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Navy Chaplain May Be Fired
Navy Chaplain, Gordon Klingenschmitt, is facing what may be the end of his 14-year career as a Navy Chaplain for using the name of Jesus.
His commanding officer told a Navy board that, as a chaplain, he overemphasizes his own faith.
Chaplain Klingenschmitt said, “He was talking about my sermons and prayers. He specifically cited the chaplain school director who told him that I was an immature Chaplain because I pray in Jesus name.”
Unfortunately there is a regulation that mandates that Navy Chaplains are not allowed to pray in the name of Jesus. The regulation was put in place in 1998 during the Clinton Administration.
It’s ironic that the secularists are forever lecturing us on the virtues of diversity, yet our military can’t even experience the diversity of religious from their own chaplains without offending those who preach diversity.
This same scenario was repeated earlier this year at the Air Force Academy.
We need an executive order from the President of the United States that protects the First Amendment rights of military chaplains and other members of the military to pray according to their faith.
Please send an email to your Senator, Representative, and to the President’s office, encouraging the President to issue this Executive Order. Click here to access links to those emails.
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Gary Randall
President
Faith & Freedom Network
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Washington Times - Military Chaplains Told to Shy From Jesus
December 21, 2005
By Julia Duin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
To pray -- or not to pray -- in Jesus' name is the question plaguing an increasing number of U.S. military chaplains, one of whom began a multiday hunger strike outside the White House yesterday.
"I am a Navy chaplain being fired because I pray in Jesus' name," said Navy Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt, who will be holding 6 p.m. prayer vigils daily in Lafayette Park.
The hunger strike is intended to persuade President Bush to issue an executive order allowing military chaplains to pray according to their individual faith traditions. The American Center for Law and Justice has gathered 173,000 signatures on a petition seeking an executive order.
Seventy-three members of Congress have joined the request, saying in an Oct. 25 letter to the president, "In all branches of the military, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian chaplains to use the name of Jesus when praying."
About 80 percent of U.S. troops are Christian, the legislators wrote, adding that military "censorship" of chaplains' prayers disenfranchises "hundreds of thousands of Christian soldiers in the military who look to their chaplains for comfort, inspiration and support."
Official military policy allows any sort of prayer, but Lt. Klingenschmitt says that in reality, evangelical Protestant prayers are censored. He cites his training at the Navy Chaplains School in Newport, R.I., where "they have clipboards and evaluators who evaluate your prayers, and they praise you if you pray just to God," he said. "But if you pray in Jesus' name, they counsel you."
Muslim, Jewish and Roman Catholic chaplains are likewise told not to pray in the name of Allah, in Hebrew or in the name of the Trinity, he added.
But the Rev. Billy Baugham, executive director of the Greenville, S.C.-based International Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers, says restrictions on other religious expressions have "yet to be tested."
"No Islamic chaplain has been refused to pray in the name of Allah, as far as we know. Neither has a rabbi been rebuked for making references to Hanukkah, and no Catholic priest has been rebuked for referring to the Blessed Virgin Mary."
The Navy allows chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah or any other deity during chapel services, spokeswoman Lt. Erin Bailey said.
At other public events, "Navy chaplains are encouraged to be sensitive to the needs of all those present," she said, "and may decline an invitation to pray if not able to do so for conscience reasons."
Lt. Klingenschmitt has not been formally punished, she added, and there are no plans to take him off active duty.
However, the lieutenant contends that he may lose his job next month and be evicted from military housing. He says he got in hot water during the summer of 2004 while aboard the USS Anzio for preaching an evangelistic sermon at the funeral of a Catholic sailor in a base chapel. The lieutenant said he was reprimanded by two senior chaplains and, in March, sent ashore to Norfolk.
Lt. Klingenschmitt also has fought at other times for the religious rights of non-Christians, having backed a Jewish sailor's bid to get kosher meals and sought to include a Muslim seaman in the rotation of sailors offering the ship's nightly closing prayer.
The lieutenant is not alone in fighting to pray to Jesus. The Navy is facing two lawsuits, filed in 1999 and 2000, by 50 Christian chaplains, saying the Navy discriminates against evangelical and Pentecostal clerics.
Mr. Baugham said the 350 chaplains he oversees are concerned about a new set of guidelines issued in August after complaints about Christian evangelism at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The Air Force guidelines allow "a brief, nonsectarian prayer" during military ceremonies "to add a heightened sense of seriousness or solemnity, not to advance specific religious beliefs."
"So, to what deity do you address your prayer to?" Mr. Baugham asked. "No one knows. And who gets to write the prayers? Once the government becomes the approving authority, the poor chaplain is forced to be an agent of the state."
Mr. Baugham said he had "just got a call from an Army chaplain in Iraq who says he'd be hammered if he used Jesus' name. Chaplains are scared to death. They must clear their prayers with their commanders, they can mention Jesus' name at chapel services, but not outside that context."
their should not have to be a choice to choose between having the Iraq war and to also have our christian values...the president should be able to go through his plans to protect us and our nation as well as us having our christian values
Let our president do his Job at protecting our country as well as let the chaplains have their jobs to do. do demonrats and the aclu always have to be obtrsuctionist
Federal Judge Bans ‘Intelligent Design’ in Class
In a long-awaited ruling, a federal judge has said "intelligent design"—the concept of an intelligent, though unidentified, force as the origin of life on earth—cannot be discussed in biology classes in Dover, Pennsylvania public school district.
In October 2004, the Dover School Board instituted policy which sought to provide alternative views to evolution. The decision was thought to be the first of its kind in the country.
"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," the judge wrote. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."
The board's attorneys said members sought to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection causing gradual changes over time; intelligent-design proponents argue that it cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms.
The plaintiffs argued that intelligent design amount to a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.
Chaplains’ Prayers Restricted by Air Force
New guidelines regarding the practice of prayer have hit hard across the military community. The U.S. Air Force warned commanders against promoting any particular religious faith in official capacity, at events, proceedings or sports events, and chaplains have been cautioned against praying “in Jesus’ name at those events.
The rules are a cautionary call to commanders to abstain from discussing or promoting "the idea of religion over non-religion" and even discourage the recitation of prayers at any Air Force-related events, other than worship services.
The nation's military air branch developed the new guidelines following a controversy at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., in which some non-Christian students complained they were being "coerced" into faith by Christian cadets.
The new guidelines, however, apply to all members of the Air Force, and not just at the Academy. A group of Air Force generals will meet later this year to hear these recommendations and will finalize the regulations.
Clergy leaders representing numerous denominations held a news conference in front of the White House Tuesday to protest the escalating crisis surrounding military chaplains who are forbidden from ending their public prayers "in the name of Jesus."
The group will ask President Bush to issue and executive order directing that chaplains of all faith traditions be allowed to pray according to their own religious beliefs and practices.
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Airline bans Bibles to avoid offending Muslims
Carrier to Saudi Arabia also precluding crucifixes, teddy bears
Posted: January 9, 2006
11:20 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A British airline banned its staff from taking Bibles and wearing crucifixes or St. Christopher medals on flights to Saudi Arabia to avoid offending the country's Muslims.
British Midland International also has told female flight attendants they must walk two paces behind male colleagues and cover themselves from head to foot in a headscarf and robe known as an abaya, the Mirror newspaper of London reported.
Teddy bears or other cuddly toys also are not allowed.
Airline officials, who have sparked outrage, the paper says, explain the Islamic kingdom's strict laws – enforced by religious police – prohibit public practice of Christianity and figures of animals.
BMI spokesman Phil Shepherd said: "In providing air services people want, demand and use, we have an obligation to respect the customs of the destination country."
An airline employee who asked not to be named told the Mirror: "It's outrageous that we must respect their beliefs but they're not prepared to respect ours."
The employee said his grandmother gave him a crucifix shortly before she died that he wears at all times.
"It's got massive sentimental value and I don't see why I have to remove it," he said.
The airline's staff handbook says: "Prior to disembarking the aircraft all female crew will be required to put on their company issued abaya. It will be issued with the headscarf which must be worn."
The employees' union wants staff members to be able to opt out of the flights, but the airline says the only option is to transfer from overseas staff to domestic flights, which could mean a loss of about $30,000 a year in wages.
About 40 staff members have filed complaints since the route began in September.
Some of the male members who are homosexual have called in sick, because they are afraid of traveling to Saudi Arabia, where homosexual activity is punishable by flogging, jail or death.
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