Catholic in the Public Square
This video was produced by Reach America, an education organization based in Coeur d”Alene, Idaho.
Gary Brown, founder of the organization, said that one of the factors that inspired him to create this video, which is named The Thaw, happened last year when a public school teacher asked students to write an essay title, “I Believe,” without using the names God or Jesus in their papers.
Michael Weinstein is a self-styled “civil rights advocate” and Founder and President of a hate-tank called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
He is also the author of a Christian-bashing article that was published by the Huffington Post.
I wrote about an article yesterday about this article, Christian Bashing: Are There Any Limits? and readers followed through with a plethora of information on Mr Weinstein. One of the claims was that he is a religious adviser for President Obama. However, I don’t think that Michael Weinstein is a religious adviser for President Obama or the Pentagon.
I’ve googled quite a bit, and I found that claim splashed all over the internet. However, I could not track it back to a reputable source. What I found instead were circular sources linking to one another.
I did find a Department of Defense document that says this:
Internet posts are attributing a statement that superior officers who try to convert those under their command should face court-martial to Mikey Weinstein, president of the Albuquerque, N.M.-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and are identifying him as a Pentagon advisor, Christensen noted.
“Mr. Weinstein is not part of any DOD advisory group or committee, nor is he a consultant to the Defense Department regarding religious matters,” Christensen said. “Mr. Weinstein requested, and was granted, a meeting at the Pentagon April 23, with the Air Force judge advocate general and others, to include the deputy chief of chaplains, to express his concerns of religious issues in the military.”
Based on the unabashed self-promotion I saw on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation web site, I doubt that Mr Weinstein would leave something like this out if it was true. If someone has a link to an original source saying that Mr Weinstein is a religious advisor for either President Obama or the Pentagon, please share it with me. Otherwise, I’m going to round-file that story as internet legend.
Here, from the MRFF website, are a few things about Mr Weinstein, who often refers to himself as “Mikey,” that did turn out to be true:
Here, in the order in which they appear, is a list of the organizations that have submitted “partnering links” to the MRFF:
Why don’t Christian bashers ever get tired of themselves?
I don’t read atheist blogs. But I am aware that at least some of them appear to have no purpose except Christian bashing.
Based on the topics I see posted, it appears that all they do, day after day, post after post, is churn out one attack on Christ, Christianity and Christians after another. I don’t claim or want to be an expert on atheist blogs, but from what I see of these, they are negative to the point of implosion.
They offer nothing — nothing — on which to build a life or a society except broad (and baseless) claims that they represent “reason.” There is nothing reasonable, healthy or sustaining about a life built on attacking other people.
And that, of course, is the trouble with atheism as a philosophy. It’s a zero. There is no “there” there. When you get past the constant attacking and tearing down and destroying of Christianity and Christian social structures and morality, all you have is … nothing. You cannot sustain a society or a person on nihilism and negativity. It’s like trying to stay healthy by eating styrofoam.
You can make good money preaching hatred of Christians and Christianity. You can become a legendary folk hero to people who want to be told that there are no limits to what they may do to other people. But you can not build anything based on a philosophy of tearing down, attacking and destroying.
I am not writing this to encourage atheists to become pretend Christians so that they can avoid looking off the side of the cliff they’ve built and seeing the nothing that their philosophy leads them to. I am writing it to encourage Christians to stop being intimidated by these little thinkers.
They offer nothing except the emptiness of what is left when your whole purpose is destruction.
The question isn’t how to answer them, but why don’t they ever get tired of themselves? How many times can you write the same tripe attacking other people and other people’s beliefs before the echo chamber of your own repetitiveness begins to bore you?
Why don’t Christian bashers ever get tired of themselves? 
I held off on writing about this because I was trying to figure it out.
An Army Training Manual designated Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity as terrorist organizations, alongside the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas and al-Queda. Reports say that the manual was used (presumably as a teaching device) during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on religious extremism. You can find the entire training manual here. This is a screen shot I took of the slide in question:
Fox News said that Army spokesman George Wright told them that this training manual “is not condoned” by the US Army and was an isolated incident. “This slide was not produced by the Arny and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine … It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission,” he said.
I held back on writing about this because the Army was claiming the manual was the product on one wacko soldier and that they had corrected the situation. I didn’t exactly buy that, but I also didn’t know enough to have an opinion about what was happening.
Enter Lt Col Jack Rich who appears to be on active duty and is stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Lt Col Rich is reported to have sent an email to his subordinates listing the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as “domestic hate groups.”
The email said in part:
“Just want to ensure everyone is somewhat educated on some of the groups out there that do not share our Army Values,” the note read, according to Starnes’ report. “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 email ran on for 14 pages and listed The Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for its material. According to Fox News, it documented groups the “military considers to be anti-gay” among other things.
A Yahoo News article made this comment:
Some cultural warriors would likely look at this, teamed with some of the other incidents unfolding of late, and assume that there’s a war on Christianity — one that has worked its way into the U.S. military. Of course, others would dismiss such a notion as silly and unfounded. While Tony Perkins, who heads FRC, called the e-mail evidence that the military has become anti-Christian in nature, a Pentagon spokesperson denied such allegations.
I guess I’m one of those “culture warriors” the article talks about, because I am beginning to see a pattern here and it’s a twin to the pattern that’s formed in our universities. Those in authority are twisting the original intent of phrases such as “equal opportunity” to legitimize overt prejudice and hazing of Christians and Christian groups who support traditional Christian morality.
I know full well that sounds simplistic. But when we see one university after another attempting to kick Christian groups off their campuses under the guise of “inclusiveness,” it begins to form a pattern. When the United States Army experiences a similar rash of anti-Christian rhetoric in training manuals and now from a high-ranking officer, it does point in that direction.
These incidents with the Army are also certainly not the only ones that have occurred. They are just the ones we have learned about. It appears that the Army is breaking out with a case of Christian-bashing measles.
The point I want to make is these two incidents were not private, off-the-cuff incidents between a couple of individuals. One was an Army Training Manual used at an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity Training Session and the other was an officer sending instructions to his subordinates.
The United States Army is easily one of the most efficient killing machines on the planet. This kind of behavior coming from inside its ranks is not something to be taken lightly or dismissed.
It is ironic to me that things like equal opportunity training sessions are being used to foment discrimination. But that corruption of the original intent of these things appears to be widespread.
It seems that the Archdiocese for Military Services, which knows a lot more about these things than I do, reacted to the training manual in a similar, “I dunno for sure” way. Their official statement about it said they were “astounded” by a training manual that
… expressly listed “Catholicism,” “Evangelical Christianity” and other religious groups as examples of “religious extremism” alongside groups such as “Al Qaeda”, “Hamas” and the “KKK.”
I am wondering how they will react now that another shoe has dropped. 
Other recent incidents against Christians in the United States Military include:
- A War Games scenario at Fort Leavenworth that identified Christian groups and Evangelical groups as being potential threats;
- A 2009 Dept. of Homeland Security memorandum that identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups;
- A West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center that linked pro-lifers to terrorism;
- Evangelical leader Franklin Graham was uninvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service because of his comments about Islam;
- Christian prayers were banned at the funeral services for veterans at Houston’s National Cemetery;
- Bibles were banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – a decision that was later rescinded;
- Christian crosses and a steeple were removed from a chapel in Afghanistan because the military said the icons disrespected other religions;
- Catholic chaplains were told not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop related to Obamcare mandates. The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience.
Also:
Military Says Crosses Disrespect Other Faiths
Army Silences Catholic Chaplains
Easter isn’t all new clothes, gorgeous masses in stunning church buildings and arguments about red shoes and foot washing.
In some places, Calvary is present in the lives of the people. The Church itself and all its Christian people hang on the cross of persecution.
In other places, such as the United States and Great Britain, society is moving along the continuum toward violent persecution. Christians in those two countries have come to expect and accept that they will be subjected to hate speech against Christians, Christian-bashing on web sites. They are increasingly being forced to accept that they face growing legal discrimination against Christians and moves to force Christian speech and expression out of the public sphere. We are at the “you can go to church all you want, but leave it there,” phase of discrimination, and this discrimination is rapidly becoming government-enforced.
At the same time, Christians in Egypt fear being kidnapped with no police support to stop it. Christians in Bangladesh have their children stolen and trafficked and again, the police do not punish the traffickers. Christians in North Korea are imprisoned and worked to death. Christians in Nigeria are murdered, tortured and their churches are burned.
I could go on. But there is too much of it for one post.
Here is this week’s roundup of Christian persecution in Six Quick Takes.
1. Nigeria: Easter Attacks Kill 80, Thousands of Christians Flee to the Hills
By BosNewsLife Africa Service – “Nigerian Christians appealed for prayers Tuesday, April 2, after Easter season violence in troubled central Nigeria left as many as 80 people dead and displaced some 4,500 others.
At least 19 people were killed since Easter Sunday when gunmen believed to be nomadic Muslim cattle herders attacked the mostly Christian Atakar group in Kaura district, a remote area of Kaduna state, officials said.
Witnesses said the attacks on three communities, including the Mafang and Zilang villages, killed many women and children. Kaduna police spokesman Aminu Lawan told reporters his forces were still investigating.
Ataka Christians live near Plateau state where authorities claimed fighting between cattle herders, who are mainly Fulani Muslims, and Christian villages killed nearly 60 people in recent days.
The area is on the uneasy dividing line between Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south…
Christians said that following Sunday’s violence, thousands of villagers fled to the nearby hills. (Read more here.)
2. Bangladesh: Christian Children Re-Captured By Trafficker
Eleven of the 16 Christian children who were rescued from Muslim traffickers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Jan. 2 have again gone missing. Sources in the Christian community, as well as reports in local newspapers, report that they believe the children were re-trafficked and taken to madrassas, Islamic training centers, where they will likely be forced to convert to Islam and study the Quran.
Eleven Christian children, originally from the Rangamati district of Chittagong Hill Tracts, disappeared for the second time earlier this year after being given back to the custody of their parents. “We were not aware that our child would be taken to a madrassa,” one parent told International Christian Concern (ICC).
The children, along with five others, had been rescued by police from a madrassa in the Abuzor Giffari Mosque Complex in Dhaka. The children had been missing for months. They were returned to their parents soon after their rescue, but traffickers continually threatened the parents until the recent re-disappearance of the children. Local authorities say the children were likely trafficked again to madrassas and are concerned that they will be forcibly converted to Islam.
“The [leader] of the traffickers gives a large sum of money to the traffickers to take the kids to the madrassa,” said an ICC source. “Because of this, they threatened the parents and took their children, again, to a madrassa. It is all because of large sums of money, and because there are no punishments for the trafficker.” (Read more here.)
3. North Korea: Number 1 for Christian Persecution
North Korea is the most hostile place for Christians around the globe, according to the annual “World Watch” list from the Open Doors Organization.
The list ranks the 50 countries where Christian persecution is most severe. North Korea tops the 2013 list, thus holding its ranking for the eleventh year running.
“Christians are classified as hostile and face arrest, detention, torture, even public execution,” the Open Doors report said. (Read more here.)
4. Great Britain: Majority of Church-Going Christians Feel Persecuted and Marginalized
Over two-thirds of Christians in the United Kingdom feel part of a victimized minority, and David Cameron is making that worse by redefining marriage, the Coalition for Marriage says.
In a new poll commissioned by the group, almost eight in 10 said the prime minister’s same-sex marriage plan will lead to those who back traditional marriage facing the sack.
More than two-thirds (67 percent) said they felt part of a “persecuted minority.”
Marginalized
The survey also showed that over half of the U.K.’s Christians who voted Conservative in 2010 would “definitely not” do so again in 2015.Colin Hart, campaign director of the Coalition for Marriage, said the poll showed “widespread and continued opposition towards David Cameron’s plans to redefine marriage.”
He added: “More worryingly it shows how Christians and those of faith are being treated like illegal aliens in their own country. They are being marginalized and persecuted for their beliefs. (Read more here.)
5. Egypt: Christians Targeted for Kidnappings
MATAI, Egypt (AP) — Ezzat Kromer’s resistance to his kidnappers did not last long. One of the masked gunmen fired a round between his feet as he sat behind the wheel of his car and said with chilling calm, “The next one will go into your heart.”
The Christian gynecologist says he was bundled into his abductors’ vehicle, forced to lie under their feet in the back seat for a 45-minute ride, then dumped in a small cold room while his kidnappers contacted his family over a ransom.
For the next 27 hours, he endured beatings, insults and threats to his life, while blindfolded, a bandage sealing his mouth and cotton balls in his ears.
Kromer’s case is part of a dramatic rise of kidnappings targetingChristians, including children, in Egypt‘s southern province of Minya, home to the country’s largest concentration of Christians but also a heartland for Islamist hard-liners.
The kidnappings are mostly blamed on criminal gangs, which operate more freely amid Egypt’s collapse in security since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Crime has risen in general across Egypt, hitting Muslims as well. But the wave of kidnappings in Minya has specifically targeted Christians, and victims, church leaders and rights activists ultimately blame the atmosphere created by the rising power of hard-line Islamists.
They contend criminals are influenced by the rhetoric of radical clerics depicting Egypt’s Christian minority as second-class citizens and see Christians as fair game, with authorities less likely to investigate crimes against the community.
Over the past two years, there have been more than 150 reported kidnappings in the province — all of them targeting Christians, according to a top official at the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police. (Read the rest here.)
6. United States: Pro Life Student Group Banned at Johns Hopkins University
.- A pro-life student group at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., is appealing a denial of official recognition, saying that it is being discriminated against for its views against abortion.
Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America, told CNA that this decision is surprising, given that Johns Hopkins administration and students “pride themselves on being a ‘free speech campus’ – allowing dissenting opinions on campus and allowing a free exchange of ideas on campus.”
She added that there is a need for “upholding freedom of speech that isn’t popular.”
Voice for Life, a pro-life organization that is trying to re-start on the Johns Hopkins campus after several years of dormancy, has been rejected multiple times by the university’s student government, despite receiving clearance from the necessary committees as having met all campus requirements. (Read more here.)
Instead of bashing one another, maybe Christians should unite against the barbarians at the gate.
I’ve read stories about the use of schools to indoctrinate students against Christianity in the Communist block all my life.
Most of the methods that I read about were crude, but effective. I put the behavior of an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University smack in the middle of crude and overt use of the classroom to attack Christians and Christianity.
Evidently, Dr Deandre Poole wrote the name Jesus on a piece of paper, put it on the floor and told his students to step on it. The point was supposedly to prove something about symbols. One of the students, a Mormon, refused, and was subsequently penalized. When the student protested to the administration, he was suspended from the class.
Public outrage subsequently forced Florida Atlantic University to issue an apology.
“We sincerely apologize for any offense this has caused,” the university said in a prepared statement to Fox News. “Florida Atlantic University respects all religions and welcomes people of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs.”
The apology comes after a student complained that FAU professor Deandre Poole offended his religious beliefs when he instructed his intercultural communications class earlier this month to stomp on a piece of paper with “Jesus” written on it. The student was subsequently suspended from the class.
The school said the lesson will no longer be used, Fox News reported.
Does anyone reading this doubt that this is (1) use of the schools to indoctrinate students against Christianity, (2) overt discrimination against Christians and (3) a lot more common than any of us want to admit?
I could write about the obvious here, but I’m not going to do that. Many of the stories about this focus on the fact that the professor is an official in the Florida Democratic Party. I’m not defending that. But I do think that making it about party politics trivializes the story and avoids a major issue.
I don’t want to explain one more time why this is discrimination. I’m not going to point out that our schools are being used to teach our children to hate Christ. I am not even going to go into one of my major hobby horses, which is the evils of party politics.
What I want to talk about are the students in this class who went along with this professor and stepped on the name of Jesus. Only one of them, a practicing member of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, had the gumption to say “no.” Where were the Catholics? Where were the Southern Baptists? Where were the other kids who should have been saying “no.”
Why did this one young person have to stand for Jesus alone while all the rest of the students went ahead and participated?
If this happened to you, what would you do? What have you done when different versions of it did happen to you?
I’m not writing this to make people feel bad. I am writing this to encourage you — yes, YOU — to not go along with attacks on Our Lord when they happen right in front of you.
That would end it, you know. If Christians stopped allowing it to be done, it would have to stop. All we need is some guts.
This article from WND Education has details, but the story has been covered by many sources, including network news.
A Florida college professor causing national outrage for requiring students to write “Jesus” on a piece of paper, then put it on the floor and stomp on it, turns out also to be a top official in the local Democratic Party – the latest in a string of acute leadership embarrassments.
Although one student who refused to participate claims he was punished by being suspended from the class, Florida Atlantic University is defending the controversial assignment.
The dissenting student, Ryan Rotela, told the local CBS TV affiliate WPEC that his instructor, associate professor Deandre Poole, told everyone in the class to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper in bold letters, then put it on the floor and stomp on it.
Rotela, a junior from Coral Springs, said some of his classmates complied, but he refused.
“Anytime you stomp on something it shows that you believe that something has no value. So if you were to stomp on the word Jesus, it says that the word has no value,” he told WPEC.
A religious Mormon who attends church every Sunday, Rotela complained to school officials but said they responded by suspending him from the class.
According to Florida Atlantic University, Poole was conducting an exercise from the textbook “Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition.”
A synopsis of the lesson plan in question, obtained by Fox News, goes like this:
“Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/dem-party-official-makes-students-stomp-on-jesus/#Muw6QGEaklS7Idt5.99
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/dem-party-official-makes-students-stomp-on-jesus/#Muw6QGEaklS7Idt5.99
Pope Francis does not, as the Catholic-bashing media likes to claim repetitively, “inherit a Church that is in disarray.” He does not, as they also like to say, “inherit a Church that people are abandoning.”
What he does inherit is a Church that is being subjected to historic levels of persecution all around the world. He inherits a Church that is the object of media vilification (of which these claims are a part) almost universal persecution that ranges from social hazing in the West to martyrdom of huge numbers of people in other parts of the world.
I’ve said a number of times that persecution is on a continuum. It never starts out with beheadings, Sunday worshippers burnt alive and mass migrations of displaced persons. It begins with verbal insults, moves on to a culture of verbal hazing and hate speech from the media fed by a militant, organized and ruthless group of propagandists. This leads to legal and economic discrimination. Only after enough slander, hate speech and propaganda have circulated to poison the public mind and a legal structure to allow it are in place, can a society move to overt physical brutality toward a group of people.
Take a look at the simple chart below and determine where you think your nation is on it. I think America today is in the process of moving from level one (which has become ubiquitous in our society) to level two. Other parts of the world are already deep int0 level three.
What do you think?
I began my day by reading the Holy Father’s beautiful words that he gave to us during his last public audience. I was moved, touched and inspired all at once. He spoke eloquently of what the Christian life truly is; a life of service, peace and joy in the face of life’s transitions.
Then, I turned to checking out the other headlines of the day by clicking on one of the major media web sites. I don’t want to give them any help, even from my itty bitty blog, by linking to them. You can take my word for this or not.
How did they headline the Holy Father’s good-bye?
The headline was: Pope Issues Gloomy Final Message.
Is that bias, or stupidity? What do you think?
No link, but this is a screen shot of the headline I mentioned.
Representative Rebecca Hamilton, 17-year member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives talks about life as a Public Catholic. Read her Bio Here
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