VA Sued for Harassing Christian Chaplains
Military pastors ordered to stop quoting Bible, leave Jesus at home
WND Faith
by DREW ZAHN
Two military chaplains are suing Eric Shinseki, secretary of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, or VA, for allegedly being harassed and drummed out of a training and placement program because of their Christian faith.
Chaplains Major Steven Firtko, U.S. Army (Retired) and Lieutenant Commander Dan Klender, U.S. Navy, claim they were mocked, scolded and threatened for their faith while enrolled in the San Diego VA-DOD Clinical Pastoral Education Center program, which trains and distributes chaplains to military and VA medical centers in the San Diego area.
According to their lawsuit, Firtko and Klender allege the Center’s supervisor, Ms. Nancy Dietsch, a VA employee, derided them in classrooms and even had one of them dismissed for failing to renounce his Christian beliefs.
For example, on Sept. 24, 2012, the lawsuit claims, during a classroom discussion, Dietsch asked Firtko what he “believed faith was.”
Firtko responded by quoting Hebrews 11:1 – “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Dietsch told Firtko, on the first of several such instances according to the lawsuit, that he was not to quote the Bible in the chaplaincy program classroom.
On another incident in October, Dietsch allegedly shouted at Firtko for quoting Scripture again, banging her fist on the table and stating “it made her feel like she had been pounded over her head with a sledge hammer.”
The lawsuit also claims Dietsch told her students that the VA in general and she in particular do not allow chaplains to pray “in Jesus’ name” in public ceremonies.
Dietsch is also accused of allowing other students to deride Firtko and Klender, mocking them in front of the class and telling Firtko if he held to his beliefs on such things as evolution, salvation and homosexuality, he “did not belong in this program.” Eventually, the lawsuit states, she threatened to dismiss Firtko for refusing to recant his Christian doctrine and ordered he serve a six-week probation.
The lawsuit claims Chaplain Klender’s superior even encouraged him to challenge Dietsch for her “bias against evangelicals.”
Klender later left the program voluntarily, citing Dietsch’s alleged abuse.
Firtko, however, according to the lawsuit, was ejected from the program through a letter, signed by Dietsch, which stated his probation period was not “yielding the results” desired.
In July, Firtko, Klender and their sponsoring organization, the Conservative Baptist Association of America, filed formal complaint against Dietsch and the VA.
Now the lawsuit, filed with the help of Military-Veterans Advocacy, explains that Firtko and Klender have exhausted all administrative options and that the harassment the chaplains endured violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“No American choosing to serve in the armed forces should be openly ridiculed for his Christian faith, and that is most obviously true for chaplains participating in a chaplain training program,” said Commander J.B. Wells, U. S. Navy (Ret.), executive director of Military-Veterans Advocacy. “Not only was the treatment these men received inappropriate, it was also a violation of federal law and the religious freedom guarantees of the First Amendment.”
The lawsuit, Conservative Baptist Association of America v. Shinseki, has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/va-sued-for-harassing-christian-chaplains/#lskaOfja2K53CTjU.99
“So help me God” The Latest Target of Anti-Christian Proselytizing in the Military
American Center for Law and Justice
The president of the deceptively named Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), Mikey Weinstein, is at it again, taking his anti-Christian crusade once more to the U.S. Military.
A week ago, he wrote a letter to the Air Force Academy demanding that the words “so help me God” be stricken from the cadet Honor Code. He claims that the phrase violates the Constitution as an establishment of religion and the imposition of a religious test to hold office.
What his assertions clearly ignore is the long history and tradition of this phrase throughout American public and military service. President George Washington himself added the phrase to the Presidential Oath of Office, and it is in fact part of the actual oath of enlistment for the Air Force.
The fact is no one is forced to say the phrase or denied the ability to serve in the military for refusing to say it.
The ACLJ recently wrote the new Superintendent of the Air Force Academy, Lieutenant General Michelle D. Johnson, a letter explaining the constitutionality of the Academy’s use of the phrase “so help me God”:
First, no cadet is compelled to recite the phrase, and failure to recite the phrase results in no penalty. Second, the phrase establishes no religion. In fact, the phrase is no more onerous to the Constitutional rights of Air Force Academy cadets than is the phrase, “In God We Trust,” on the currency they receive in payment for their military service. From the very beginning, this has been an artificial crisis wholly contrived by individuals in the MRFF who are hostile or hypersensitive to any and every example of religious expression in the military (no matter what the source of such expression).
The letter goes on to point out the unrelentingly anti-Christian agenda of MRFF. For example, in one Op-Ed he wrote recently, Weinstein referred to Christians in the U.S. armed forces as “monsters who terrorize” and other derogatory terms nearly 50 times. On other occasions he has compared Christian members of the military to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
This is nothing more than an ongoing, calculated effort to proselytize atheism and anti-Christian propaganda in the military at the expense of religious freedom.
As our letter concluded:
Mr. Weinstein’s numerous, erroneous demands invite extreme caution on the part of all those who are targets of his periodic tirades and who receive his periodic letters, lest the recipients become unwitting pawns in Mr. Weinstein’s strategy to eviscerate religious freedom in the Armed Forces. . . .
In this matter, the mere presence of the phrase “so help me God” in the Honor Code does not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States. As such, Air Force Academy officials must absolutely reject Mr. Weinstein’s imagined Constitutional violation.
Nearly 100,000 Americans have signed our petition defending religious freedom in the military against these outrageous anti-Christian attacks. Sign the Petition to Protect Religious Freedom in the Military today.
US Army NATO brigade holds spiritual fitness breakfast
Story by Sgt. 1st Class John Wollaston
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Stanley Allen, U.S. Army NATO Brigade chaplain, speaks about the importance of spiritual fitness as a key component of the overall comprehensive soldier fitness plan during a breakfast gathering at the Sembach Community Activity Center. Soldiers and civilians from the tenant units on Sembach attended the event.
SEMBACH, Germany – Think of comprehensive soldier fitness as a three-legged stool. For a soldier to be at his or her best, all three legs of the stool need to be solid. One weak link and the overall well being of the soldier could collapse.
The Army Chaplains Corps has been involved with helping to develop a soldier’s spiritual fitness for more than 25 years, starting with a wellness plan entitled “1,2,3 Fit to Win!”
The program stressed that “TOTAL fitness also involves emotional and spiritual aspects.” To that end, the unit ministry team for the U.S. Army NATO Brigade brought together soldiers, airmen and even some sailors stationed on Sembach Kaserne recently for a spiritual fitness breakfast, aimed at ensuring the spiritual fitness of those in attendance was at its peak.
“We’ll spend an hour to an hour and a half in the gym every day to ensure we’re physically fit,” said chaplain (Lt. Col.) Stanley Allen, the U.S. Army NATO brigade chaplain. “But how much time are we willing to spend in prayer to ensure that we are spiritually fit?”
Allen says that while the physical and mental aspects of soldier fitness are the ones most soldiers tend to focus on the most, spiritual fitness is the one most often over looked in a soldiers daily life, even though it’s just as critical to a soldiers well being as the mental and physical. To hammer home his point, Chaplain Allen quoted the former chief of staff of the Army, General of the Army George C. Marshall.
“The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything. “He quoted Gen. Marshall as saying. “Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, He cannot be relied on and will fail himself, his commander and his country in the end.”
The event started off with a breakfast buffet and scripture reading. Soldiers from the various units on Sembach attended the event as well as sailors from the Navy Reserve’s Warrior Transition Program, also located on Sembach.
US Army defines Christian ministry as ‘domestic hate group’
By Todd Starnes
Published October 14, 2013 | FoxNews.com
Several dozen U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told last week that the American Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, should be classified as a domestic hate group because the group advocates for traditional family values.
The briefing was held at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and listed the AFA alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.
A soldier who attended the briefing contacted me and sent me a photograph of a slide show presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group. Under the AFA headline is a photograph of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps holding a sign reading “No special law for f***.”
American Family Association has absolutely no affiliation with the controversial church group known for picketing the funerals of American servicemembers.
“I had to show Americans what our soldiers are now being taught,” said the soldier who asked not to be identified. “I couldn’t just let this one pass.”
The soldier said a chaplain interrupted the briefing and challenged the instructor’s assertion that AFA is a hate group.
“The instructor said AFA could be considered a hate group because they don’t like gays,” the soldier told me. “The slide was talking about how AFA refers to gays as sinners and heathens and derogatory terms.”
The soldier, who is an evangelical Christian, said the chaplain defended the Christian ministry.
“He kept asking the instructor, ‘Are you sure about that, son? Are you sure about that?’” he said, recalling the back and forth.
Later in the briefing, the soldiers were reportedly told that they could face punishment for participating in organizations that are considered hate groups.
That considered, the soldier contacted me because he is a financial contributor to the AFA ministry.
“I donate to AFA as often as I can,” he said. “Am I going to be punished? I listen to American Family Radio all day. If they hear it on my radio, will I be faced with a Uniformed Code of Military Justice charge?”
The soldier said he was “completely taken back by this blatant attack not only on the AFA but Christians and our beliefs.”
It’s not the first time the Army has accused conservative Christian groups of being domestic hate groups.
Earlier this year, I exposed Army briefings that classified evangelical Christians and Catholics as examples of religious extremism.
Another briefing told officers to pay close attention to troops who supported groups like AFA and the Family Research Council.
One officer said the two Christian ministries did not “share our Army Values.”
“When we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army Values – don’t just walk by – do the right thing and address the concern before it becomes a problem,” the officer wrote in an email to his subordinates.
At the time the military assured me those briefings were isolated incidents and did not reflect official Army policy.
If that’s true, how do they explain what happened at Camp Shelby?
I contacted the Pentagon for an answer but they referred me to Army public affairs. And so far – they haven’t returned my calls.
And their claim that the classifications are “isolated” is not washing with AFA.
“The American Family Association has received numerous accounts of military installations as well as law enforcement agencies using a list compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which wrongfully identifies and defames AFA,” reads a statement they sent me.
Bryan Fischer hosts a talk show on American Family Radio. He called the Army’s allegations “libelous, slanderous and blatantly false.”
“This mischaracterization of AFA is reprehensible and inexcusable,” he told me. “We have many military members who are a part of the AFA network who know these accusations are a tissue of lies.”
Fischer said their views on gay marriage and homosexuality are not hate – it’s simply a disagreement.
“If our military wasn’t headed by a commander-in-chief who is hostile to Christian faith, these allegations would be laughed off every military base in the world,” he said.
Hiram Sasser, of the Liberty Institute, told me the Army’s briefing is a smear.
He recalled what President Obama said last year when Muslim extremists attacked our diplomatic outpost in Libya.
“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths,” President Obama said. “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
Sasser said he wished the president and the Army would treat the American Family Association with the same deference and respect they show those who mean to harm us.
“Why must the Army under this administration continue to attack Americans of faith and smear them?” Sasser wondered.
I fear the answer to that question.
Because it appears the Obama administration is separating the military from the American people – and planting seeds of doubt about Christians and some of our nation’s most prominent Christian ministries.
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/14/us-army-defines-christian-ministry-as-domestic-hate-group/