The headline on the fundamentalist Christian Liberty University website couldn’t be more clear and explicit:
“Military graduates charged to go ‘all in’ and take Gospel to ends of the world, wherever duty calls.”
Billing itself as a “military friendly” school, Liberty University attracts thousands of active duty military personnel every year. As the article on its website states about its recent “Military Graduate Recognition Ceremony”:
“This week, Liberty is celebrating the accomplishments of 5,494 military graduates in the Class of 2021, including 1,835 on active duty, and another 4,933 from the Class of 2020, including 1,466 on active duty.”
That’s over three thousand active duty military members who were just given the directive “to go ‘all in’ and take [the] Gospel to ends of the world, wherever duty calls.”
How about going “all in” to defend the Constitution? Nah. These three thousand newly minted government-paid missionaries are charged with being “all in” for Jesus, the “commander in chief of the universe,” as the virtual ceremony’s keynote speaker, Chaplain (Col.) Steven E. Keith (Ret.), called him.
After recounting a story of how he got a wounded non-Christian to accept Jesus as his lord and savior, Chaplain (Col.) Keith, exhorted these military graduates to “share the good news of Jesus” at “all of those divine appointments” they will have in their military careers, saying:
“As military members, and as graduates of Liberty University, I think more than anybody you can understand what it is to take orders. You can understand more than anybody what it means to be all in. You understand what it means to be willing to die for your country. But are you all in tonight with Jesus Christ? …”
“… The challenge tonight is to follow Jesus. … I’m so proud of you for being a Christ follower. We’re excited for what God is doing in your life, and what He will do, and for all of those divine appointments he has lined up for you wherever he would send you. I pray that you might be the heart, the voice, that you might be his presence, that you might share the good news of Jesus and tell others that God has a plan for them.”
Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), had a few words to say about this “military friendly” missionary school’s marching orders to its military graduates:
“The Liberty University military and ROTC (‘Really Only There for Christ’) programs have long been among the most egregiously, repugnant examples of our U.S. military’s unapologetic goal to have ‘government paid missionaries for Jesus Christ’ leverage their armed forces ranks to subjugate the rest of our nation’s sailors, soldiers, Marines, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and guardians and The World for their unconstitutional, weaponized version of Christianity.
Indeed, being actually directed by their ‘Military Graduate Recognition Ceremony’ speakers to illegally use their military rank as a blatant force multiplier to further their Prime Directive and raison d’être of forcing everyone to surrender and join their fundamentalist Christian ranks (i.e.”The Great Commission”) is the very epitome of ugly unconstitutionality and the destruction of the military’s goal to maximize, good order, morale, discipline, and unit cohesion.
New Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is on the record saying that he wants to be the lodestar for racial and religious diversity and respect throughout our armed forces. Looking into just what Liberty University’s military students and ROTC cadets are being taught their military ‘mission’ is might be a damn good place to start.”