The email from a senior Army chaplain to other chaplains read, “This is a full-court press from our Chief of Chaplains.”
The email was about a new marriage video just released by the Army Chaplain Corps. called Growing Through Adversity.
The email further said, “The Chief of Chaplain’s office will be making random calls to check and see if every chaplain and RAS [Religious Affairs Specialist] has watched this video.”
The email then instructs the chaplains to “be creative” in getting their “units/formations” to watch the video.
Another email, this one from the 2-star general Chief of Chaplains’ office itself, directs all chaplains to: “Ensure that your leaders watch and view this film. Follow-up with them to see that they actually viewed it.”
And yet the disclaimer at the beginning of the film says (emphasis added):
“Thank you for voluntarily watching this Strong Bonds film.”
“Voluntarily” watching the film?
What part of the “full-court press,” with the Chief of Chaplains randomly checking up on chaplains to make sure they watched it, and chaplains checking up on their units’ leaders to make sure that they watched it, says “voluntary”?
Those emails, revealing the truth about how this video is being very un-voluntarily foisted upon chaplains and leaders, and “creatively” to be foisted on the troops, were of course not meant to be publicly seen, but were leaked to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) by chaplains who strongly object to the film.
One major complaint about the film from these chaplains is that, of all the many couples seen in it, there is not a single same-sex couple, despite the fact that same-sex marriages are now legal and exist in the Army just like they do everywhere else.
This lack of any acknowledgement of the Army’s LGBTQ community isn’t surprising, however, given who produced the film — a homophobic fundamentalist Christian outfit called The Warrior’s Journey, an organization that states in a post on its website (emphasis added):
“We also rebuild by knowing our true identity. We all make mistakes, even damaging ones. If we are honest, we really have no hope of God loving us. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 gives a list of sins that probably everyone can find themselves committing at one time or another. ‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.’”
And in another blog post about a boxer whose views they support, they say (emphasis added):
“Naturally, his commitment to Jesus Christ and to the teachings of the Bible has drawn a storm of criticism from the media – despite his many charitable deeds. His stand against homosexuality and same-sex marriages brought a storm of condemnation from many of the popular culture’s elite. …”
And, on The Warrior’s Journey’s advisory board is none other that retired Lt. Gen. Jerry “Jesus is coming back with an AR-15” Boykin, Executive Vice President of the anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council.
The film’s exclusion of any representation of same-sex couples makes chaplains from LGBTQ-friendly denominations not want to use it, as it does not represent their sincerely held religious views.
The film is also, not surprisingly, specifically Christian, despite the Army’s great religious diversity, and the even more important fact that the Army’s Strong Bonds program, which this film was produced under the auspices of, is not supposed to be religious at all. So, of course, the Army went out and enlisted a rabidly fundamentalist Christian outfit to produce the film for this supposedly non-religious program.
So, needless to say, the allegedly “voluntary” viewers of the film will get a good dose of religion.
The film starts out not being overly religious. Even well-known evangelizer Tim Tebow, who appears throughout the film, doesn’t get religious the first several times he’s on the screen.
Other celebrities to grace the screen in this cinematic effort include washed-up actors Kevin Sorbo and James Woods, the creepy, Trump-loving, conspiracy theory purveying tweeter, neither of whom waxed religious.
But what religion there is through the first fifty minutes or so of the hour and five minute film is unmistakably Christian, whether it be a comment from one of the military wives that they’re raising their children in a “Christian household,” the unduly long appearance on the screen of a baby picture in which the baby’s blanket says “With God all things are possible,” football coach Tony Dungy quoting Jesus, or the wedding photo of one couple in front of a very large cross.
The religious “full-court press” comes at the end of the film, with the final minutes of the film devolving into an all-out prayer-fest.
It starts with a plug for the chaplaincy, with several images of clearly Christian chaplains, and a more religious Tim Tebow, and then come the prayers — one after another, from the Army Chief of Chaplains Major General Thomas Solhjem, from the Army Deputy Chief of Chaplains Brigadier General William Green, from Tony Dungy, from Tim Tebow’s wife, from Tim Tebow, and several others.
The film concludes with overtly Christian music, strains of “Amen, Amen” from a song published by The Warrior’s Journey, playing while the words “Check with your unit chaplain for next steps regarding counseling, Strong Bonds events and in person help. Your unit chaplain and your local Religious Support Office are a vital first step.”
No, Army Chief of Chaplains Solhjem, seeing a chaplain is not a “vital first step” for many of the soldiers who will be “voluntarily” watching this film.
And your film’s lack of inclusiveness of LGBTQ soldiers has many chaplains not wanting to use it, in spite of the threat that they might get a random phone call from you checking up on them!