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(EDITOR’S NOTE: This post has been updated to correct erroneous information that Mr. Weinstein was “hired” or contracted by the military. Instead, according to Baptist Press, Weinstein requested and was granted a meeting with Pentagon officials.)
It will be interesting to watch the Pentagon over the coming months. The military has heard the concerns of about Christian evangelism from an anti-Christian evangelism activist Mikey Weinstein about policies regarding “religious,” ahem, “tolerance.”
Reportedly, Weinstein, who served in the Reagan administration, has compared sharing the Christian gospel with spiritual rape and refers in his biography on his organization’s website to “far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists” that threaten military cohesion and liberty.
And you thought the militant Islamists were the bad guys. Silly you.
While most evangelicals are worried about losing their freedom to dissent from what the larger culture believes is fine, Weinstein seems convinced it’s those John 3:16-sharing Christians who are the “monsters”—his word.
In fairness, he seems to be particularly concerned with Christian Reconstructionism — a position that should be problematic for any thinking Baptist because we are not theocrats—and people who believe in dispensational eschatology, a perfectly orthodox position. It’s not clear that Weinstein understands the difference between a Christian Reconstructionist who favors a theocracy and a garden-variety Baptist who desires to tell his shipmate or a fellow soldier about the claims of the gospel.
What is truly sad is that someone as apparently intelligent as Weinstein, an Air Force Academy graduate and a successful lawyer, is so off-the-rails in his fear that someone might hear something that offends them.
Coercion for religious or other purposes is unacceptable, but free expression is quite another. I have no right to not be offended—especially in the military. I do have a right to not be coerced. But who is really doing that?
I have rarely met Christians who were overbearing or obnoxious in sharing their faith. Such people exist, but they are rare. More often, we say nothing. What Weinstein seems to want is a muting of the Christian message. The military must safeguard religious liberty while also preventing any coercion.
We respect our government, but there are some things we can’t do and remain obedient to Christ. Hopefully, the Pentagon will continue respecting the religious liberty of its men and women in uniform.
