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Monday, September 5, 2011

Why Is the Military Spending Millions on Christian Contractors

I was sent a link to this story Gov't Spending Millions in Tax Money to Covert Soldiers to Christianity taking me to the original story, leaving me deeply troubled, but not for the reasons listed here.
Why Is the Military Spending Millions on Christian Contractors Bent on Evangelizing US Soldiers?
Why do Christian contractors play such a prominent role in our military?
August 21, 2011
By Chris Rodda

When the average American thinks of military spending on religion, they probably think only of the money spent on chaplains and chapels. And, yes, the Department of Defense (DoD) does spend a hell of a lot of money on these basic religious accommodations to provide our troops with the opportunity to exercise their religion while serving our country. But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the DoD's funding of religion. Also paid for with taxpayer dollars are a plethora of events, programs, and schemes that violate not only the Constitution, but, in many cases, the regulations on federal government contractors, specifically the regulation prohibiting federal government contractors receiving over $10,000 in contracts a year from discriminating based on religion in their hiring practices.

About a year ago, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) began an investigation into just how much money the DoD spends on promoting religion to military personnel and their families.

What prompted this interest in DoD spending on religion was finding out what the DoD was spending on certain individual events and programs, such as the $125 million spent on the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and its controversial "Spiritual Fitness" test, a mandatory test that must be taken by all soldiers. The Army insists that this test is not religious, but the countless complaints from soldiers who have failed this "fitness" test tell a different story. The experience of one group of soldiers who weren't "spiritual" enough for the Army can be read here. But the term "Spiritual Fitness is not limited to this one test. The military began using this term to describe a variety of initiatives and events towards the end of 2006, and this `code phrase' for promoting religion was heavily in use by all branches of the military by 2007.
read more here
I am deeply trouble because it doesn't work. If it did we would see the number of suicides and attempted suicides go down. Troubled marriages? You'd see the divorce rate go down especially when you acknowledge that when it is a military divorce, the civilian spouse has to go and usually that means taking the kids off to who knows where. Yep, they lose their base housing. There is a lot more to lose but still the rates are higher than the civilian world. Drug and alcohol abuse is up as well. What they are doing is not working but they keep putting money into something that failed.

It is not that spiritual programs are bad or there is anything wrong with having Christian groups working to help soldiers as long as they include other faiths but when the results are what they are, they need to rethink what they are funding.

"Spiritual Fitness" is code for if a soldier belongs to the right group or not. If not, then they are told they're going to hell. This is about conversion. Does the brass know what they are funding or are they part of it? Blaming the Tea Party? Not sure that makes sense since I haven't seen anything Christian about the Tea Party at all so I doubt they'd be giving a green light to this funding. What has been done has not worked but it is not the fault of God or Christ. It's the fault of the people running these programs with a different agenda in mind than healing the souls of the warriors.

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