Posted on 05/30/2008 5:57:49 PM PDT by daniel1212
BAGHDAD — A U.S. Marine handed out coins promoting Christianity to Muslims in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, outraged Sunni officials said Friday. The U.S. military responded quickly, removing a trooper from duty pending an investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There was no religious component driving and feeding WWII as there is today, with the exception that a portion of Japanese soldiers viewed the Emperor Hirohito as a god.
There is no parallel whatsoever.
Besides, Japan was subservient after the surrender, and the Shinto or Buddhist religions don’t appear to me to have the same attitudes towards apostasy as Islam does. We had plenty of missionaries over there, and their lives were not in danger.
But that is not the point here. The point is whether this Marine should have been reprimanded for what he did. To ANYONE who has been in the military, the answer is CLEARLY yes. He was setting his own agenda without orders. If you are a missionary, fine. If you are a Marine, it is not.
Being a Marine does not require you ignore the dictates of your Christian religion, but being a Marine means that your mission is set by those above you in the US Military chain of command up to the Commander in Chief.
If you are asked to do something as a soldier that is against your Christian principles, it is YOUR responsibility to act or not act. If not acting means you are charged with mutiny or refusing to obey orders, so be it, that is the price you pay. But it is your job as a Christian to act as you see fit and accept the consequences if thee are any.
I don’t doubt this young man’s courage or conviction, I doubt his commonsense and consideration for those serving around him.
The greatest form of courage I can think of was practiced by Jacob DeShazer, one of the Doolittle Raiders captured by the Japanese in 1942. They treated him as a war criminal until he was repatriated, and ended up going back to Japan as a missionary. See the link at:
http://www.doolittleraider.com/raiders/deshazer.htm
To have the courage and conviction to bury your hatred for your foe, must be one of the most difficult forms of practicing what you preach, especially after what he went through.
That he went back to attempt to spread the word of God to the Japanese is simply staggering. But it was his choice to do so. He was no longer in the military.
Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.
That was the common writing style of the day without about as much religious content as saying "God bless you," after a sneeze.
A Soldier or Marine who cannot obey that order has no business being in uniform.
“There is no parallel whatsoever.”
True. The missionaries were civilians, nor working for the military, and were seeking the salvation of their souls for Jesus who died for them, while MacArthur was fearful of Japan going Commie, which a god part of it initially did, and the missionaries had very limited success. And yet Japan in many ways obeyed certain Biblical principals more than many other countries.
Missionaries must be very wary of accepting government support, not only because of the strings attached, but because they can be linked to a government that is despised. When David Wilkerson reached out to the teen gangs of NYC, it actually helped him that he had trouble with the police (because he tried to speak to the judge at their arraignment).
The Marine at issue here was doing a good thing, but doing so in uniform, and on duty, thereby conveying that the Marines seek their conversion, and which risks others who do not share that faith.
The Marines can do and do many good things that express a belief system, in showing material care for the people of Iraq (even if the Gov’s motive is not altogether altruistic), which the underlying belief system of another government would not do. Who can name one?
What does the Lord require of you? Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. If you are doing those things, you will have no problem fulfilling the Great Commission.
Your rant marks you as, at best, a deeply confused individual.
It appears that you have failed to grasp that this nation’s former greatness was 100% due to the fact that it was founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That fact is also the only thing preventing us from being a satanic-new age theocracy, but with directionless do-gooders such as yourself allowed to vote, it won’t take long.
Your desire for a pagan theocracy is, by your rant, completely unvailed. All conflict on planet Earth has been, to use your words, a religious crusade. The adversary has led the spiritually empty in a war against the Gospel from his first encounter with Eve, described in Genesis 3.
You make of yourself a ‘useful idiot’ by allowing yourself to think that you are somehow defending freedom by attacking the sole source of freedom on Earth.
Interestingly, you and aristotle are the only ones here suggesting converting anyone ‘at the point of a gun.’ If you knew the Lord, you would understand that none of his would be so foolish, since no one can come to Christ, except the Father first call him. And how does the Father call? By the hearing of the word. There is no other way; not guns, nor papist cookies, nor forced recital of a ‘sinners prayer.’ So your fears are unfounded, the scenario you imagine unfounded, and your ‘logic’ is illogic.
Clearly you are unaware of the extent to which our troops have been Christian Prosthelytizers from the founding. During WW I few troops were without a Bible, or at least a New Testament, in their packs. They were known for their willingness to spread the gospel in even hot fire conditions, but to you that apparently isn’t politically correct history, and thus is not real.
Enjoy your ignorant view of history; it’s a sham.
And take your own advice: Take your Crap elsewhere.
Nope. When the Founders said “in the year of our Lord,” they knew exactly who they were talking about. They didn’t have any intention of purging God from every aspect of our lives, like the French, who came up with a whole new calendar. That’s why the Founders designated official days of Prayer and Thanksgiving, and why Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is a National Holy Day. Thomas Jefferson himself even spent federal tax money on issuing Bibles to native Americans to evangelize them. If you don’t like America’s Christian heritage and you want to live in an officially “secular” nation, you should move to France.
General Order #1 prohibits importation of quantities of anti-Islamic material into Iraq.
Given the description of the coin: a question on one side ("where will you spend eternity?") and a positive presentation of the Gospel on the other (John 3:16) it seems to be a stretch to call this 'anti-Islamic.' It certainly falls into a different category than a cartoon style tract claiming Allah is the moon god and Mohamed was a pedophile (because of the young age of his bride.) We would all agree that the latter was anti-Islamic.
Seems to me that since the Marine is putting his life on the line to defend the Iraqi's that civility demands the Iraqi accept the gift in the spirit it was given (an offer of information) and later do with it what he pleases - toss it in the garbage, spit on it - or heaven forbid - actually investigate the claims for himself. I think this whole incident was overblown.
The battle has always been and always will be spiritual. When we do it God’s way, we win, and when we join our enemies and try to remove God and his word, we lose.
No. The founding fathers did not intend religion to be purged from our lives. However, they did not intend it to be defined by the government nor for the government to be based on it. If they had, they would have more explicitly put it throughout the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
As for Jefferson evangelizing the natives, that would be with the "Jefferson Bible." That was a version of the Bible Jefferson edited himself that was the philosophy of Jesus and nothing more. In it were no miracles nor angels. The divinity of Jesus was not mentioned nor was the resurrection.
Jefferson's Jesus was a wise man, but not a divine one. Jefferson's Jesus was, in a word, secular.
During WW I few troops were without a Bible, or at least a New Testament, in their packs. They were known for their willingness to spread the gospel in even hot fire conditions,
While I have no statistics to support or refute your claim, I do remember the slogan that I believe was attributed to that time: "there are no atheists in foxholes."
If you want to start a religious war, you either do it through the political process here, or go start your own country.
The problem is we don’t want to fight back against the enemy = islam. Well guess what they are fight US, with terrorists, with oil, with propaganda, and anything else.
And the USA, the target of islam, continues to see its leaders call it a religion of peace.
Islam says that you have two choices: Convert or Submit.
only two choices. Those are fighting words for some and terms for surrender for others.
I and my family and friends will fight.
If you want to start a religious war, you either do it through the political process here, or go start your own country.
The problem is we don’t want to fight back against the enemy = islam. Well guess what they are fight US, with terrorists, with oil, with propaganda, and anything else.
And the USA, the target of islam, continues to see its leaders call it a religion of peace.
Islam says that you have two choices: Convert or Submit.
only two choices. Those are fighting words for some and terms for surrender for others.
I and my family and friends will fight.
sorry about double post
I could seriously see some of his fellow Marines laying into him for that. Any Marines on this thread want to give an opinion?
I'm not a Marine but I am in Iraq. We were reading about this in the DFAC today and there were generally two observations from this.
1. What the Marine did was wrong on a number of levels. It's entirely his right to evangelize when not in uniform. When in uniform, he represents the USA, and this sort of thing is raw jihadist fuel. It may help out the individual in feeling self righteous, but it's certainly feeding the propaganda fire that will turn a few more locals against us. It directly hurts the mission to stabilize the country.
2. The fact that this Marine couldn't do this, even out of uniform, due to the 'Islamic' nature of the Iraqi constitution and popular opinion, really highlights what we're not fighting for over here. The fact that handing out coins with a few kind words on them can directly hurt a mission to stabilize the country speaks volumes about this country.
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth - Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
" Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. ...Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. - CHAPTER 2"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."
"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." - CHAPTER 3
"The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and all them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." - CHAPTER 5
"...Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." - CHAPTER 12
"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in."
"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. - CHAPTER 13
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world..." - CHAPTER 14
"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." - CHAPTER 16
“All problems solved.”
Yeah, other than the fact that the Iran, the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism, will move in to ‘fill the void’ as they have already proclaimed. And al-Qaeda, who make no secret of their plans to use Iraq as the center of their califate, to wage war against America, will have a base of operations to do so.
“The Population of the Middle East acting like spoiled children...”
The Iraqi Sunni, Kurds, and Shia, have now joined America in large majorities to wage war against our common foes of al-Qaeda and Iranian backed militias. Referring to them as ‘spoiled children’ is absurd.
“The problem is we don’t want to fight back against the enemy = islam. “
This is wrong. The enemy are the terrorists. We fight along side of Muslims against the terrorists. We also share intel with like-minded Muslims who despise al-Qaeda. What religion do you think those Jordanian agents who gave us Zarqari’s location were?
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