Fort Jackson is one of the US military's basic training facilities. The picture below is from a Ft. Jackson course, developed by Campus Crusade For Christ, called "God's Basic Training". Note the proximity, in the photograph below, of Bibles and automatic weapons. The Bibles visible in the forefront of the picture only comprise the New Testament.
Campus Crusade For Christ has been invited onto US military basic training facilities and been endorsed by high ranking officers at those facilities.
This post concerns a new report detailing recent MRFF findings including two videos shot on US military bases.
"they're government paid missionaries when they leave here"
A new Military Religious Freedom Foundation report describes the extent to which basic training institutions of the United States Military have been penetrated by sectarian, right wing Christian religious organizations. Here's the full version of the MRFF report, and here is the short version courtesy of Chris Rodda and Talk To Action
In a Campus Crusade For Christ video [click on image, above, to view video] shot at the US Air Force Academy, a narrator describes how USAF cadets are cut off from civilian life and how the Academy "encourages" them to attend Monday night Bible study classes, including a Campus Crusade For Christ class known as "Cru" - "Crusade".
As Colonel Steve Sill, Senior USAF Academy Chaplain states in the video :
"Well, we're very pleased with what Campus Crusade does here, along with a number of other organizations. We have one night of the week, especially, which is set aside by the Academy for the cadets to be involved in religious education, Bible study, those kinds of things..."
Campus Crusade For Christ's campus director at the USAF Academy, Scott Blom, states in the video:
"Campus Crusade always has been very intentional, I feel, about going after the leaders, or the future leaders, and that's why Dr. Bright [Campus Crusade Founder Bill Bright] initially picked the college campus - because it's the future leaders. As I lool ak the the Air Force Academy, where else can I have an impact for 4,000 future leaders ?"
Blom concludes, in this video which was filmed with the knowledge [and almost certainly with the consent of the Air Force Academy - or else there was gross negligence involved]:
"they're government paid missionaries when they leave here".
From Chris Rodda's Talk To Action post describing the report:
So, just how dangerous is Campus Crusade for Christ's Military Ministry? Just take a look at their goals, which they are well on their way to achieving, with the endorsement and help of countless military commanders.
The primary goal of the Military Ministry is to:
"Evangelize and Disciple All Enlisted Members of the US Military. Utilize Ministry at each basic training center and beyond. Transform our culture through the US Military."
According to Maj. Gen. Bob Dees, U.S. Army (ret.), the Executive Director of Campus Crusade's Military Ministry, in the October 2005 issue of the organization's "Life and Leadership" newsletter:
"We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation -- through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...."
And then there's the Military Ministry's slogan:
"Reaching the World through the Military of the World"
There's also the Military Ministry's frequent use of the term "government paid missionaries." Describing one of their ministries at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, for example, the Military Ministry website states:
"Responsibilities include working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries."
The following explanation of their "gateway" strategy appeared on Campus Crusade's Military Ministry website in 2002:
"Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways. The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news.' We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals."
Similar statements can be found for each of the various Military Ministry divisions, like this one from their Valor Ministry:
"The Valor ROTC cadet and midshipman ministry reaches our future military leaders at their initial entry points on college campuses, helps them grow in their faith, then sends them to their first duty assignments throughout the world as 'government-paid missionaries for Christ.'"
What Did Bill Bright Believe ?
Here is an excerpt I have transcribed, from a book Bill Bright co-authored about 5 years prior to his death:
Primarily during the past 50 years, militant anti-God forces, which have been active during and since the Continental Congress, have finally succeeded not only in rejecting our nation's biblical heritage and our traditional values, but in rewriting history and convincing our people, especially students, that we never had this wonderful heritage....
Marx's and Lenin's ideas spread to America, taking root among academia and some labor leaders. Both the philosophies of educator John Dewey and Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have had a profound influence in mobilizing the anti-God forces. Dewey, of course, was the chief influence in modern "progressive" American education. His anti-God emphasis has resulted in the present decadence and disintegration of our entire educational system...
Such influence began to reach the top levels of government in mid-20th century and finally, in 1947, resulted in the infamous "separation of church and state" ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, and later decisions rejecting the God of our fathers in the public life and schools of America. A parallel anti-Christian philosophical influence has been that of anti-God secular humanism and existentialism. These beliefs provided the foundation for the radical hippie movement of the 1960s. From these roots arose some of the most threatening anti-Christ ideologies, which have destroyed much of the moral and spiritual moorings of America.
Recruiting US Military Members As "Government Paid Missionaries" [for Christ]
Campus Crusade For Christ is the biggest American Christian right organization you've barely heard about. With yearly revenue, in FYI 2006, of over 497 million dollars, Campus Crusade is one of the biggest philanthropies in the United States. It's much bigger, in fact, than Focus On The Family.
Campus Crusade maintains a welter of interlocking ministries that target the US military for evangelism ("Christian Embassy", that evangelizes in the Pentagon, is one) and although the budgets are those ministries comprise only a relatively small fraction of the overall yearly organizational budget of the immense, global evangelical effort of Campus Crusade, in the past several years its Military Ministries have dramatically stepped up their efforts to integrate themselves into the US military and their budgets have swollen.
Maj. Gen. Bob Dees, U.S. Army (ret.) is the Executive Director of Campus Crusade's Military Ministry. Tapped in 2005 to lead the ministry, Dees has moved aggressively to embed Military Ministry on US basic training facilities and so exploit their potential for indoctrination. He wrote, in Military Ministry's October 2005 "Life and Leadership" newsletter:
"We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation -- through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...."
In short, US Basic training facilities of the United States military are being co-opted, by fundamentalist organizations, such as Campus Crusade For Christ, to indoctrinate military personnel and basic training recruits in a form of Christianity that is almost certainly heavily politicized, if quietly so.
The beliefs of Campus Crusade For Christ's founder William Rohl Bright extended to the claim that the Theory Of Evolution was a fraud and an "anti-God" religion invented specifically to undermine Christian beliefs, and also to the claim that American public education has become subverted by communist, atheist and humanist ideologies that were "anti-God" and had destroyed public education, "destroyed much of the moral and spiritual moorings of America", and rewritten American history to deny America's alleged Godly heritage. Bright saw two poles in a grand cosmological struggle, with fundamentalist Christianity on the side of good and, ranged against it on the side of evil, every other religion and belief system on Earth.
A recent Military Religious Freedom Foundation report detailed some of the salient aspects of Campus Crusades' Military Ministries and noted that Military Ministry's own website stated, concerning its ministries that evangelize on the basic training facilities of Fort Sam Houston and Lackland Air Force Base:
"Responsibilities include working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as government paid missionaries."
That statement, from Military Ministry, implies that Campus Crusade's ministries, and their evangelical mission as well, are becoming integrated into US military bases.
The MRFF report also shines a light on the predatory nature of Military Ministry's recruiting tactics:
"Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways. The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news'. We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals." [printed on Military Ministry's website in 2002]
Recruiting In The Pentagon, For a Right-Wing Jesus
One branch of Campus Crusade For Christ's military ministries which targets Pentagon members, Washington politicians, and foreign diplomats for its evangelizing efforts recently came under considerable scrutiny because of a promotional video [ click here to watch the "Christian Embassy" video ] the organization filmed within the Pentagon.
In the now notorious Christian Embassy video, made for promotional and fund raising purposes, top Pentagon officials testified to their enthusiasm about Christian Embassy's mission. A letter to the Pentagon, from a Washington legal firm representing the Military Religious Freedom Foundation helped trigger an investigation of the video incident, by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the report concluded that Department Of Defense regulations were in fact violated in the making if the video and participation by active duty military, uniformed Pentagon officials appearing in the video.
