The Deacon's Bench
Details from the Christian Post:
An atheist activist group is claiming a victory in its ongoing effort to keep religious expression and symbols out of the U.S. armed services after it was announced that the Department of Defense is removing military edition Bibles from its exchange stores. A chaplain alliance group is asking Congress to investigate whether the action taken was religious discrimination.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) said that the Holman Christian Standard Bibles editions “prominently emblazoned with exact replicas of the trademarked emblems of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force” could be seen as the official religious text of the four branches.
“Once again our foundation has decisively beaten back those who would see the wall separating church and state reduced to rubble,” said Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of MRFF. “The very fact that the Pentagon – or ‘Pentacostal-gon’ – had allowed for the insignias of the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force to be used for such a clearly evangelical fundamentalist agenda should sicken anyone with any inkling of respect for the ‘sacred’ principle of religious freedom as enshrined by the foundational documents of our nation, namely the U.S. Constitution.”
The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty expressed disappointment on Tuesday over the decision by the Department of Defense officials to remove military edition Bibles from the shelves of military exchange stores.
“This is one more case of Department of Defense officials bowing to political pressure to create a ‘religion free’ zone in the military,” said Chaplain Alliance officials.
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