Religious Pressure in the Air Force?

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Panis Angelicas said:
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41569

Catholics and Evangelical Christian cadets are being warned to keep their beliefs to themselves…
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Catholics do not push their religion on to anyone. We simply don’t proselytize that way.

But, Evangelicals are very militant about spreading their beliefs, especially among Catholic youth, who may not be prepared to defend the Faith adequately. I’'ve read where Evangelicals on some U.S. ships were targeting, not the unchurched for conversion, but Catholic sailors, and Catholic chaplains complained about that.

I agree with the ruling. Worship as you will, but don’t try to impose your religion on anyone else.
 
Catholics and Evangelical Christian cadets are being warned to keep their beliefs to themselves…
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within reason, i applaud their evangelical zeal. they are doing what Jesus wants them to do, spread the gospel. if anything, it will challenge catholics to know their faith better or they will be mislead. either way, they are better off. it’s better to be hot or cold then luke warm.

trust me, the military is generally the last bastion where morals, values, and God are in the work environment. this is the first step leading to military officially endorsing atheism. evangelicals are on God’s team.
 
The left would like to fire all military chaplains and replace them with unionized psychologists and social workers.
 
oat soda:
evangelicals are on God’s team.
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Your opinion, fine. As far as I’m concerned, any so-called “Christian” group with the false doctrines they accept that aims its conversion efforts at Catholics is solely on Satan’s team.
 
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David_Paul:
The left would like to fire all military chaplains and replace them with unionized psychologists and social workers.
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Have you a link or a citation to where I can verify this? I’m not aware of any efforts to abolish military chaplains in the U.S. Armed Services.
 
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David_Paul:
Catholics do proselytize. Look at EWTN. Entire shows devoted to it.
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Yes, you are right to this extent. I meant the person-to-person in-your-face techniques of the evangelicals/fundamentalists.
 
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Richardols:
Your opinion, fine. As far as I’m concerned, any so-called “Christian” group with the false doctrines they accept that aims its conversion efforts at Catholics is solely on Satan’s team.
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Just a tad extreme–I think you’ll find more of Satan’s charges among the CINOs and dissidents “within” the Church.
 
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swampfox:
Just a tad extreme
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Your opinion, fine. But, some fundamentalist or evangelical who wants Catholics to believe that salvation is by faith alone, that Baptism isn’t necessary to salvation, that once one is saved, one is always saved, that there’s going to be a Rapture, that the Real Presence is only symbolic, that priests aren’t to be called Father, that the Deuterocanonical books are false Catholic additions to Scripture, that personal interpretation of Scripture is everything, that Catholic salvation is no more than Pelagianism, that praying to Mary is a form of spiritualism, etc., etc. is, in my opinion, a servant of Satan.
 
Your opinion, fine. As far as I’m concerned, any so-called “Christian” group with the false doctrines they accept that aims its conversion efforts at Catholics is solely on Satan’s team.
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minus any lack of chairty on their part, i think they are doing God’s work. this division you feel between us and the evangelicals is exactly what the devil wants. satan wants us to stay divided so he can get God out of the workplace. this is how he works- divide and conquer. didn’t Jesus say to the disciples not to worry about the other people baptizing in his name?

the only reason our country hasn’t fallen into total secularism like canada and europe is because of our evangelicals. the catholic church in this country has dropped the ball. look at all of the disent and homosexuality in the american church today.
 
oat soda:
minus any lack of chairty on their part, i think they are doing God’s work. this division you feel between us and the evangelicals is exactly what the devil wants. satan wants us to stay divided so he can get God out of the workplace. this is how he works- divide and conquer. didn’t Jesus say to the disciples not to worry about the other people baptizing in his name?

the only reason our country hasn’t fallen into total secularism like canada and europe is because of our evangelicals. the catholic church in this country has dropped the ball. look at all of the disent and homosexuality in the american church today.
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I absolutely agree. The more I get to hear about them, the more these ‘unlikely allies’ appeal. They do have their downsides but their courage is undoubted. Satan does not give anyone courage.
 
oat soda:
minus any lack of chairty on their part, i think they are doing God’s work. this division you feel between us and the evangelicals is exactly what the devil wants. satan wants us to stay divided so he can get God out of the workplace. this is how he works- divide and conquer. didn’t Jesus say to the disciples not to worry about the other people baptizing in his name?

the only reason our country hasn’t fallen into total secularism like canada and europe is because of our evangelicals. the catholic church in this country has dropped the ball. look at all of the disent and homosexuality in the american church today.
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Evangelicals have been a force for promoting moral good in a lot of cases - as have Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Muslims, and athiests. As far as the good they promote is in line with the objective truth and morality embodied by the Catholic Church, hooray for all of them.

But it is important to remember that other Christians are seen by the Church as “separated brethren,” an interesting oxymoron implying degrees of both unity *and *division. I think that if a perception of “division” was what the devil wanted, our own Church would have simply called them “brethren” without qualifiers. We ought to be deeply aware of what seperates us, and their source in deeply damaging heretical beliefs. In fact, to fail to see the separation is more dangerous than failing to acknowledge our unity:

Moral heresies are the great challenge of the modern era, we Catholics are fighting against an erosion of true morality, and many evangelical groups stand with us - however:

By accepting evangelicals as allies without qualification we have lost the equally important battle over Christological and ecclesiastical heresies which were the great concerns of the past.

If we Catholics can be so easily dissuaded from a passionate defense of the whole truth of Christ by a simple bait-and-switch of heresies, then the battle over moral heresies in our Western society is a futile endeavor, and will only marginalize the Catholic perspective.
 
Panis Angelicas said:
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41569

Catholics and Evangelical Christian cadets are being warned to keep their beliefs to themselves…
Click to expand...

from the article:

Rosa cited Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” as an example of the problem being caused by Christians at the academy. When the film was playing locally, some cadets emailed members of their squadron suggesting they see it as a group.

“People felt they were being coerced,” Rosa says

Any wimp who thinks an invitation to see a movie is “coercion” doesn’t belong in the armed forces!
 
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Richardols:
Have you a link or a citation to where I can verify this? I’m not aware of any efforts to abolish military chaplains in the U.S. Armed Services.
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Look at People for the American Way, the ACLU and other secularists who hate religion, and are trying to get rid of any hint of religion anywhere. If they haven’t sued to get rid of chaplains yet, they soon will. What is there to stop them?
 
I retired from the active duty Air Force with the rank of Major on September 1, 1997, and continue to maintain close associations with fellow officers still on active duty. I suggest, therefore, that I am in a unique position to discuss this thread.
Panis Angelicas:
Catholics and Evangelical Christian cadets are being warned to keep their beliefs to themselves…
Click to expand...
  1. The news article posted is specifically about the Air Force Academy in Colorado. It is not about the Air Force in general, nor does it mention West Point (the US Military [Army] Academy) or Annapolis (the Navy Academy). From the tone of the article it appears to be a local response to a localized problem. I am unaware of any current effort to extend this policy past the Academy walls.
  2. It was my experience over many years that religion was one of the few “safe” topics we could discuss publicly and freely without fear of prosecution.
  3. All of the active duty forces require their members, officer and enlisted, to swear an oath of allegance. They prohibit their members from discussing politics in any way other than to proclaim how much we like the current president. Expressing contrary political opinions is punishable administratively or by court-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During the Clinton years, I got a first-hand view of this provision being enforced against other officers and non-commissioned officers.
  4. We could also NOT proffer a contrary opinion on any of the other “politically correct” hot-button issues (women in combat, sexual harrassment, race relations, our senior officers, etc.) unless we truly wanted our careers to be very short. What we COULD do was hit each other over the head with our bibles.
  5. The military services, as a whole, are made up of people who are far more educated and conservative than the general civilian population. We had to talk about SOMETHING besides work while on endless 12-hour shifts or on lengthy deployments, and if we wanted to argue religion our commanders approved and even encouraged it.
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Richardols:
Evangelicals are very militant about spreading their beliefs, especially among Catholic youth, who may not be prepared to defend the Faith adequately. I’'ve read where Evangelicals on some U.S. ships were targeting, not the unchurched for conversion, but Catholic sailors, and Catholic chaplains complained about that.
Click to expand...
  1. The largest part of the military population is young adults between 20 and 30 years old. Sociologists will tell you that the early 20’s is when most young adults, in the process of defining themselves, fully embrace religion for their own reasons and are consumed with zeal for evangelizing. This is most true of young adults who came from unchurched or indifferently-churched families.
  2. These same young adult neo-Christians are also poorly schooled in Christianity, and usually come at Catholics armed with a sense of superiority and a checklist of objections to Catholicism. I was verbally assaulted many times with the most intolerant and most common objections: worshipping Mary, the crucifix as an “idol”, use of real wine for communion, “are you saved?”, confession to a person, the Real Presence, etc., etc.
  3. Initially I was on the defensive. I was over-awed by their ability to quote chapter and verse, and raced back and forth through the bible looking for red herrings that are actually part of Catholic Tradition (with a capital “T”). They seemed to prove me wrong at every turn. But I had this nagging feeling that they were mis-interpreting key doctrines. My parents were well-schooled, and they were still militantly Catholic.
  4. I went on the offensive. In racing through the bible looking for answers that didn’t exist there, I realized that my neo-Christian friends had memorized key verses only and were completely ignorant of their context. One of these key omissions was John 20:19-23 (receive the power to forgive sin). An evangelical neo-Christian friend, studying to be a minister no less, had every part of John 20 highlighted EXCEPT those verses. He was stunned when I pointed them out to him.
  5. Finally, I got a copy of Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism. I consumed every word. This book gave me the answers to their hot-button and red herring questions. I am a Catholic today, and hard-core at that, because of Karl Keating.
  6. I turned the tables on the neo-Christians. The best defense is often a good offense, so I learned where THEIR faith deficiencies existed and exploited them. While I can not be certain that I ever brought any of my fellow officers into the True Church, I do know that I cleared up a lot of faith challenges they had.
I can truly say that I very much appreciated my experience in the military, where my fellow officers were constantly challenging me to excel by both encouraging me and competing against me. I am a better person and a better Catholic because of my Protestant friends.
 
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David_Paul:
Catholics do proselytize. Look at EWTN. Entire shows devoted to it. All Christians proselytize. They must. Lay Catholics have been remiss in not doing more of it as many relied on priests to do the work. But that is changing rapidly.

Good article by Hugh Hewitt:

The Blue Angels? The U.S. Air Force Academy is targeted by secularists.
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there is more than a slight difference between proselytizing and evangelizing. It would do all of us well to know the difference.
 
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David_Paul:
Catholics do proselytize. Look at EWTN. Entire shows devoted to it. All Christians proselytize. They must. Lay Catholics have been remiss in not doing more of it as many relied on priests to do the work. But that is changing rapidly.

Good article by Hugh Hewitt:

The Blue Angels? The U.S. Air Force Academy is targeted by secularists.
Click to expand...
there is more than a slight difference between proselytizing and evangelizing. It would do all of us well to know the difference.
 
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Richardols:
Your opinion, fine. But, some fundamentalist or evangelical who wants Catholics to believe that salvation is by faith alone, that Baptism isn’t necessary to salvation, that once one is saved, one is always saved, that there’s going to be a Rapture, that the Real Presence is only symbolic, that priests aren’t to be called Father, that the Deuterocanonical books are false Catholic additions to Scripture, that personal interpretation of Scripture is everything, that Catholic salvation is no more than Pelagianism, that praying to Mary is a form of spiritualism, etc., etc. is, in my opinion, a servant of Satan.
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I’ll take a passionate Protestant over a half-***, lazy, indifferent Catholic any-day.

“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.”

Looks like Jesus would share my thoughts.
 
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Trelow:
I’ll take a passionate Protestant over a half-***, lazy, indifferent Catholic any-day.
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So, what’s your point?

I’m speaking about the utterly false doctrines of Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism and the efforts of their adherents, howsoever passionate, to try to lure Catholics away from the True Faith.
 
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