U.S.
Soldiers Launch Campaign
To Convert Iraqis To Christianity
By Jason Leopold
30 May,
2008
The Public Record
Some U.S. military personnel
appears to have launched an initiative to covert thousands of Iraqi
citizens to Christianity by distributing Bibles and other fundamentalist
Christian literature translated into Arabic to Iraqi Muslims.
A recent article published on the website of Mission Network News
reported that Bible Pathway Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian
organization, has provided thousands of a special military edition
of its Daily Devotional Bible study book to members of the 101st Airborne
Division of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, currently stationed in Iraq,
the project "came into being when a chaplain in Iraq (who has
since finished his tour) requested some books from Bible Pathway Ministries
(BPM).”
“The resulting product is a 6"x9" 496-page illustrated
book with embossed cover containing 366 daily devotional commentaries,
maps, charts, and additional helpful information," the Mission
Network News report says.
Chief Warrant Officer Rene Llanos of the 101st Airborne told Mission
Network News, “the soldiers who are patrolling and walking the
streets are taking along this copy, and they're using it to minister
to the local residents.”
"Our division is also getting ready to head toward Afghanistan,
so there will be copies heading out with the soldiers," Llanos
said. “We need to pray for protection for our soldiers as they
patrol and pray that God would continue to open doors. The soldiers
are being placed in strategic places with a purpose. They're continuing
to spread the Word.”
Karen Hawkins, a BPM official, said military chaplains "were
trying to encourage [soldiers] to be in the Word everyday because
they're in a very dangerous situation, and they need that protection."
That would appear to violate the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment prohibiting government officials, including military personnel,
from using the machinery of the state to promote any form of religion.
The book’s cover includes the logos of the five branches of
the armed forces giving the impression that it’s a publication
sanctioned by the Pentagon.
The distribution of the Bibles and Christian literature comes on the
heels of a report published Wednesday by McClatchy Newspapers stating
that U.S. Marines guarding the entrance to the city of Fallujah have
been handing out “witnessing coins” to Sunni Muslims entering
the city that read in Arabic on one side: "Where will you spend
eternity?” and "For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life. John 3:16" on the other.
A Pentagon spokesman said he was unaware of the issue involving the
distribution of coins and Bibles and declined to comment.
The issue comes at a particularly sensitive time for Sunnis who recently
clashed with U.S. military in an area west of Baghdad week after an
American soldier was found to have used a Koran, the Islamic holy
book, for target practice. Following a daylong protest by Iraqis that
threatened to turn violent, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond issued a public
apology to Sunnis in the area.
"I come before you here seeking your forgiveness," Hammond
said. "In the most humble manner I look in your eyes today and
I say please forgive me and my soldiers."
The soldier who shot up the Koran was disciplined and removed from
duty in Iraq.
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the government watchdog
agency The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), said the
religious intolerance among U.S. military personnel calls for a federal
investigation.
"The shocking actions revealed just last week of American soldiers
in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan callously using the Koran
for automatic weapons "target practice" is absolutely connected
to the same issues of national security breach wrought by our United
States armed forces proselytizing the local populations via the distribution
to them of fundamentalist Christian coins, bibles, tracts, comics
and related religious materials written in Arabic," Weistein
said.
"The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been acutely aware
of such astonishing unconstitutional and illicit proselytizing in
Iraq and Afghanistan for over three years now and knows how massively
pervasive it really is. These proselytizing transgressions are all
blatant violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
and MRFF is now demanding that any and all responsible military personnel
be immediately prosecuted under Failure to Obey an Order or Regulation,"
Weinstein added.
Members of the U.S. military first started actively proselytizing
Iraqi Muslims soon after the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.
In a newsletter published http://www.i-m-f.org/pdfs/Gatherings/Spring2004.pdf
in 2004 by the fundamentalist group International Ministerial Fellowship
(IMF), Capt. Steve Mickel, an Army chaplain, claimed that Iraqis were
eager to be converted to Christianity and that he personally tried
to convert dozens of Iraqis, which is also an apparent constitutional
violation.
"I am able to give them tracts on how to be saved, printed in
Arabic," Mickel said, according to a copy of the IMF newsletter.
"I wish I had enough Arabic Bibles to give them as well. The
issue of mailing Arabic Bibles into Iraq from the U.S. is difficult
(given the current postal regulations prohibiting all religious materials
contrary to Islam except for personal use of the soldiers). But the
hunger for the Word of God in Iraq is very great, as I have witnessed
first-hand."
Mickel evangelized Iraqis while delivering leftover food to local
residents from his unit's mess hall. He handed out Bibles translated
into Arabic in the village of Ad Dawr, a predominantly Sunni territory
where Saddam Hussein was captured.
"Such fundamentalist Christian proselytizing DIRECTLY violates
General Order 1A, Part 2, Section J issued by General Tommy Franks
on behalf of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) back in
December of 2000 which strictly prohibits "proselytizing of any
religion, faith or practice," said Weinstein, a former Reagan
administration White House counsel and former Air Force Judge Advocate
General (JAG).
In addition to coins and Bibles, there have been reports of the distribution
to Iraqi children of Christian comic books published by companies
such as Chick Publications. These inflammatory comic books, published
in English and Arabic, not only depict Mohammed, but show both Mohammed
and Muslims burning in hell because they did not accept Jesus as their
savior before they died
Chick Publications states on its website that its literature "is
desperately needed by Muslims, but getting it to them without endangering
our soldiers or enflaming the Muslim leadership will not be easy."
Postal regulations prohibit sending bulk religious materials contrary
to Islam into Iraq, but allow religious materials to be sent to an
individual soldier for their personal use.
Sending more of these materials than would be necessary for an individual's
personal use, but not a large enough quantity to risk being flagged
by the postal service, is one way that these materials are making
their way into Iraq. Chick Publications advises those wanting to send
their literature to military personnel to first find out "just
what tracts would be most useful and how many they can effectively
use," and "to find out whether the tracts can be drop shipped
from Chick Publications or if they should be sent as personal mail
from the soldiers' families."
A spokesman for Chick refused to comment for this story about the
comics handed out to Iraqis.
Meanwhile, members of the 101st Airborne stationed in Iraq will continue
their work evangelizing Iraqis unless it is told otherwise.
Llanos, the division's chief warrant officer, said about 2,000 copies
of the military edition of the Bible provided to the 101st Airborne
will soon be distributed to Iraqis.
However, reports on the Bible Pathway Ministries website up to 30,000
of the Christian books have been distributed to military personnel,
some of which will presumably end up in the hands of Iraqis.