ARLINGTON, Va. (ABP) — A watchdog group wants to know if high-ranking Pentagon officials not only allowed uniformed officers to appear in a video promoting an evangelical ministry, but also if they gave the ministry Pentagon office space or any other special accommodations.
The evangelical group, Christian Embassy, has removed a link on its website to the promotional video, which featured uniformed military officials endorsing the evangelism ministry. The video initially prompted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to request an investigation.
The initial Freedom of Information Act request, dated Dec. 11, asked Pentagon officials for any information about how the Christian Embassy was able to gain access to the Pentagon and its employees to film the promo piece.
On Dec. 13, lawyers representing the foundation amended the request to also ask for any records “relating to any permanent or temporary office space, meeting space, audiovisual resources, telephonic resources, transportation resources, staffing resources or other overhead or administrative resources provided to the Christian Embassy.”
The evangelical group's director said Dec. 14 it received no special treatment.
Mikey Weinstein — founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and an activist for religious minorities in the Armed Forces — said that stories Pentagon officials had told him privately led to the additional inquiry about office space.
“I have a lot of moles at the Pentagon, many of them senior [staffers]. What I'm being told is that people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off” with worry that allegations of religious violations will affect many senior Pentagon officials, Weinstein said in a telephone interview Dec. 14 from his Albuquerque, N.M., home.
His group's FOIA request accompanied a complaint asking the Defense Department to investigate the circumstances that led to the video.
Referring to the Pentagon's 20,000-plus employees, the video's narrator states: “Through Bible studies, discipleship, prayer breakfasts and outreach events, Christian Embassy is mustering these men and women into an intentional relationship with Jesus Christ.”
The Christian Embassy is a Washington-area institution that serves high-level leaders in the federal government and the city's diplomatic community. It is an outgrowth of Campus Crusade for Christ, an international evangelism and discipleship group for students.
The foundation's complaint, addressed to Thomas Gimble, the Pentagon's acting inspector general, said the appearance of Defense Department employees in the video violates several military rules, including rules against active-duty service members promoting political or religious causes while in uniform.
“Service men and women shown in uniform and civilian [Department of Defense] personnel at the Pentagon enthusiastically promoting a private, sectarian religious organization appears to violate a number of Department of Defense directives, joint ethics regulations, army regulations, air force instructions and the 'Little Blue Book' of Air Force core values,” the complaint said.
The 10-minute video features scenes that include seven high-ranking officers, identified by their names and titles, endorsing the embassy. It features similar scenes with high-level civilian Defense Department employees.
The Christian Embassy initially removed the video from its website after the foundation's complaint became public. But the video was back up by Dec. 12, with a new disclaimer attached. It read, “The views expressed by any government officials in this video are their personal views and are not intended to represent the U.S. government nor any department in which they serve.”
However, by Dec. 14, the link was gone again. It was replaced with the following message: “Christian Embassy seeks to help diplomats, government leaders and military officers find real and lasting purpose through faith and encouragement. Out of respect for those we serve, we have removed the promotional video from our website until further notice.”
Portions of the video are now made available on the popular video-sharing website YouTube.
Bob Varney, Christian Embassy's executive director, said Dec. 14 that, while he had not read the entirety of the foundation's complaint, he did not believe his group had violated military rules. “But I'm not the lawyer and I'm not the Pentagon,” he added.
He also said the Pentagon did not provide any material support or meeting space to his group and that the embassy followed the same rules on Pentagon accessibility as other religious groups.
“The Pentagon, I know, goes out of its way to be broad in its desire to service multiple religions,” he said.
Officials in the Pentagon's press office had not returned multiple telephone and e-mail messages requesting comment and information. A Pentagon spokesperson quoted by the Associated Press Dec. 11 did note that the military would have to balance any potential violations of military rules by the Pentagon employees in the video with another Department of Defense directive, from 1988, that states: “requests for accommodation of religious practices should be approved by commanders when accommodation will not have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, standards or discipline.”
But Weinstein, who is Jewish, said the Defense Department was very strict with the rules on uniformed officers appearing to endorse political or sectarian causes when his son and daughter-in-law recently appeared in a documentary on the history of Christian anti-Semitism. Both of them, like the elder Weinstein, are Air Force Academy graduates and active-duty Air Force officers.
Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force official in the Reagan administration, provided Associated Baptist Press with a copy of an e-mail an Air Force public affairs official sent to the producers of the anti-Semitism documentary. It said Casey and Amanda Weinstein, both Air Force lieutenants, “cannot appear in uniform.”
Some conservatives — including Rush Limbaugh in a segment on the Dec. 13 broadcast of his radio show — have accused Weinstein of being opposed to Christians in the military expressing their religious freedom. But Weinstein countered that he is just trying to uphold the First Amendment's protections for religious minorities in the military.
“Again, I find no fault with the Christian Embassy,” Weinstein said. “They are doing what evangelicals do, which is evangelize. But we're talking about time and place. What if it were Muslims and Jews or Satanists that were trying to do this?”
Weinstein also said high-ranking generals endorsing a Christian ministry from the inner sanctums of the Pentagon plays into the hands of Islamic militants, who want to create the perception that the United States is a nation of Christian crusaders attacking Muslims in places like Iraq.
“What the Christian Embassy has done, with the total approval of these morons [in the Pentagon] … is they've created the No. 1 best recruiting tool that you could possibly have in the world for Al Qaeda,” he said.
But the embassy's Varney dismissed the Military Religious Freedom Foundation “attack.” “It's hard for me to understand why they're doing what they're doing, especially when their label is 'religious freedom,'” he said. “We are exercising our religious freedom.”
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Read more:
Watchdog group wants Pentagon inquiry in evangelical group's video promo (12/12)
Christian Embassy promotional video
Military Religious Freedom Foundation complaint and FOI request
Judge dismisses lawsuit targeting evangelism at Air Force Academy (10/31)
Navy chaplain fined, reprimanded for disobeying commander's order (9/14)
Air Force Academy problems real but unintentional, report says (8/22/2005)