Army chaplain proselytizing for his own brand of religion!

[crazyfingers]

Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths

CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.

It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity.

''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,'' he said.

And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks.

''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said.

First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible.

''Regardless of their motives,'' Llano said, ``I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord.''

Since when are chaplains supposed to be proselytizing with government resources, withholding resources from those who do not do his religion and basically discriminating on the basis of religion?

This guy should be court-marshaled!

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Everyone who has heartfelt commitments of any kind and in turn thinks them beneficial to others will no doubt want to share them. Even atheists profess to proselytize out of compassion for us poor, misguided believers....

[crazyfingers]

Today @ 04:17 AM post located here
pereynol:

Everyone who has heartfelt commitments of any kind and in turn thinks them beneficial to others will no doubt want to share them. Even atheists profess to proselytize out of compassion for us poor, misguided believers....

However it's not the place of the chaplain to withhold benefits and bestow benefits on the basis of religion.

[AtheistArchon]

- I'm not certain that much can be done about this particular event. As a veteran myself, I can tell you that the water allocated to these units is usually decided at a level above the chaplain's sphere of influence... it's entirely possible that he gets a blivit of water for whatever purposes he desires.

- Then again, I have to wonder how many soldiers actively ask for a bath without the sermon or the baptism. Probably none, I imagine, although I would.

- My "fix" would not to be to take away his water, but to supply more of it to the forward units.

- That being said, I never met a single army chaplain, of any denomination, that would do such a thing as this. In fact, I have been great friends with more than one army chaplain, and every single one has gone out of their way not to impose his or her religion upon myself or anyone else visiting. It saddens me to read of this.

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

I think the chaplain's actions are a little cheezy, but I wouldn't exactly call them an impostion of his faith upon the unwilling or grounds for court marshall. After all, he's got the right to do as he likes with the pool on his own property.

Are you really that upset about this? There are a lot of worse things to get upset about....

[crazyfingers]

Today @ 04:37 AM post located here
pereynol:

I think the chaplain's actions are a little cheezy, but I wouldn't exactly call them an impostion of his faith upon the unwilling or grounds for court marshall. After all, he's got the right to do as he likes with the pool on his own property.

Are you really that upset about this? There are a lot of worse things to get upset about....

Since he is from Texas and they are in Iraq, I think that it is highly unlikely that it's actually his own personal property. It is very likely Army property which he is dolling out based on hos own religious preference and using it to proselytize.

Yes, I think that it's dispicable to use his position in that way.

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Today @ 10:44 PM post located here
crazyfingers:

Since he is from Texas and they are in Iraq, I think that it is highly unlikely that it's actually his own personal property. It is very likely Army property which he is dolling out based on hos own religious preference and using it to proselytize.

Yes, I think that it's dispicable to use his position in that way.

Does the US Army have property in Iraq? Nevertheless, perhaps it is "dispicable," in a lightweight sort of way. Heavyweight dispicability is exemplified in what the Iraqis did to those poor people whose bodies were found by our military today.

[AtheistArchon]

- Army chaplains are officers, however. It's true that they don't own their resources as their personal property (even though they are responsible for them to the tune of having to pay to replace items unnecessarily damaged or misplaced), but they do have leeway to use these items as they deem fit (even though I think what he is doing is wrong, and could be changed if reported).

- Something else to remember is that the chaplain's corps are really mini-units unto themselves. They minister to the "big" units, and travel with them sometimes, but they have their own budgets and resource allocation money. Additionally, one chaplain (an officer, usually a captain) has two, maybe three soldiers total under his command (enlisted men). That's it. So if the minumum ration for every unit is one blivit of water, then this is much more than enough for four people... it's possible that he's not really officially getting any additional water from supply.

- None of this changes the morality of what he's doing, however.

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Yeah, he really ought to offer the water to all without any strings attached.

[flipper]

It's a weird kind of blackmail. And surely a conversion that was attained because someone wanted something from you is no conversion at all?

It doesn't seem very Christian to me, and it echoes some of the concerns raised about the faith-based initiatives money being used to build proselytizing leverage over the desperate.

A shame.

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Yesterday @ 11:43 PM post located here
flipper:

It's a weird kind of blackmail. And surely a conversion that was attained because someone wanted something from you is no conversion at all?

Of course any such "conversion" would be ingenuine.

It doesn't seem very Christian to me, and it echoes some of the concerns raised about the faith-based initiatives money being used to build proselytizing leverage over the desperate.

A shame.

I'd say that the faith-based initiatives actually supply real needs of the homeless in our inner cities, and these initiatives are legally restricted so as not to become illicit vehicles for mere "proselytizing leverage over the desperate." The faith-based initiatives are hardly comparable to the strange actions of a lone chaplain, except by those so entrenched in their ideology as to preclude altruism just to see that no one gets "converted."

But if such matters are really worthy of serious protest, let atheists organize more of their own soup kitchens and relief efforts for the homeless, and let their ideology be suppressed in turn, as they would have the message of the gospel suppressed among the needy.

[flipper]

Meeting real need without religious requirement is admirable. I didn't say I necessarily opposed the faith-based initiative, I raised some of the concerns that it has engendered. I share these concerns, but time will tell whether they are valid or not.

[Vorkosigan]

But if such matters are really worthy of serious protest, let atheists organize more of their own soup kitchens and relief efforts for the homeless, and let their ideology be suppressed in turn, as they would have the message of the gospel suppressed among the needy.

Numerous atheist organizations run charitable concerns. Perhaps you are not familiar with the long history of Buddhist and Communist charities, as well as, of course, the thousands of secular NGOs around the world.

Vorkosigan

[Pereynol of Sheer Dread]

Today @ 09:37 PM post located here
Vorkosigan:

But if such matters are really worthy of serious protest, let atheists organize more of their own soup kitchens and relief efforts for the homeless, and let their ideology be suppressed in turn, as they would have the message of the gospel suppressed among the needy.

Numerous atheist organizations run charitable concerns. Perhaps you are not familiar with the long history of Buddhist and Communist charities, as well as, of course, the thousands of secular NGOs around the world.

Vorkosigan

As I said in the bolded quote above, "let atheists organize more of their own soup kitchens and relief efforts for the homeless..." My use of the word "more" should imply an awareness of charitable efforts already underway. Any effort to relieve the suffering of the homeless, from any ideological quarter, could well become beneficial.