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Turning US Military Members Into "Government Paid Missionaries" For Christ
 The Merrimans have been granted access to the US basic training facilities at Fort Sam Houston and Lackland Air Force Base - where they evangelize recruits in basic training. The Merriman ministry, which is under Campus Crusade For Christ's "Military Ministry", has notable points of commonality with the organization described below, the Military Missions Network. As Truthout notes, both "count current and former high-level personnel from all four branches of the military as board members and use their relationships with base commanders to gain access to soldiers, according to documents from both groups." Military Missions Network is a fundamentalist networking organization devoted to evangelizing the military, which has current, high level active duty US military members on it board and also features a 40 page document on its website that amounts to a strategy for evangelizing the military. As the Truthout story describes:
Military Ministry boasts that it has successfully "targeted" basic training installations, or "gateways" and has converted soldiers to Christianity.
In mid September 2007, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit, in Kansas District Court, that alleges a widespread pattern of religious abuses in the military. Here is a PDF of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation's most recent lawsuit Fundamentalist Christian right "para church" ministries, some with apocalyptic theological views, appear to have penetrated the United States military in a pattern, going from the Pentagon on down to the base level, by which evangelical :"military ministries", many of which are under the Campus Crusade for Christ. Many of these ministries have been invited onto US military bases and even onto basic training facilities to - run "religious education" programs and evangelize recruits. The budgets of these organizations have also increased considerably over the last few years and their efforts appear to have accelerated considerably. In other words, as the political influence and clout of the Christian right has ebbed somewhat recently, fundamentalist influence in the military appears to be growing. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is the only organization devoted to fighting abuses of religious liberty in the US military. Of the roughly 6,000 complaints MRFF has received from US military members, approximately 90% have been from Christians.
*note: originally, I categorized the theological views promoted by Campus Crusade For Christ Military Ministries as both fundamentalist and Premillennial Dispensationalist, and while is debate over whether or not Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright held such views I've come to feel it would be more accurate to describe Campus Crusade itself as promoting what journalist Jeff Sharlet calls an "ecumenical fundamentalism". There is considerable murkiness inherent in the picture - as Sharlet has written, the head of Campus Crusade's Christian Embassy suggested, in an interview with Sharlet, that the US invasion of Iraq may have had Biblical justification. But, that view would not necessarily need to be rooted in an apocalyptic premillennial dispensationalist belief system. In contrast, the Officer's Christian Fellowship clearly promotes such beliefs, through it's study guide that can be found on the OCF's website.
Turning US Military Members Into "Government Paid Missionaries" For Christ | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
Turning US Military Members Into "Government Paid Missionaries" For Christ | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
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Military Religious Freedom Foundation findings on a Campus Crusade For Christ sponsored ministry that has been given access to set up religious education programs at two leading US military basic training facilities in Texas. A page from the ministry website states explicitly the goal ; to make US active duty service members into "government paid missionaries".
The Merriman family, through their Campus Crusade For Christ supported 
Many of MRFF charges concerning Pentagon officials who appeared "Christian Embassy" video were later confirmed in a 
