An aspect of the Christian religious right wing that is a serious longterm danger to everyone in the entire world is the illegal, unconstitutional activities of Christian supremacists in the U.S. armed forces.
These are very dangerous for the following reasons:
- In Afghanistan and Iraq, they justify perception of the U.S. war efforts as an anti-Muslim Christian crusade, thereby justifying Muslim holy war and providing an excuse for terrorism in the name of Islam. (See Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military by Jeff Sharlet, Harpers, May 2009. For the larger context of politically-connected Pentecostal/charismatic missionary efforts in Iraq, see How American Right-Wing Christians Are Waging ‘Spiritual Warfare’ in Northern Iraq by Michael Reynolds, AlterNet, July 12, 2010.)
- They violate the civil rights of many U.S. soldiers who are not Christian fundamentalists. (See No Dominion: The Lonely, Dangerous Fight Against Christian Supremacists Inside the Armed Forces by Matthew Harwood, truthout, Sunday, July 11, 2010, about Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.)
- If current trends were to continue unchecked, a sufficiently large number of fanatical, theocratic-minded Christians in the U.S. military, at all levels, could eventually lead to outright sedition and civil war. Already there exist military chaplains who embrace the same religiously bigoted grand conspiracy claims (e.g. belief in “the Illuminati”) that are commonplace in the militia movement. (See the following Talk To Action posts by Chris Rodda: Conspiracy Theorist Military Chaplains Promote Anti-American Militia Activity, Wed May 20, 2009, and Obama’s [Reported] New Pastor: “First we get the military, then we get the nation”, Mon Jun 29, 2009. For more about the role of “Illuminati”/”New World Order” grand conspiracy ideology, see also the following Talk To Action posts by Rachel Tabachnick: Conspiracy as Prophecy, Fri Jun 12, 2009, and Col. Jim Ammerman, Apostle & New World Order Conspiracy Theorist, Mon Jun 22, 2009.) [This paragraph edited for clarity, July 16, 2010.]
For more information, see also the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s website and various Talk To Action posts on Dominionism in the U.S. Military by MRFF senior researcher Chris Rodda.
A NYARBB meeting on the topic of Christian supremacists in the U.S. military has been scheduled for Thursday Nov 18, 2010.
P.S., July 18, 2010: I just now came across the article Mikey Weinstein’s Crusade by Stephen Glain, Foreign Policy, May 25, 2010.
Diane Vera 
July 17, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Wow you are way off base! I am sure you will delete this, but this is for you to read and if you leave it then that’s just publicity for my blog. WIN-WIN. I am in the military and have been since 1999. There is no “sufficiently large number of fanatical, theocratic-minded Christians in the U.S. military”. I have spent 3 years in Iraq. We “the military” are not on a crusade. I consider myself Christian. There are Christians, Muslims, Wiccans, Atheists, Jews, that I know of in my battalion of infantry. There are all religions in the military including at least one Sikh that gets to wear his religious head gear and keep a full beard. I personally don’t agree with the military bending the no facial hair rule for one or a few people, but that’s the way it is. There is no spiritual warfare being lead by the military whatsoever. That is a fact. I have way too much boots-on-the-ground experience to know that is not happening. You say Soldiers are having their civil rights violated by Christian fundamentalists. I say you have never served and never will. Civil rights are for civilians. When you serve you basically give up any rights you had and are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The links you left to justify your claim are really not justifying it at all. You list a booted out chaplain, the MRFF and an article written by Jeff Sharlet. The last is very laughable. I was in Iraq during that time and most recently again in the middle of Samarra with a Special Forces team. I was not attached or assigned to them, just to make that clear. There are or never where any crosses being drawn on the mosque in question. That particular mosque was blown up by insurgents later in the war and is currently being repaired. I have been to the site. The “Golden Mosque” as it was called, had the dome blown off because of the insurgents. Jeff Sharlet obviously never left the wire because he doesn’t report anything else about it. No report on patrols or the like. If they really wrote “Jesus killed Mohammed” (which I highly doubt), than you must remember that Samarra was a terrorist stronghold and propaganda that would bring out the terrorists to fight was used. You should look at the whole picture before you decide to blog about something you know nothing about. There will always be extremists of religion, belief, or non-belief. That’s life. There will always be that one percent. I am not saying this from a Christian POV, but from a Soldier that knows. I haven’t been to church in years and haven’t referenced anything from the Bible in this comment. No religion is perfect not even yours. The military is a brotherhood and a sisterhood were you can depend on the person beside you with your life. If you don’t agree with anything I wrote remember this, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”-George Orwell
July 18, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Clarifications:
I didn’t say that there currently is a “sufficiently large number of fanatical, theocratic-minded Christians in the U.S. military” to result in outright sedition and civil war. But I do see this as an eventual danger if current trends were to continue unchecked. (I’ve edited my post to make this clearer.)
It is true that, officially and on the whole, the U.S. military is not on a Christian crusade. But, unfortunately, there apparently do exist some officers in the U.S. military who do try to turn the U.S. war effort into a Christian crusade, or who use it as cover for the support of Christian missionaries.
More importantly, there exists a powerful, well-organized but under-publicized religious movement — the “New Apostolic Reformation” — which explicitly aims to take over the U.S. government, including the U.S. military, with an explicitly theocratic agenda. They are unlikely to succeed in the long run, but they could easily cause a lot of serious trouble in short run.
Perhaps “civil rights” is the wrong term to use here. But, at the very least, don’t you agree that soldiers have the right not to be harassed by their superior officers on account of their religious beliefs or lack thereof? (I’m not talking about haircuts here.) I would hope that such harassment isn’t commonplace, but it apparently does happen, and, in at least some cases, there apparently isn’t adequate redress through the chain of command.