A U.S. church raised money to send Bibles, printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, to American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a report on Al Jazeera documented Sunday night.
It is against military rules to proselytize -- a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. "You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts," says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. "I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out." The footage is said to be roughly a year old.
The Al Jazeera report also shows a military preacher urging army parishioners to "hunt people for Jesus."
"The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business," he says.
A White House spokesman referred questions to the Department of Defense, which did not immediately return a call. A military spokesman did tell Reuters, however, that none of the Bibles were, as far as she knew, ever actually distributed.
"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated Bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," said Major Jennifer Willis.
"The translated Bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."
President Bush created an international uproar when he referred to the "war on terror" as a "crusade."
UPDATE: A defense official tells the Huffington Post that the preacher did not mean that soldiers should hunt for Afghani souls, but was speaking in general terms. He also said that the Pashtun and Dari Bibles were confiscated so that they could not be distributed to the population.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/soldiers-in-afghanistan-g_n_195674.html
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/us-military-burns-bibles-afghanistan
This is scary. This is wrong. This is a blatant attempt by a corporate structure masquerading as a legitimately tax free organization to use the U.S. military to export religion by force of arms.
If this particular church, or any, wishes to collect money to send one or more of its members to Afghanistan as missionaries, they have every right to do so. But they have no right, despite what their clergy tell them, to involve the U.S. government, any of its branches of service, or any of its men and women in uniform in proselyltization of non-Christians anywhere on earth, and most particularly not in a combat zone in an Islamic nation. The church won’t send its own missionaries. After all, trying to convert Moslems is a capital offense in Afghanistan. While they may be quite willing to allow some poor soldier to become a martyr, they are far less willing to put their own lives on the line.
This entire episode should never have taken place. Despite what the members of this or any church may believe, the rest of the world is under no obligation to allow them to try to convert people who are practicing any faith or no faith to Christianity. Despite the presence of evangelicals in the armed forces, the United States government is not and has never been an agent in the spread of Christianity or any other religion. This is not a Christian nation. We have no official religion nor should we have. Our founders were extremely wise in incorporating the 1st Amendment into our Constitution.
The additional furor concerning the Army’s decision to destroy the offending books by burning them demonstrates a complete lack of understanding why it was done. Having confiscated illegal books, the Army was under no obligation to return them to the shippers or to pay for their return. Having them in-country could have led to a grave misunderstanding on the part of the local citizens who have no desire to be proselytized or converted. In accidental release of the items into the population might have led to the deaths of any Afghanistan citizen found with them in their possession. The entire shipment of books was an international religious incident waiting to happen. They had to be disposed of by the most cost effective and expedient means. Like other trash generated by the Army, they were burned.
While I would object to anyone burning Torah scrolls, I don’t attach the same significance to printed and bound copies of the Tanach – the original Bible used by Jews. Whether it be Tanach, New Testament, Koran, or any other religious book of modern printing and manufacture, I see no divinity in the object. Written words convey information, opinion, entertainment, but not divinity, and are not sanctified by the words within or by the concepts within. They are books. In this case they were books that were likely to result in the death of anyone possessing them – stupidity on the part of the Taliban and religious fundamentalists and evangelists on both sides of this gap.
Combat is difficult enough, dangerous enough, and deadly enough without some would-be missionaries ramping up the anger level of the other side’s combatants and alienating the non-combatants. If I’d been a member of any combat unit containing a member who intended to distribute religious books or proselytize the local people, I’d have been highly tempted to take the appropriate action myself.
We danced last night, traveling to and from Jonesborough in light to moderate rain. Lots of costumes, some good, some very good. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=132601&id=693575457&ref=mf
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=35966&id=1035635299&ref=mf
We didn’t show up in the photographic history last night except for edge of photo appearances. The band and caller were quite good. There was a lot of confusion in some of the dances as some of the figures were not being carried out correctly. Still, a good time was had.
Yesterday we received 0.83 inches of rain. We received another 0.25 this morning. At 1330 the sun is beginning to burn through the cloud cover. November arrives with colder temperatures and blue skies. The creek is up, high but clear, today.
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We go to Asheville to see Leonard Cohen tonight. We’ll dine before the show at Jerusalem Garden Café and hope it will live up to our expectations. We both like Middle Eastern food. It they have more than humus and salads in that discipline, we should be alright. The show is sold out.
We slept in a bit this morning. Breakfast was buckwheat pancakes with peppered and smoked dry-cured bacon. Burgers Smokehouse makes and sells this and it is some of the best bacon I’ve ever eaten. It is hard to find locally. We buy it, when we can find it, at a local shop run by Mennonite. We also buy eggs, cheese, butter, and some nuts and spices from them.
Heard the first Christmas commercials on television yesterday. I’m dreading the overhead Christmas aural onslaught that moves to center in the Muzak rotations. Wal-Mart is absolutely off limits until January of next year. I’m sure it won’t be long until I see internet complaints about the wars on Christmas and Christianity. This would be funny if it wasn’t so desperately a symptom of the bitter partition that divides many people in this nation so deeply.
In my opinion – here it comes – there is no war against Christmas or Christianity. What does exist is a refusal by many of us to allow the evangelicals and theocrats to hammer us over the head with their belief that some passage in a printed text gives them absolute right and privilege to insist everyone else pray and live as they are supposed to be praying and living. No one wants to stop them practicing their faith; it is merely that it does not belong in schools, in government, in public affairs. Nor does any other faith or subset of faith including my own. Science should not be replaced or negated in our schools by religion. The county court house should not have religious symbols on its lawn, and WWI veterans should not be buried collectively under a cross when, most certainly, not all of them were Christians. Let our flag be used to demarcate our soldiers’ cemeteries. It would be much more appropriate there than overhead an auto dealership or fast food chain shop.
We will, doubtless visit this topic again before January. But for today, here’s a temporary bottom line.
The Crusades are over. The Moslems won. In case anyone forgets, it is Istanbul, not Constantinople. We'd be very stupid, indeed, to start that war again. Despite what many Americans believe about the aims of Islam long term, they are little different from the aims of Christianity, long term. The major differences in their Taliban and ours are most concentrated in language and who was last spoken to by which deity. Neither theirs nor ours want what is best for a people, a nation, or the world.
Bullwinkles Poetry Corner:
The Destroyers
"THE strength of twice three thousand horse
That seeks the single goal;
The line that holds the rending course,
The hate that swings the whole:
The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,
At gaze and gone again --
The Brides of Death that wait the groom --
The Choosers of the Slain. "
The complete poem can be read at:
http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_destroy1.htm
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