WASHINGTON (ABP) — A group of high-ranking Pentagon officials improperly endorsed and aided an evangelical Christian ministry, according to a Defense Department investigation recently made public.
The Department of Defense inspector general's report was dated July 20 and released to the public by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The watchdog group requested an investigation last year into a promotional video for Christian Embassy.
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 investigation concluded that seven current and former Pentagon officers — including four generals — who appeared in the video violated Defense Department regulations against endorsing political or religious organizations while in uniform. It also found that the Pentagon's former top chaplain improperly “provided a selective benefit to Christian Embassy” by deceptively obtaining permission for the group to film inside the Pentagon.
The report cleared two civilian Defense Department employees who appeared in the video, saying their appearances did not create the impression that the Pentagon endorsed Christian Embassy.
The investigators faulted the chaplain, Col. Ralph Benson, for providing unrestricted access to the Pentagon to dozens of volunteers for Christian Embassy and other religious groups via identification badges normally given to military contractors.
The investigation “confirms the intentional dismantling of the constitutionally mandated wall separating church and state by some of the highest-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the U.S. military,” said Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. “Embarrassingly feeble excuses proffered by senior U.S. Army and Air Force generals and other senior officers reveal long and deep collusion with a fundamentalist, religious missionary organization.”
The video appeared on Christian Embassy's website but was taken down after Weinstein's group filed its initial complaint. At one point in the video, referring to the Pentagon's 20,000-plus employees, the 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.”
According to the report, several officers had thought they were doing nothing wrong by appearing in the video because they believed the Pentagon did, in fact, endorse the organization.
Air Force Gen. John Catton, for instance, told the investigators he believed Christian Embassy was a “quasi-federal entity” because Pentagon officials had promoted its work to general officers for more than 20 years.
According to the report, Benson also contended, through legal counsel, that preventing his involvement in the video violated his First Amendment rights as a chaplain. But the investigators disagreed and noted that he had misled officials in his request for permission to film the video by claiming it was about the work of the Pentagon chaplain's office.
Investigators took no action against former Texas congressman Pete Geren, who appeared in the video and currently serves as secretary of the Army. He is a member of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
It also did not mention Weinstein's allegation that the Pentagon had provided office space and other logistical support to the Christian Embassy.
Weinstein and his organization have been criticized by some conservatives for their fire-breathing activism on the behalf of religious minorities in the armed forces. In 2005, Weinstein — an Air Force Academy graduate and former Reagan administration official — went public with claims that his sons had been religiously harassed at the academy by evangelical Christians. That led to a Pentagon investigation and to a lawsuit, which a federal judge dismissed last year.
In an Aug. 7 email newsletter to supporters, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council said the Pentagon investigation had not vindicated Weinstein's claims that officers had violated the First Amendment.
“[T]he report did not substantiate Weinstein's biggest claim that these men violated the [First Amendment's] establishment clause by lending their support to a religious entity,” Perkins wrote. “In fact, the report didn't even touch on the nature of the video; it simply reiterated that officers cannot endorse a non-federal organization while in uniform at the Pentagon.”