Battle of the Bilge

Please Note: The commentary in this article is not meant to imply an endorsement of MRFF by MOAA.

‘To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men’ – Abraham Lincoln

On the Trail of an Email Personality

Of all the emails we receive on a daily basis, there is no more prolific subject than religion. While MOAA’s efforts to improve the quality of life for every member of the military, we do not get involved on the topic of faith. The Battle of the Bilge will only run email or web page analysis on religious topics when there is a direct military link, such as the bible burning incident in Afghanistan or the restrictions on speaking in uniform at faith based events. But for every topic that does involve the military, we receive dozens that do not. One of the most frequent names that appear in email forwards, in both scorn and praise, is Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Battle of the Bilge tracked down Mikey, as he asked to be called, and had a long night time chat about the foundation, the troubles facing the military and his mission, which has turned his life upside down.

The Rise of a Cause

Michael Weinstein graduated with honors from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1977 and served for ten years as a judge advocate. He also served as counsel to the White House under President Reagan, where he was the Committee Management Officer of the Iran-Contra affair. He later became general counsel to H. Ross Perot, a position he held until 2006, when he left the corporate world to throw his considerable amount of energy and determination into the MRFF.

It was Mikey’s experience at the Academy, which he states included two beatings to the point of losing consciousness due to his Jewish heritage, and the subsequent experience of his son’s trip to the school (the Weinstein family boasts of 6 alumni of the Air Force Academy) that made him into a political activist. The more he investigated and asked military personnel about their recent experiences, the more determined he became to expose what he saw as a growing dominance of evangelical Christian dogma in all branches of the military.

After two years of pointing out bias and harassment incidents against nearly all faiths, MRFF ended up filing a federal lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Department of Defense. The case centered on the numerous alleged violations atheist Specialist Dustin Chalker experienced while in service, including mandatory attendance at sectarian Christian events and prayer sessions. Although MRFF voluntarily dismissed the case, an amended version of the lawsuit was filed in December of 2008. DoD responded in April by stating that the events were constitutional and that the federal court should defer to their judgment on the case. The lawsuit brought MRFF into the national spotlight, and despite the fact that 96% of MRFF clients are Christian, Mikey was labeled any number of anti-Christian titles, some too ugly to bring up. He also started making enemies.

One of the first enemies was Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former chaplain that was discharged from the military following a hard to understand series of incidents that began with him praying in uniform at the gates of the White House. After his discharge, Klingenschmitt went on a tear, making money off of appearances where he was claiming to be the victim of discrimination and riling up evangelicals from coast to coast. His website portrayed him as a current, instead of former, military chaplain. When MRFF officially objected to this, Klingenschmitt issued an imprecatory prayer against Mikey and the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The imprecatory prayer, which, over-simplified means that it was a request for god to do harm on others, asked God “in Jesus’ name” to “cut off their descendants” and “replace them with Godly people.” While Rev. Lynn took the threat seriously out of concern for the possible ramifications of incitement of violence, Mr. Weinstein took a different approach. “I would like to beat the s**t out of him in a boxing ring or in an alley behind a Safeway” he has been quoted repeatedly as saying (he said it to Battle of the Bilge as well). He asks that detractors stick with attacking him, and leave his family out of the troubles.

Investigating Klingenschmitt led Mikey to ask himself the question as to how he had become a chaplain in the first place. What followed was what Weinstein compared to a case of melanoma. The spot that he was examining was just the visible outcropping of a deep infection, what he contends is a cancer on the military that must be defeated. “We had no way of knowing how deep it goes,” he told me. MRFF investigations into military chaplains exposed what he saw as multiple problems, and the path repeatedly led back to one source: Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches and its founder retired US Army chaplain and Colonel Jim Ammerman.

Sacrifice and Turmoil

Weinstein started off on his campaign as a man with little financial concerns. Retired on a ranch in New Mexico, less than three years later, he is, in his words, ’surrounded by debt’. He has had windows shot out, a swastika defiled into his house walls, and dead animals placed on his doorstep. He receives (personally and via MRFF) about 10 death threats a week, according to his estimate. The effect on his family has been nearly unbearable. All of this, due to his efforts to make the military chaplain program what it is intended to be, not a “proselytizing evangelical Christian army for Jesus”.

MRFF’s focus on CFGC resulted in last week’s letter of complaint to Secretary of Defense Gates, which we did a feature on here. When I contacted Weinstein for information regarding the case, I expected to be put on a long waiting list given his recent high profile appearances in Newsweek and Harper’s Magazine, but the stars and schedules (and the fact that we are both up way too much and could talk late) aligned, and we began the interview. I had prepared a long list of questions. Of them, we got to two. Weinstein is a man that controls the conversation, and does it with a seasoned knowledge and confidence that came through the phone line in perfect clarity.

Far from being a shut in from the fear of personal attacks, Weinstein is confrontational, holds nothing back and is excited about getting his word out. His bodyguard (a former Marine) and extra security at high profile events are realities of the threats against him, but his actions are not affected by them.

MRFF, Confidentiality and Supporters

Confidentiality is a sacred concept at MRFF, and all callers are assured that their names will not be made public unless they are asking specifically for help on their cases. This level of confidentiality has given MRFF a reputation for being an excellent resource to those that feel that they have been forced towards one faith or another. The foundation has received more than 200,000 calls from men and women in uniform, and Weinstein told BotB that the number of complaints and inquiries has increased dramatically since the election of President Obama. Callers are only asked to provide their service and rank, but from this data, MRFF claims to support 13,000 clients. I pressed Mikey to define what he considered a client, which he stated represented anyone in current service to the military that has lodged a complaint or asked for advice.

The makeup of MRFF clients is surprising, and lends credence to his fight. Far from being composed of the expected groups of atheists, agnostics and religious minorities, the vast majority of clients are Christian. A quarter of all callers identify themselves as Catholic, a third state that they are Protestant. Other denominations of Christianity make up the remaining bulk of calls with a scant 4 percent identifying themselves as non-Christian. The majority of callers are enlisted, in the E5 to E6 range, while the largest contingent of officers is 03 and below. But MRFF also fields calls from flag officers and senior enlisted, as well as a large number of chaplains. The stories they pass on are disturbing, especially those complaints coming from the chaplains. Feeling that they are being pushed to evangelize the word of Christ, chaplains call for advice not about relating to their troops, but how to deal with the ’subtle coup’, a term coined to referred to the growing disproportional evangelical chaplain dominance.

The Advisory Board for MRFF boasts many former chaplains and other supporters of the cause. Their biggest supporter, the California Council of Churches, represents a coalition of churches that service 6.5 million California Christians. But they have been convinced by Weinstein that the threat posed by evangelical chaplains to troop morale, public relations in wars on Muslim land and the bad name that this all gives to moderate Christians are clear and present dangers. Only one of the five Jewish chaplain endorsing agencies supports MRFF, a statistic that Mikey does not find unusual. “We did a study of all the Jewish chaplains in the military today and found out an amazing coincidence – they all have the same name,” Mikey told me. After asking what he meant by that, he exclaimed “Rabbi Speed bump is the only Rabbi in the military”. The same name could be applied to most non-evangelical chaplains, if calls and emails are any indication.

How Bad Is It?

Of the two questions that were on my list that I actually got to ask, the first was how deep this problem went. Weinstein stated that he was recently approached by a four star general (who of course remained confidential) who asked him flat out ‘how bad is it?’ Weinstein told the general to hold a pencil out at arm’s length and drop it. He had me do the same, then asked ‘what happened?’ ‘It fell to the floor’, both the general and I responded. ‘Why?’, he asked. ‘Gravity’, we both responded. ‘Exactly’, he said.

The analogy is that the evangelical group of chaplains endorsed by and following orders from Jim Ammerman and CFGC is as ingrained into the military as gravity is a part of our physical world. He recounts stories such as the chaplain in Afghanistan that was filmed instructing troops about how to circumvent General Order 1A, which strictly prohibits attempting to convert Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. That short clip represents the tip of the iceberg, Weinstein contends. A trip to the MRFF web site will give you a better picture of the situation.

The effects of these stories on our ability to fight a multi front war against predominantly Muslim nations is devastating, and may help explain why Al Qaeda has been so successful since the war in Iraq began at recruitment. Young Muslims, indoctrinated from their earliest years to believe that their purpose in life is to die in defense of Allah, and that infidels will try to destroy their way of life, see the invasion and occupation force as crusaders against Islam. Since the Qur’an holds nothing back in telling the followers of Muhammad the great paradise that awaits them if they die in defense of the faith, it is a small step from moderate to radical when they see and hear U.S. forces trying to spread the word of Christ.

Weinstein says that we should take this problem very seriously, because it is putting our troops in harm’s way at an increasing rate and spoiling our missions in the region. And military personnel that are immersed in this crusader atmosphere will eventually have problems integrating back at home when they return. The problems facing military families already, with children of deployed servicemen suffering anxiety and depression on a large scale, suicides now outpacing the average of the civilian world for the first time in modern history and broken marriages a common story, are only exacerbated when returning troops maintain the evangelical mission and stay disconnected, emotionally if not physically.

An Honest Assessment and a Bold Reaction

We talk for a long while about incidents and particular issues, most of which can’t be confirmed independently due to confidentiality agreements, but the MRFF website details a good number of letters and requests for assistance. After this discussion, I take a deep breath and let out the question I have been anxious to ask. “You’ve stated in your letter to SecDef that you are calling for a full and aggressive inquiry into any CFGC endorsed chaplains (a number as high as 270) currently in service. Doesn’t this play into their hands and make you a ‘threat’ to their operations? If they’ve been telling their chaplains that there would be enemies to what they have been trying to do, isn’t this feeding a self fulfilling prophecy? And how do you think this will be received at the DoD?”

Weinstein’s answer was unequivocal. “Either you stay quiet and let the evangelical chaplains shape a generation of the most powerful instrument of death the world has ever known into an army for Jesus, or you speak up. I couldn’t stay quiet”. He asked me if I was aware of what President Eisenhower warned the nation about during his farewell address. Yes, of course, he warned against the growing power of the military industrial complex.

“Exactly,” Weinstein stated, “and he was right. But today we face a new danger; the rise of the “fundamentalist Christian, parachurch, military corporate proselytizing complex”. I let that characterization sink in for a moment, and an image appears in my head of Mikey Weinstein facing down a row of windmills with a bazooka in hand.

As for DoD, Mikey just said that they wouldn’t like the letter at all, something he and I could agree on.

Weinstein’s Message to MOAA Members and all Officers

Before ending the call, Mr. Weinstein said that he had a message for MOAA members. There’s an old Yiddish proverb that states that silence is consent. Every member of MOAA and every officer took an oath to serve and defend the Constitution of the United States, not any particular deity. The founding fathers were careful to ensure that their documents held no official endorsement of one faith over another, and with good reason. He implores all officers to resist using their command authority to promote a particular worldview, or to allow the chaplains in their unit to do the same.

Further Reading
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Newsweek’s Feature Article
Harper’s Feature Article
Battle of the Bilge’s Fact Check of MRFF Letter to DoD


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