Category: Commentary

Fort Hood Shooter Elicits Enabling Responses

Bruce Leave a comment

Nidal Hasan’s killing spree at Ft. Hood along with most responses from secular and Muslim institutions underscore a thesis posted at http://www.atfp.org/articles/9 that violence done in the name of Islam is like alcoholism in a codependent dysfunctional family. Both systems feature excuses, denial, and enabling behaviors of people inside and outside of the systems.

Neither justice nor excuses for violence done in the name of Islam are deterring it. Underlying enabling systems and attitudes must be addressed and changed. If public opinion starts deriding this kind of violence done in the name of Islam as a disease like alcoholism, then Muslims themselves may work harder to address it than they are working to excuse it.

Nothing impacts alcoholics and their dysfunctional families like a reformed alcoholic, and nothing changes an alcoholic better than prayer. Similarly, no one can preach better against violence done in the name of Islam than a reformed terrorist, and nothing can change these deranged people better than prayer. Pray for the miracle of seemingly impossible changes in these desperate lives and their dysfunctional system.

Can I Give a Bible When Asked?

Bruce 1 Comment

In my Do’s and Don’ts for Deployment handout, I advise service personnel operating in majority Muslim areas to, “Avoid giving Bibles to people who ask you for one.” Several friends have questioned my advice.

Giving someone a Bible when they request one is not proselytizing, but the issue is not just proselytism but also the appearance of proselytizing. Print, audio, and video materials can become “evidence” to substantiate slander. Whether or not the material was solicited becomes a matter of one person’s word against another’s. An unfriendly public will choose sides based on stereotypes and prejudices. Under community pressure, people to whom the material was given may feel too insecure to admit that they requested the material.

Although it’s inadvisable in many situations to give out religious materials even when they are solicited, it may be possible to help seekers obtain materials themselves. They may find materials on a public bookshelf, at the gym, or abandoned. It may be possible to direct seekers to a store or web site where they can purchase materials on their own.

Legally service personnel may be “innocent as a doves” when giving religious materials to people who spontaneously ask for them. Being “wise as a serpents” requires attending to those requests in ways that avoid risky appearances.

Can I Tell Local Nationals about Jesus?

Bruce Leave a comment

Recently a soldier asked me, “What are the regulations for sharing the gospel with Iraqi interpreters and counterparts in the Iraqi security forces?” He wanted to be able to answer questions about Jesus, but he also didn’t want to break any regulations or cause any problems for his small team of advisors.

Here is my response.

General Order #1 says not to proselytize. It means service personnel cannot offer inducements or enticements, and cannot use positions or authority to propagate their personal faith.

Webster’ definition of proselytize is:
1. : to induce someone to convert to one’s faith
2. : to recruit someone to join one’s party, institution, or cause
3. : to recruit or convert, especially to a new faith, institution, or cause

Wikipedia says, “Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion.”

Proselytize is grammatically transitive. It has an object or an implied object. The object is the target that the subject wants to change, and the subject is the person, who is trying to make a convert.

Military legal counsel has concluded that proselytizing is not constitutionally protected as a first amendment right to free exercise of religion. Proselytizing in Afghanistan and Iraq would damage national interests and endanger many lives.

However, religious speech is constitutionally protected speech! Courts consistently rule that service personnel may talk about religion when the audience wants to hear it. Talking informatively about personal faith can be different than trying to make converts. Religious speech breaks regulations when the audience does not want to hear it, or when the speaker does not know whether the audience wants to hear it or not.

Giving someone unsolicited religious material can also be proselytism. In nearly all cultures it’s bad form to refuse gifts. Giving religious material, or even asking people if they want to receive it, can appear to be pressuring and can be called proselytizing.

However, when the listener requests the religious speech, it is not proselytism. Under such conditions, the speaker is the passive responder to the listener, who has actively solicited the testimony or the religious materials.

So the short answer to the question is, “Yes, service men and women can talk freely about their faith with interpreters and counterparts as long as they offer solicited information, and as long as they do not pressure or induce others to solicit it.”

Theology of Calamity

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One of the projects I’m working on is developing a “theology of catastrophe” and guidelines for ministry in those conditions.

> My research tells me that it’s not a question of if a WMD will hit US soil but when.
> My intuition tells me it will be a natural consequence — not a judgment, and that it will be an opportunity for the church.
> My heart tells me that leaders in the church could be doing a better job of preparing the church-at-large for ministry under conditions like what Jeremiah faced.
> My mind’s eye sees a picture of Satan at God’s throne accusing American Christians like the way that Satan accused Job. “They worship you because they have it so easy!” Satan accuses.

In that mind’s-eye image the book of Job is a prophetic parable for the American church.

I also think American church leaders need to be careful not to be accusatory like Job’s friends. By faith and in Christ, the church is righteous before God no matter how things may look through the eyes of observers (like Job’s friends) at ground level.

Of course, like with Job (and also with Jesus), righteousness draws rather than prevents tribulation. Jesus said about the approaching crucifixion, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). Jesus’ brother told his scattered audience to face tribulation with joy (James 1:2).

The world and Satan hate us, not only because they hated Jesus (John 15:18) but also because of the grace that we have received. That is a lesson from the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He became bitter over the grace his father showed to his younger brother.

Our righteousness in Christ could be a lightning rod for coming affliction. Can we face it with hope and expectation?

A Theology of Calamity Link to Video

General Order #1 and Great Commission

Bruce Leave a comment

General Order #1 which prohibits deployed service personnel from “proselytizing” supports good theology. Christians never convert anybody anyway. It’s God that does the converting.

Jesus tells his disciples they will “be” witnesses to the ends of the earth, not that we will “do” witnessing (Acts 1:8). Paul says “some” are called to be evangelists, not everyone (Eph 4:11). The job of every Christian soldier in Afghanistan is to “be” a testimony, not to “do” evangelism. “Being a testimony” does not violate General Order #1.

In its original Greek language, Jesus’ Great Commission (Mat 28:19-20) literally says, “as you are going” (participle) “disciple” (main verb) “the ethno-linguistic groups” (direct object). The command is not to disciple individuals on a one-on-one basis like we individualistic Americans like to think about it. The command is to disciple whole ethno-linguistic groups. “Baptizing” and “teaching” (more modifying participles) are functions of the church not individuals.

The Great Commission is basically a command to transform whole communities at a time and is not restricted to one-on-one evangelism. Such a mission is a multi-disciplined or “combined arms” process requiring people with many different gifts and callings. The soldiers, with stability operations and a good testimony, are contributing to the combined effort of transforming whole communities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

General Order #1 prevents soldiers from distributing Bibles in local languages, but it does not prevent people who are not soldiers (i.e. returning Afghan refugees) from translating, distributing, and teaching God’s word in a newly stabilized environment.

So what can soldiers “do” under General Order #1 to faithfully “be” witnesses and contribute to community transformation? For more Dos and Don’ts see the Dos and Don’ts for Deployment page.