Associated Press article reposted at ConstitutionParty.com:
Americans entering the military often receive Bibles, courtesy of the Gideons International. But the Gideons have been told that while they can leave complimentary Bibles at most military induction stations, they cannot stay there to proselytize or preach to the recruits.
Daniel Trew, public information officer for the Military Entrance Processing Command, says the policy was recently established after concerns were raised by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Our legal person went with a representative from the ACLU to one of our stations, and we actually found where the Gideons’ individual at that station was getting up and talking to applicants who had just enlisted,” he explains. “We could not allow that to go on because the applicants could perceive that this talk was given under the auspices of the Department of Defense.”
Trew says the Gideons have agreed to abide by the policy. Read more…
Posted to IPR by Paulie
Michael,
And its precisely here that the CP shows it own basis in just these sectarian patterns, patterns that make many a Catholic otherwise comfortable with their positions on social questions most uneasy about them. Although perhaps not theocratic in an exacting sense of the word, the CP is nevertheless noticably Evangelical in its culture and, where they exist, in itys theological underpinings , in this case defending a specifically Evangelical – not a generally Christian – practice. Its not the faith that’s under attack here, its Evangelical methodology, yet attempts are made to cast objections to what amounted to a sales pitch by a member of the Gideons as patently anti-religious which they were not. That is not to say that Evangelicals are not also the victims of anti-Christian or anti-religious hate mongering, they have been and are. But not so here.
Hmmm. I wonder if the CP would get this worked up about a ban on preaching from the Church of Scientology, or Shiia Muslims.
John, we don’t agree much, but in this case you are right on the money!
How on earth did Jesus preach violence?
No Jesus did not preach violence.
And you are right again John.
it seems that the military wouldn’t want to have the message of peace to be available to new recruits. Whether its the message of the Bagwan, Islam or the message of Jesus.
Oh gracious; for one, the amount of religious-nationalism that permeates the military makes this statement ridiculous on its face. If you want to hear the “message of peace”, there are ample opportunities in the military to do it, and every single event is kicked off with an invocation and a benediction.
Regardless, it is pretty funny to call Islam and Christianity messages and religions of peace. Both Jesus and Muhammed preached violence, and Muhammed lived it.
In my experience, Evangelicals, by-in-large, are utterly insensitive when it comes to realizing how closely their approach to spreading the faith approximates the typical methodology employed by a corporation’s marketing or sales department. The “unsaved” are typically objectified and Jesus comodified in a fashion that would suggest a mindset approximating a commercial transaction. Actual strategies are mapped out and implimented to induce “decisions for Christ” as though one were dealing with a choice of toothpaste or deodorant. Having become used to this offensive trivialization of the faith, people today are repelled by it and rightly consider it an imposition. The cause of the Gideon’s – which in the end isn’t simply the provision of casual reading material, but rather something quite highly sectarian – is shown in this case to be precisely what it is: A crass, quasi-commercial undertaking. The birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus deserves something better.
Huh?
[Pretty nice weather also,
knock me over with a
feather climate!]
Is the “Book of Signs Foundation” allowed to leave copies of The Quran at these AFEES stations?
http://www.bookofsigns.org/
FWIW, almost forty years ago I received a New Testament from the Gideons on about my third or fourth day of boot camp at MCRD San Diego. I didn’t give much thought to it at the time. But it seems that the military wouldn’t want to have the message of peace to be available to new recruits. Whether its the message of the Bagwan, Islam or the message of Jesus.
PEACE