Guest post by Lawrence Wilkerson (Colonel, U.S. Army - retired), Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) Advisory Board member, Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
In the Media Matters piece below, while the author covers the specific issue of the Fox News-led attack that led to the disintegration of the Defense Department's efforts to deal with extremism within the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces, he completely omits any meaningful discussion of the central danger. That danger grows greater every day that passes. Christian Nationalism, and the often-accompanying phenomena of virulent white racism and utter disregard of the U.S. Constitution, is consuming the military chaplain corps and much of the rank and file and, stunningly enough, a considerable number of the generals and admirals. All "in the name of Jesus,” to cite their frequent mantra.
For many years now, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has fought tenaciously against these developments. As an advisory board member of the MRFF, I've seen and experienced some of that battle -- it's deadly serious, just as are its opponents the Christian Nationalists, and it's a battle that is clearly essential to protecting the very fabric of America as well as ensuring a competent and healthy military. That the author of the piece below missed even mentioning this grave danger is indicative of how even people who should realize what is happening do not. It's high time the bulk of the American people did.
From Media Matters: “Anatomy of a smear campaign: How right-wing media neutralized a Pentagon effort to address white supremacy in the military”
In contrast to the seemingly oblivious media, MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein, in his post-Jan. 6 op-ed “Forced Jesus Worship: Pentagon Ignores the Consequences of Ignoring Extremist Reality,” rightly described Christian nationalism as the “mothership” of white supremacy and other forms of extremism, as illustrated in this MRFF graphic: