Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training base, has a baptism machine, and his name is Chaplain (CPT) Chris Rice. According to the Baptist Press, Chaplain Rice has baptized an astounding 519 basic trainees since February 24, and, according to Fort Jackson's Public Affairs Instagram, a whopping 170 of these were on a single day.
According to the Fort Jackson Instagram post, the 170 basic trainees lined up to be baptized after a hike. That must have been some hike! But seriously, are we really supposed to believe that 170 trainees all simultaneously found Jesus on the same day without some heavy duty proselytizing or coercion?
But the most outrageous part of Fort Jackson’s Instagram post is this line:
“Soldiers of all faiths are welcome to be baptized.”
That’s right. At Fort Jackson soldiers of the wrong faiths are “welcome” to be baptized into the right faith.
These stories of mass baptisms by chaplains like Chaplain Rice don’t come as a surprise to us at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). He’s a Southern Baptist, and we know that Southern Baptist chaplains are notorious for considering the military — especially situations in the military in which young soldiers are worn down by training — as a mission field ripe for the harvest.
A video made by MRFF a number of years ago shows several Southern Baptist chaplains boasting about being, in their own words, “government-paid missionaries.”
In the video one Southern Baptist chaplain said, referring to basic trainees:
“From an evangelistic standpoint I’ve always referred to them as ripe as black bananas. And it’s great to be a government-paid missionary.”
Another Southern Baptist chaplain, referring to preying on soldiers completely worn down by Ranger training, said:
“My goal has been to meet them when they’re at their absolute worst, when they’re coldest and the most tired and the most hungry that they’re gonna be because the more difficult the circumstances the more receptive the average person becomes to issues of faith.”
Although the video is a number of years old, and the particular Southern Baptist chaplains quoted here might no longer be in the military, there is no shortage of new ones, with the same goals and tactics, who have taken their places — like Fort Jackson's baptizing machine Chaplain Rice.
