Timothy R. Furnish: Former Air Force JAG Looks to Drive All Christian Symbolism from Military

[Timothy R. Furnish (M.A.R., Church History; Ph.D., Islamic History) is a writer and researcher as well as a former 101st Airborne Division Arabic interrogator and a recovering college professor. His upcoming book (early 2011) is The Caliphate: Threat or Opportunity? He also tracks Islamic messianism and eschatology on his site www.mahdiwatch.org]

Persecution of Christians worldwide, particularly at the hands of Muslims, is a well-documented phenomenon despite the successful attempts by most major Western and American media organs to ignore it.

Persecution of Christians in the United States — a country where almost 80% of the population, some 240 million, is of that faith — is deemed, ipso facto, an absurdity by some and an undeniable fact by others. As a conservative yet non-fundamentalist (Lutheran) Christian, Army veteran, and former academic specializing in Islamic history, I agree that Christians are not currently being persecuted in this country. I do discern, nonetheless, a worrisome growing intolerance of the majority faith coupled with a kneejerk support of minority religions.

Particularly, and unsurprisingly, Islam.

This year alone, there have been four prominent attacks on Christian connections to the U.S. military:

– Charges of neo-Crusaderism against military supplier Trijicon for its gunsights inscribed with New Testament verses.

– Charges of neo-Crusaderism against an Army unit for daring to have a cross as part of its unit insignia.

– The branding as “a hate crime” the placing of a cross next to the the Air Force Academy’s neo-pagan worship site.

– The Army’s decision to disinvite prominent evangelical Franklin Graham from speaking at a Pentagon prayer service on the National Day of Prayer.

These four incidents all have one major factor in common: the involvement of Mikey Weinstein and his “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” — which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last fall.

Weinstein is a former member of the Air Force JAG (Judge Advocated General’s) Corps — an attorney — and a self-proclaimed secular crusader for rebuilding what he calls the military’s “obliterated wall separating church and state.”

Since Weinstein blames evangelical Protestants for allegedly breaching this wall, he directs most of his ire against them. They don’t hesitate to return fire, often citing Weinstein’s own intemperate, crass words. Weinstein gets plenty of support from the media, as is obvious from a sympathetic 2009 Harper’s article with an inflammatory title: “Jesus Killed Mohammad: The Crusade for a Christian Military.” The piece quotes him at length and takes his assertions at face value....

Weinstein would have it that any cross representing the majority religion of both the United States and of its armed forces is, ipso facto, both a violation of the First Amendment and motivation for Islamic jihadists. This “blame Christianity first” attitude would be laughable if the Obama administration were not so apparently sympathetic to it.

Weinstein might want to study some Crusade history, notably the Third Crusade and the relationship between the Kurdish Muslim leader Salah al-Din (who retook Jerusalem in 1187 after 88 years of Crusader rule) and English King Richard the Lionheart. These men fought like, well, lions, yet respected and even liked one another. It seems that the prominent Crusader crosses on Richard’s armor and flags failed to inflame Salah al-Din’s Muslim sensibilities any more than did the sword Richard carried.

Speaking of which, numerous military unit insignias also sport swords, fleurs-de-lis, rampant griffins and lions, and other such barbaric, medieval Christian state imagery. Should our military unit crests be denuded of such alleged incitants aimed at the perpetually offended Islamic world? Or should we, on the contrary, take some pride in the willingness of our civilization and nation to to stand up to foreign threats — most notably Islamic ones, from Abd al-Rahman to the Ottoman Empire and Barbary corsairs up to al-Qaeda?

Weinstein’s fulminations against Trijicon for putting New Testament verses on Marine Corps and Army gunsights follows much the same line of “reasoning” as does his anti-cross crusade: that the words of Jesus Christ on rifle sights “allows the Muhahedeen [sic], the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the … jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles.” As a Christian, I must confess that putting the words of the Prince of Peace on gunsights does give me pause; but as a firm proponent of the view that Jesus’ words of peace (“turn the other cheek”) were meant for individuals, not states, I really am not all that worried — as Mr Weinstein purports to be — whether jihadists are “being shot by Jesus rifles.”

Are they less dead or injured if shot by Marx, Rand, Moses, Joseph Smith, or Krishna rifles?...

It seems that a church in the U.S. had sent the Bibles to a service member at Bagram Air Base, although it was unclear whether anyone there had actually requested the Bibles. While it was reasonable of the military to confiscate the Bibles so as not to offend our Afghan hosts, how was it at all reasonable, or sensitive to Christians, to burn the Bibles?

Adding insult to injury, Lt. Col. Mark Wright stated that “troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash.”

I wonder how Mikey Weinstein and his organization would react if the military had deemed as trash, then ordered the burning of, Bhagavad Gitas (Hindu Scriptures) or — Allah forbid! — Qur’ans?

Of course, even under the intolerant Bush administration an edict had come down from U.S. Southern Command mandating the utmost respect and care when handing the “Koran” — even, nay especially, for soldiers who are not Muslim. Among other instructions, they included the following:

Handling.

(1)Clean gloves will be put on in full view of the detainees prior to handling.

(2)Two hands will be used at all times when handling the Koran in manner signaling respect and reverence. Care should be used so that the right hand is the primary one used to manipulate any part of the Koran due to the cultural association with the left hand. Handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art.

(3) Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas.

There you have it: our military burns Bibles, yet orders that the Qur’an be not just handled, literally, with kid gloves, but revered!

At the same time, the executive branch refuses to utter the words “Islamic terrorism” or “Islamic violence,” and bows to the wishes of a secularist zealot who blames the presence of crosses — not centuries-old Islamic holy teachings — for the religious warfare being waged around the globe. Has any nation in history with such a huge gap between its leadership and the majority faith of its own citizens long survived?

And more importantly: does it deserve to?