polygamy and or a Mormonic theocratic government or prolonged withholding of food from children, or requiring the killing of them in sacrifice or of unbelievers, then freedom of religion stops in that instance.
And yet Islam is fundamentally opposed as being theocratic political faith, and thus unless adherents spiritualize away its commands to Jihad domination by force and explain Muhammad's interpretive behavior in doing it, then they should not be allowed in the US, much less the military.
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