Of all the many heinous, vindictive, and flat out unconstitutional things that this administration has done thus far to transform our once great country into a Christian nationalist oligarchy, it is one particular July 28, 2025 memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that has military members and civilian DoD and VA employees coming to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) in droves.
The OPM memo, titled “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace,” sent to the heads and acting heads of all federal government departments and agencies, has been wreaking havoc on morale and unit cohesion across the military and is a bane of existence for VA employees.
In a nutshell, what this July 28 OPM memo did was give every raging Christian nationalist, fundamentalist, dominionist, Bible-wielding follower of the government-approved savior an official, unfettered ‘license to proselytize’ in all federal workplaces — to shove their MAGA-infused version of the gospel down the throats of their co-workers and subordinates whenever and however they want to.
As I said, MRFF has been swamped by calls and emails from military and VA people about this memo, many of whom are simply asking in disbelief: ’Is this for real?’
Well, yes, unfortunately it is as real as Pete Hegseth’s crusader tattoos.
From the OPM memo (emphasis added):
“Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature. Employees may also encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities. The constitutional rights of supervisors to engage in such conversations should not be distinguished from non-supervisory employees by the nature of their supervisory roles.”
So, a supervisor can now “encourage” their subordinates to pray with them or join their church because, if you completely turn the Constitution on its head, that’s no different than asking them to join their softball team.
Then there are the OPM’s helpful examples like this one of what’s permissible under these new Constitution-quashing rules (emphasis added):
“During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should re-think his religious beliefs. However, if the non-adherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request.”
Yes, that’s right, the proselytizer “should,” but doesn’t have to, stop telling the “non-adherent” (a.k.a. the non-Christian) to rethink their religious beliefs.
So, how is this playing out around the services and the VA? About as deplorably as Mikey Weinstein predicted it would in his video message back on July 28, the day the malfeasant memo was issued.
An email that came in to MRFF the other day from an active duty military officer, writing on behalf of himself and 15 other members of his unit, details how this OPM memo is being brandished by their most senior civilian section chief, also a retired military officer, who, according to the officer, constantly “makes it clear that he is now ‘fully authorized to speak about the Good News of Jesus in these meetings to the civilians under him in our unit by President Trump.’”
From the officer’s email (emphasis added):
“Our Section Chief has stated that ‘if anyone does not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior they are stupid and ignorant because of the fact that the Bible accounts were written by eye witnesses’. Our Section Chief has asked ‘any 'non-believers' how they will feel when they are burning in the lake of fire if they are not cleansed by His blood and bow to Christ as their savior’. He has stated that ‘those of us who consider ourselves to be ‘Christians’ are just as ‘hell bound’ as Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and heathens and atheists if they are not actively doing all they can especially while on duty to get people into His kingdom’.
Some other gems from this section chief, lest anyone doubt that he’s a card-carrying Christian nationalist:
“Christian faith is what served as the basis to establish America as a fully Christian nation from the beginning with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin” and “America has won all of its military wars only because it stays strong with the worship of the only true god, Jesus Christ.”
Here’s the whole email from the military officer to MRFF — Subject: “Our military unit Section Chief says Trump allows him to proselytize us.”
From: (Active Duty Military Officer/MRFF Client’s email address withheld)
Subject: Our military unit Section Chief says Trump allows him to proselytize us
Date: November 18, 2025 at 12:58:20 PM MST
To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
To Mr. Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
As per our several phone calls over the last couple of days Mr. Weinstein please protect my identity and remove any information that might allow me or my family to be singled out by my military and civilian chains of command. Given our jacked up “anti-woke” installation command climate there is no doubt that I would be hit with either Article 15 Non-Judicial Punishment at the very least or more likely a full court martial if I or the other active duty military I am representing here were able to be identified.
I am a junior military active duty officer stationed at (installation name withheld) which is a very large US military installation. My organization (organization name withheld) is about half military and half civilian. It also is very large. Our most senior ranking civilian (name and title withheld) generally chairs our twice weekly senior operational staff meetings in the HQ building. Our military commander (name and rank withheld) is often TDY and unavailable to do so.
For most of the last two months our most senior civilian Section Chief, also a retired military officer, has been opening these meetings with a reading of a biblical citation from the New Testament. His favorite is John 14:6. Before he starts he always says that any military personnel are free to momentarily step out of the conference room. Civilians are required to stay. The meeting generally ends about 45 minutes to an hour later. At the conclusion of each of these meetings our Section Chief once again makes the same statement made at the start of the meeting that military personnel are allowed to leave but that civilians must stay. The Section Chief then immediately continues proselytizing regarding how “obvious it is that Jesus Christ is the only answer to the evils of Satan in this life.” He never fails to invite anyone in the meeting to attend his personal off base church on Wednesday nights and Sundays or to join up with the Christian promoting organization he’s with on base. He has stated that his “Christian faith is what served as the basis to establish America as a fully Christian nation from the beginning with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin” and that “America has won all of its military wars only because it stays strong with the worship of the only true god, Jesus Christ”. He has stated that “failure to surrender to Christ will result in the fiery second death for all anti-Christ rebels”.
When these Christian proselytizing sessions first started happening most of us in the military did not know what to do? But nobody ever left the room either time the offer was made by our Section Chief. Doing so would obviously target that military individual for retaliation in many ways. We’ve seen it happen. Our Section Chief seemed to take great pride in announcing that he was “told by senior personnel officials in Washington that new regulations in place from the Trump administration now allow government civilians to proselytize other government civilians. And they particularly allow civilian supervisors to proselytize their civilian subordinates”.
I just could not believe this was true so I reached out to one of our installation MRFF representatives (name withheld) who was in complete disbelief to hear about this. She also was not sure about the truth of that statement made by our Section Chief that all of this is now permitted. She put me in touch right away with Mr. Weinstein. I was literally shocked to hear that the new regulations as cited by our Section Chief were actually true and accurate. I should add here that our Section Chief and his wife are also well known for being leaders of the (large fundamentalist Christian parachurch organization’s name withheld) here on base.
I am reaching out here on behalf of at least 15 other active duty military members most of whom, like me, are also practicing Christians. We all abhor what is happening in these twice weekly staff meetings by our civilian Section Chief. But if we object our careers will be over. Or worse. Maybe a lot worse.
Mikey you asked for some direct quotes of what is being said during these proselytizing sessions. It is hard to put down everything because there is so much he proselytizes about. But here are some. Our Section Chief has stated that “if anyone does not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior they are stupid and ignorant because of the fact that the Bible accounts were written by eye witnesses”. Our Section Chief has asked “any ‘non-believers’ how they will feel when they are burning in the lake of fire if they are not cleansed by His blood and bow to Christ as their savior”. He has stated that “those of us who consider ourselves to be ‘Christians' are just as ‘hell bound' as Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and heathens and atheists if they are not actively doing all they can especially while on duty to get people into His kingdom". He clearly doesn't “read the room” very well because there are a ton of clearly blank faces but it doesn't phase him at all. In every session he makes it clear that he is now “fully authorized to speak about the Good News of Jesus in these meetings to the civilians under him in our unit by President Trump”. So what about those of us in the military who really have no choice but to be present when this happens? Are we just collateral damage?
It is just outrageous that this type of behavior to proselytize the Christian faith of our senior civilian Section Chief to all of us who are below him in the chain is allowed and encouraged by POTUS. It is almost impossible to believe unless you have experienced it as we have continually. The morale and unit cohesion of our outfit could not be lower than it is right now. Mr. Weinstein it is the wish of our group of 16 active duty military members including me that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation get the word out on what is happening here. Even though our Commander In Chief and his administration are the ones being identified as supporting and encouraging these constitutional violations to occur. Thank you and the MRFF for being our only channel to reach out to everyone. And by everyone I mean the rest of our military brothers and sisters and our country. We have to publicly report what is happening here and how destructive it is to our national security military mission.
(Active Duty Military Officer/MRFF Client’s name, rank, military branch, MOS/AFSC/SFSC, assigned unit, and installation all withheld)
