Vacation Bible School (VBS) has been a staple of Christian churches for well over a century in the civilian world and in recent decades has also become ubiquitous at military base chapels.
Every summer, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) receives quite a few inquiries from service members, particularly those with children, about the VBS programs on their bases and whether or not these programs are constitutional. The short answer is yes, they are. As long as these VBS programs are run and advertised solely by the chapel, are completely voluntary, and are free from any coercion or pressure on military parents to send their children, there is no problem. In MRFF’s two decades of defending and protecting the religious freedom of our men and women in uniform, we have rarely come across a VBS program that violated either military regulations or the Constitution in any way.
This year, however, we have a doozy of a Vacation Bible School story — a story of appalling “abuse,” as one of MRFF’s clients called it, by one of the most senior officers in a large military unit. This fine Christian officer relentlessly hounded his subordinates for months to sign their children up for Vacation Bible School — not a base chapel Vacation Bible School but the Vacation Bible School that he personally teaches at his off-base church. As one of MRFF’s clients, writing on behalf of 32 service members in this unit who reached out to MRFF for help, explained:
“In mid-May of this year one of our military combat unit’s most senior officers started “advising” us at official unit meetings to be sure to get our kids into Christian Vacation Bible School this summer. Not just any such Vacation Bible School but the one that our senior superior officer and his wife were personally teaching at their off base evangelical megachurch.”
But wait. There’s more. The subordinates of this predatory proselytizer of an officer would have to pay for the privilege of their children attending his VBS, as MRFF’s client continued in their e-mail:
“Oh and by the way as if this wasn’t all messed up enough, there was a ‘suggested tithe offering’ (aka tuition for Vacation Bible School) of $90 per kid! For most of us that amount of money was just way too much even if we had wanted our children to attend.”
MRFF’s client also gave us a sampling of this odious officer’s sales pitch lines for his VBS, delivered at mandatory unit meetings (emphasis added):
“In trying to get us to submit to his never ending pressure this senior officer would say stuff like ‘public school tries and always fails to prepare your kids for life (he and his wife home school their own kids of course) but our Vacation Bible School prepares them for the afterlife.’ He would just not stop trying to sell us on this Vacation Bible School crap at every mandatory unit meeting we were having. It felt like he was stalking us all. He spoke constantly about "the evil work of the devil in this world” and made a special point to invite the non-Christians in our unit to have their kids attend to ‘save their souls even if mom and dad refuse to be saved.’”
And, then, as MRFF’s client wrote, to top it all off, unit members who did send their children to their superior officer’s Jesus Camp were rewarded professionally for their Christian conformity:
“Everything started moving fast as soon as our combat unit's quarterly performance awards were announced just a couple weeks ago in early July at another mandatory unit assembly. There are 5 different awards and all 5 ‘coincidentally’ went to military members who had their kids attend our senior officer and his wife’s Vacation Bible School.”
By the time it was announced that all of the unit's quarterly performance awards were being given to service members who had sent their kids to the offending officer’s VBS, MRFF’s base reps and Mikey Weinstein had already been involved for several weeks, and, as a result, not only did this sorry excuse of a military officer receive a written reprimand in his official personnel file but, as the leader of MRFF’s 32 clients wrote in the email below, “the quarterly awards for last quarter have just now been suspended indefinitely until further notice pending additional investigation.”
From: (Active Duty Enlisted Member's/MRFF Client’s e-mail address withheld)
Subject: Military superior tries to force Christian Vacation Bible School on his subordinate families
Date: July 20, 2024 at 10:14:48 PM MDT
To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Hello Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF Team here at (military installation name withheld) as well as all MRFF staff everywhere. Thank you all for getting some actual justice for us here against one of our superior officers who was trying to get us to pay his church to have our kids proselytized to his own Christian Faith.
I am an active duty military enlisted service member and the leader of 32 fellow active duty service members who reached out for the MRFF’s help here recently at (military installation name withheld). Our assigned military unit is large and diverse as to ethnicity, faith and political views et al. One of our MRFF Reps here on base has helped me write this e-mail to MRFF so that other folks can see the abuses that went on here.
I was raised Catholic but converted to Baptist after I married my wife. We are raising our kids Baptist. We have 23 other Christian service members in our MRFF client group here besides me and several Jewish, Muslim, Hindu service members along with some atheists and agnostics.
I am asking that MRFF please continue to protect all of our identities so that none of the 32 of us who asked the MRFF for help will suffer any reprisal or blowback.
In mid-May of this year one of our military combat unit’s most senior officers started “advising” us at official unit meetings to be sure to get our kids into Christian Vacation Bible School this summer. Not just any such Vacation Bible School but the one that our senior superior officer and his wife were personally teaching at their off base evangelical megachurch. Oh and by the way as if this wasn't all messed up enough, there was a “suggested tithe offering” (aka tuition for Vacation Bible School) of $90 per kid! For most of us that amount of money was just way too much even if we had wanted our children to attend. In trying to get us to submit to his never ending pressure this senior officer would say stuff like “public school tries and always fails to prepare your kids for life (he and his wife home school their own kids of course) but our Vacation Bible School prepares them for the afterlife.” He would just not stop trying to sell us on this Vacation Bible School crap at every mandatory unit meeting we were having. It felt like he was stalking us all. He spoke constantly about "the evil work of the devil in this world” and made a special point to invite the non-Christians in our unit to have their kids attend to "save their souls even if mom and dad refuse to be saved”. I could tell you many other jacked up things he said about all of this but I want to keep this short. We never had a clue whether this officer’s own superior chain of command knew what he was doing to us or even gave a shit if they did know?
We contacted Mr. Weinstein through one of our base MRFF Reps. Mr. Weinstein spent a good amount of time learning what had happened to us and explained how serious it was that our senior officer was violating our civil rights. Mr Weinstein then contacted our senior leadership and worked with us to cause an official unit investigation to happen. It took some weeks. Mr Weinstein and our base MRFF Reps were with us each step of the way.
Everything started moving fast as soon as our combat unit's quarterly performance awards were announced just a couple weeks ago in early July at another mandatory unit assembly. There are 5 different awards and all 5 “coincidentally” went to military members who had their kids attend our senior officer and his wife’s Vacation Bible School.
I can tell you that Mr. Weinstein was in contact immediately again with our most senior leadership when the 5 quarterly awards were publicly announced. He made it clear that there was an obvious cloud over the awardees given the situation with our senior officer’s Vacation Bible School pressure tactics. Mr Weinstein demanded punishment for our senior officer who ran the Vacation Bible School with his wife.
Last week our unit was informed at another mandatory meeting that the quarterly awards for last quarter have just now been suspended indefinitely until further notice pending additional investigation. In the meantime our base MRFF Reps and Mr. Weinstein are working with us to file EEO and IG complaints about all of this bullshit.
We have heard and confirmed that this particular senior officer has now received a written reprimand in his official (military branch name withheld) personnel file over his nonstop stalking and pressure tactics to get our kids into his Vacation Bible School. While this is something very positive we wish there had been greater adverse action taken against this senior officer. As Mr. Weinstein said, "had some of the facts here changed so that this was a Muslim commander trying to force you to place your kids in 'Vacation Quran School' at his mosque there would have been a literal bloodbath in protest."
I cannot give anymore detail on this without revealing information that might identify us to our (military branch name withheld) chain of command who would likely punish all 32 of us for requesting the MRFF’s intervention in the first place. We are hearing some shit talk going around that whoever among our unit’s members complained are “traitors" and "bad troops" for going to the MRFF. They accuse the MRFF of being a “woke commie group of America haters." Some of them also seriously bad mouth Mr. Weinstein for causing all the trouble here. Which is completely false! He is the one who fixed it! We want to fight back but fear that we will out ourselves if we do. Eventually at least some of our names will probably be known as being clients of the MRFF here. We’re ok with it and we'll cross that bridge if and when.
I just wish to say on behalf of all 32 of us here at (military installation name withheld) how much we are forever grateful to our own base MRFF Reps and Mr. Weinstein and all of the MRFF for stopping this senior officer’s unconstitutional Christian proselytizing of us and our families and especially our own children!
We had nowhere to turn to until we got the MRFF on this case and the MRFF has won it for all of us! We know and trust that the MRFF will have our backs if our chain or anyone else tries to target us for revenge of any kind. Our families have been tormented by all of this and the only bright light has been the quick and forceful action of the MRFF!
(Active Duty Enlisted Member's/MRFF Client’s name, rank, MOS/AFSC, assigned military unit and installation all withheld)
What this officer put his unit through with his relentless proselytizing and pressure on his subordinates to send their kids to his Vacation Bible School affected not only the service members in the unit but also their families, as so many of the issues MRFF deals with do. This next e-mail, with the subject line “Thank you MRFF from our Jewish military family,” is from the wife of one of the 32 service members, thanking MRFF for “caring so strongly about our military service personnel of all and no faiths and their families when nobody else apparently gives a damn.”
From: (Spouse of Active Duty Enlisted Member/MRFF Client’s e-mail address withheld)
Subject: Thank you MRFF from our Jewish military family
Date: July 21, 2024 at 8:37:27 PM MDT
To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Dear Mr. Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF,
Mr. Weinstein thank you for taking both of my calls today.
I am the wife of one of the 32 enlisted MRFF clients you all are representing at (military installation name withheld) in the matter of one of our unit’s most senior officers trying to force us all to have our children attend the Christian Vacation Bible School which he and his wife are teaching.
As I mentioned to you in the second call today, our family is Jewish so this whole thing was particularly hurtful, painful and insulting to all of us. Especially when this officer mentioned that his Vacation Bible School can save the souls of the children even if the mom and dad’s souls can’t be saved. Just a terrible insult to our Jewish family and heritage and the families of the other 31 MRFF clients most of whom happen to be Christian.
My family is still very hurt and damaged over this whole matter and we can’t thank our local base MRFF Reps enough and Mr. Weinstein as the leader of the MRFF for getting this senior officer punished and our most recent unit quarterly awards suspended per ongoing investigation.
Thanks so very much to the MRFF for caring so strongly about our military service personnel of all and no faiths and their families when nobody else apparently gives a damn.
(Spouse of Active Duty Enlisted Member/MRFF Client’s name, phone number, and address withheld)
