Another day, and another instance of our own military being turned against the prevailing views of the majority of its citizens:
US Army defines Christian ministry as 'domestic hate group'
I have to agree with Todd Starnes' conclusion, that "it appears the Obama administration is separating the military from the American people – and planting seeds of doubt about Christians and some of our nation’s most prominent Christian ministries."
What pains me the most is, having spent the first decade-and-a-half of my adult life in the military, I know and have seen the power of the warrior ethos and the camraderie brought about through our military traditions. However, when those traditions pull away from (or are pulled away from; shifts like this don't happen by accident), the bedrock beliefs of the nation that gives birth to them--in our case, the Judeo-Christian ethical and moral structure and willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole--the seed is planted for the ideal of the citizen-soldier to broken down into a warrior caste with less and less connection to to population it is supposed to serve.
Let us only hope that, despite the fact that movements like this cast yet another cloud over the role of faith in the military and the chaplaincy that serves it, that we will all have the courage to speak out against it and have express that faith and the truth of the heroism that we are called to as Navy Captain Francis Castellano has.
What pains me the most is, having spent the first decade-and-a-half of my adult life in the military, I know and have seen the power of the warrior ethos and the camraderie brought about through our military traditions. However, when those traditions pull away from (or are pulled away from; shifts like this don't happen by accident), the bedrock beliefs of the nation that gives birth to them--in our case, the Judeo-Christian ethical and moral structure and willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole--the seed is planted for the ideal of the citizen-soldier to broken down into a warrior caste with less and less connection to to population it is supposed to serve.
Let us only hope that, despite the fact that movements like this cast yet another cloud over the role of faith in the military and the chaplaincy that serves it, that we will all have the courage to speak out against it and have express that faith and the truth of the heroism that we are called to as Navy Captain Francis Castellano has.
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