Posted on 05/25/2020 4:28:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
Editor's Note: This column is co-authored by Joseph P. Infranco, Senior Counsel and Vice President for Alliance Coordination at Alliance Defending Freedom.
The German submarine struck in the wee small hours, and despite all the precautions of its captain and crew, the USS Dorchester was hit hard and deep, and went down like a stone. The torpedo destroyed the ship’s electrical system, plunging those of the 900-plus soldiers aboard still alive into near total darkness, even before it took them down into the icy sea.
Only 230 would survive the sinking; many of them owed their lives at least in part to four chaplains who moved quickly amid the pitch-black corridors and general panic to herd them up on deck, then help them into life jackets and lifeboats. There weren’t enough of either.
When the life jackets ran out, all four of the chaplains instantly took off theirs. Though they represented four very different faiths, Methodist George Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Catholic Priest John Washington, and Dutch Reformed Clark Poling made no effort to get their own last hope of survival into the hands of someone who shared their religious convictions; they just gave their jackets to the nearest outstretched hand.
None of the four tried to board one of the already overcrowded boats. They were last seen arm-in-arm, standing on the fast-tilting deck, singing hymns and praying together as the cold, dark waters of the North Atlantic rapidly rose to engulf them.
In the years after that February 1943 tragedy, the nation honored the chaplains’ sacrifice with medals and monuments, their memory paintings and books, even an official day of remembrance. But somehow, many today have lost their respect for a particularly crucial aspect of their heroism that dark night.
To Americans of the World War era, the importance of faith—and admiration for those who held to their faith even in the face of chaos, fear, and death—was a given. Not everyone was a churchgoer, of course, but most recognized the critical role people of faith and their love of religious freedom had played in the nation’s founding.
They also understood, almost intuitively, that religious liberty was the linchpin that held all other civil liberties in place. After all, if you can take away a man’s right to honor and follow his conscience, it’s short work to rob him of his freedom to speak, to gather, to bear arms.
Polls seem to indicate that Americans today don’t necessarily share that understanding with the “Greatest Generation.” And efforts outside the military to crush religious freedom indicate that faith—even in this most recent time of chaos, fear, and death—no longer enjoys the same respect … or protections.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, for example, has moved aggressively during the coronavirus quarantine to urge crackdowns on overt expressions of faith by chaplains—acting on and encouraging the complaints of servicemen and women who are undaunted by foreign adversaries but apparently deeply afraid that a military chaplain might actually share his or her faith in a military setting.
Since COVID-19 restrictions went into effect, MRFF has filed complaints against chaplains around the country who have shared video sermons on military installation webpages (a legally approved forum), persuaded Facebook to remove videos of chaplains ’prayers, and pushed for formal charges against a Korea-stationed chaplain who shared a religious book with his subordinates as a ministry tool (no chaplain was required to read, much less use, the book).
The group even demanded and received a public apology from a Christian who shared hymns and encouragement from the balcony of his military housing apartment.
Presumably, MRFF and the military personnel it represents would want members of the military and their families to find comfort, strength, and hope during these difficult days of world pandemic—they just don’t want those encouragements coming from God, or from those who take God seriously.
Clearly, these activists have little appreciation for the critical role chaplains have long played in ministering to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the men and women of our armed forces. One almost wonders if, offered a lifejacket that night when the Dorchester went down, they’d have felt duty-bound to reject it as some unseemly expression of those chaplains’ faith. Or held out until some worthy atheist was willing to part with his.
These anti-Christian accusations by the MRFF are not only unjust to today’s military chaplains—they present an unworthy response to the legacy of the many courageous and conscientious chaplains who have served our military across the centuries … and reveal a sad contempt for America’s rich heritage of religious freedom.
Dr. Ron Crews is executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. Joseph Infranco is senior counsel and vice president for alliance coordination with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Honor their memory,take our places of worship back!
REALLY???
What type of 'Christian" is THIS??
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is an overboard, fanatical pressure group on the level of PETA and SPLC. Their obvious goal is an official intolerance of any ‘normal’ religion but they are all for putting in Satanists, Wiccans and other 1% types into the official Military Chaplain slots in the force structures. I am certain that their shenanigans worked well with the goals of the previous Administration. The problem is that it takes time to get their enablers in the military hierarchy moved out and so lil Mikey still plays his games.
My father, FReeper Skyraider, would often tell the story of The Four Chaplains at veterans gatherings.
On this Memorial Day, I realize I will live to see the day when the last GI passes - and on that day a quote from the “Lord of the Rings” films will ring true:
“Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it...”
It would seem that the best thing to do with the MRFF is to totally ignore them. They have nothing to offer our military.
Weinstein hides behind a history of military time, notice I didn’t say service, to destroy religious freedom. He used the Air Force Academy to get an education, not to be in the military. He never served in combat, and has spent his career being a lawyer, not an officer.
In the web site for Military Religious Freedom Foundation, his invention it states:
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom to which they and all Americans are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
This mission statement leaks out of his mouth while he attacks religious groups.
He left the employ of Ross Perot in 2006 and published his first book, “With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military” So the only real war he faced was one against religion using God’s name. I personally was in the military for an Air Force career and attached to it for another dozen years for the Department of the Army and DOD. I am a witness that I never saw, or heard of, any effort by religion within the AF to coup anything, any way.
He used his family’s history, his over rated active time in the military doing a job that has nothing to do with the military, and has profited on the wrecking of religious freedom in the US that is guaranteed in the Constitution’s first Amendment for his gain.
It is my opinion that he is an embarrassment to the AF and the US military he uses, his family’s tradition of service, and, because he professes such, the conservative movement in this country.
rwood
Maybe but to them the god of the moslems is to be acknowledged and feared with reverence and respected as even higher than their no god...
I bet there were no complaints against any moslem chaplain...
The military has even built mosques on installations for the moslem soldiers...
Absolutely
I remember the story of Obadiah in 1 Kings 18 who, while in the service of King Ahab, clandestinely hid the prophets of God and cared for them out of Ahab's table. While Elijah appeared to have some disdain for Obadiah, God told Elijah that it was he (God) that had set aside the prophets. Obadiah was doing precisely what God wanted him to do in hiding the prophets.
Military chaplains to me are the Obadiahs of the world. They have to live with a government that is becoming more increasingly hostile to them, all the while serving God-overtly and covertly. It sometimes more easier to be an Elijah and fall on your Christian sword than to try to accomplish goals in other ways. It is a very difficult balancing act.
Matthew 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
Obviously a Christian in name only
I agree.
Take this account with a grain of salt (if you haven't already).
And why does President Trump even allow the military to respond to these gutter dwellers? Because the deep state still reigns supreme at the Pentagon even to the point of ignoring or disobeying the President. It will continue that way until he takes a stand against it. (Retired Army Officer)
I guarantee you he will pay a very high price for his actions, a price that will never end.
There was an awful lot of sentimental pap being pushed on an American public that was wondering why Americans were back on ships once again to sail off and keep Europeans from killing each other; while these men may have heroically given up their life-jackets and calmed the nerves of the men around them, the picture of them holding on to each other and praying together is just a little too tidy.
The difference now is that military service is entirely discretionary. I would contend that no real Christian has any business serving in the military to defend a country whose government is openly hostile to Christianity.
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