Religious test to curb suicides or get converts?

For my Christian friends out there with the idea this is a good thing, you really need to begin to understand exactly what is going on here. This is not about sending them to any Christian Church but telling them if they are not part of the Fundamentalist Christianity faith, they are basically not good enough. In other words, if they are Catholic, they're going to hell. If they have no faith at all or happen to be Muslim or Hebrew, they need to convert and accept their version of what is right.

Over 60% of the Chaplains in the military have no problem with proselytizing by military chaplains

NPR reported that the Academy would be hosting mandatory religious tolerance seminars for cadets. The Department of Defense has also proactively built worship facilities for those of minority faiths and improved pluralist training for chaplains. Still, of the 2,900 active chaplains with the military, two-thirds are evangelical -- and that number continues to rise.

So yes, even you should fight against forcing faith on the troops since this is not about faith is a good thing but more about one certain branch of one certain faith is all that matters.

Other chaplains have a huge problem with this for a reason. They are there to help soldiers with their spiritual needs and not there to convert them. Many conversations I've had with others ministering to veterans feel the same way. Faith does help them heal and on this we agree that it is vital in the healing process but this does more harm than good when it is coerced. Plus there is a fear they don't know how to do it in the first place even if they begin to discuss the emotional healing that is possible.

Let's say a soldier goes to a chaplain and tells them that he thinks he's evil because he killed someone in Afghanistan. Now let's say he happens to be a member of the Catholic faith. The Fundamentalist Chaplain will tell him that basically he is evil because he does not know Christ the way he should and must convert to be born again. This even though the Catholic faith was one of the first to follow Christ and is right up with there with Orthodox Christians particularly the Greeks, who helped Paul spread Christianity throughout the world. But these two branches of the faith are just not good enough for certain Fundamentalists telling even them they are not right with God.

Now take a soldier with no set of beliefs or one with their own ideas about God and then have them come up against a Fundamentalist supposedly there to take care of the emotional crisis the soldier is going through. Instead of talking to them the way any therapist would, they rebuke them. This is an assault on their beliefs and their right to worship as they see fit to do. It does not gently guide them in the process of building any kind of faith but instead pushes them away.

Each person has the freewill to follow their own path and they decide to go to church or not, which church or group they feel connected to and to believe according to their own understanding and growth. None of this can be forced. If you have teenagers, you know this is true. How many of us have taken our kids to church all their lives only to have them walk away from it for a time? They are lead, then they return of their own freewill or not. It is up to them. Some switch to another church finding they fit in better with another group. This is not only the right of an American to worship as they see fit or not at all, but the basic desire of God for each person to worship of their own freewill.

If a Chaplain fails to take care of the people placed into their lives, they have failed God but if it is a military Chaplain, they have not only failed God, they have failed the country formed for the free practice of religious matters. This has also been complicated since military Chaplains are used in place of mental health workers. If they are not taking care of the soldier in crisis situations because they are too busy trying to convert them this leaves the soldier with nowhere to turn. They end up abandoned.

Every member of the clergy, every Chaplain and every service organization needs to take a stand and stop this now before more suffer under this abuse. Sixty percent of the military Chaplains may have no problem with this, but forty percent are still trying to do what they took an oath to the constitution to do. This article talks about atheists having a problem with Fundamentalists but it isn't just them. It is anyone who is not one of them.

OLBERMANN: The Military Is Trying To Curb Suicide Rates By Sending Soldiers To Church
Steven Loeb
Jan. 7, 2011, 10:59 AM

Boy, atheists are getting a lot of attention on the cablesphere these days.
Just when we thought that discrimination had finally been eradicated from the military, now Keith Olbermann is reporting on a new lawsuit from The Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers. The military has been giving tests to curb suicide rates and post traumatic stress disorder, but part of the test asks about the soldier's spirituality. And if they fail that portion of the test? The recommendation is that they go to church or pray.


Read more: The Military Is Trying To Curb Suicide

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