Military Youth Ministry Stalks Students on Public School Buses for Jesus
These youth programs, many funded by Department of Defense (DoD) contracts, are designed to target and evangelize the "unchurched" among our military youth. No comparable non-Christian youth programs exist for the children of our servicemen and servicewomen who are of other religions or non-religious. The tactics employed by the Christian military youth ministries range from luring teenagers with irresistible events and activities to infiltrating the public middle and high schools in the communities surrounding military bases, where most children of military personnel attend school. And, with this month being the fifth annual observance of National Stalking Awareness Month, it seems quite timely to note that one of these organizations, Youth For Christ Military Youth Ministry (YFCMYM), actually goes as far as stalking military children, following their school buses to find out where they live and what schools they go to. Even the job descriptions for DoD contracts make it clear that stalking kids is expected. One recently posted Army base position requires that the contractor target "locations and activities where youth live and spend time, such as neighborhood community centers, school and sports and recreational activities, etc." to draw in "youth that are not regularly affiliated with established chapel congregational youth programs." Another thing that many DoD contract descriptions make clear is that military base Religious Education Director and similar positions are for Christians only, in complete violation of the Constitution's "no religious test" clause, including requirements such as the "Contractor shall ensure all programs and activities are inclusive of all Christian traditions" and will "use a variety of communications medium that shall appeal to a diverse group of youth, such as music, skits, games, humor, and a clear, concise, relevant presentation of the Gospel." Recently, one of MRFF's Research Associates came across a video interview of Fort Riley's Religious Education Director talking about one of these exclusively Christian youth programs, Fort Riley's Spiritual Rangers. This video, which was aired on the base's local cable access channel, Fort Riley TV KFRL, describes a program where teenage boys get to do things like use the base's Close Combat Tactical Trainer, Engagement Skills Trainer, and Helicopter Flight Simulator. In other words, the coolest video games EVER! And all a kid on Fort Riley has to do to play them is hang out with the "godly" men and memorize some scripture. While Spiritual Rangers is a program specific to Fort Riley, the base also offers the military-wide Military Community Youth Ministries (MCYM) program, Club Beyond. MCYM, which "seeks to celebrate life with military kids and introduce them to the Life-giver, Jesus Christ," has received millions of dollars in DoD contracts, and operates on dozens of U.S. military bases, both overseas and in the United States. Unlike the Spiritual Rangers, whose mission is "to train young men to be Godly leaders by instilling in them biblical character, values and principles and thus giving them a sense of what it truly means to be a man," and is open only to boys, MCYM's programs are co-ed. MCYM's "Contracting Officer's Performance Evaluation," to be filled out each year by a "person duly appointed with the authority to enter into and to administer contracts on behalf of the government" at the installations where the organization is contracted, also shows not only that MCYM's mission is to target unchurched children but that the contracting officer actually rates MCYM on its success in this constitutional violation. These are two of the questions on the evaluation:
Saying that they "engage in evangelism but not proselytization" is a joke. The only difference between these often confused words is that proselytization is evangelism specifically intended to convert someone from one faith to another, while evangelism is attempting to convert someone to Christianity, whether or not they already have a religion. MCYM, however, narrowly defines refraining from proselytization only in terms of not trying to convert someone from one Christian denomination to another, and places no restriction on evangelizing those teenagers who need some "introducing" to Jesus Christ. MCYM has two partner organizations -- YoungLife and Youth For Christ Military Youth Ministry. On its website, MCYM describes these organizations as their "partners," but Youth For Christ (YFC) and MCYM appear to be one and the same. Both have the same address and phone number, and YFC's mission statement states only one mission -- to partner with MCYM.
Few military installations have their own middle schools and high schools on base. Most children of military personnel attend public schools in the surrounding communities, so YFC, which "primarily ministers in public schools," offers military chaplains a "school focused outreach ministry." To convince chaplains that their base needs this service, YFC provides a fill-in-the-blank template for a "Chapel youth ministry steering committee" to write up an assessment to present to the Installation Chaplain. The first step in completing this assessment is for the "steering committee" to try to get a meeting with the local high school principal. This is done by saying, according to the script provided, that they are assisting the base chaplains -- a bit deceptive considering that this phone call appears to made prior to approaching the chaplains.
Here are a few more sections of YFC's assessment template, including the instruction to follow public school buses around for three days:
The goal of YFC, of course, is the same as that of MCYM and all of the other youth ministries -- to find, lure, and evangelize all the kids who aren't already Christians. According to the YFC Youth Ministry Manual template (a 69-page instruction and activity manual provided as a PDF file that can be personalized with the specific installation's name, contact list, event calendars, etc.):
Malachi Youth Ministries, which is listed on the YFC website's "Resources" page, is the youth division of Cadence International. Like MCYM, Cadence International's youth programs are funded by DoD contracts. The vision of Cadence's military ministry is that by 2020 they will "Equip a fresh wave of Christ's ambassadors in the military who will proclaim Christ around the world," because "God is calling Cadence to reach deeper into the American military and to impact the militaries of the world." Cadence, in addition to its youth programs, targets young service members, many of whom are not much older than the kids in its Malachi Ministries. Cadence sees young service members who are likely to be deployed to war zones as low hanging fruit because they are "shaken." One of the reasons given by Cadence for the success of its "Strategic Ministry" is:
Those who are saved by Cadence can then "spread the gospel as they move from assignment to assignment," and, since the goal is to use the U.S. military to evangelize the world, these Christian ambassadors in uniform will spread Christianity as they "learn about other cultures and become burdened to reach them for God" and become "willing to go out into the world with the life-giving message of the gospel." Cadence also targets the youngest children of military personnel, getting the elementary school age kids into Good News Clubs on their bases and in their schools, partnering with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) "to anchor children in the hope of Jesus and lead them to living fully devoted to Him." According to the Deputy Installation Chaplain at Fort Hood, Texas, in a video on the CEF website, "The harvest is ready, and I mean it's out there in more abundance than we have ability to harvest." Cadence and CEF have the "mutual goal of reaching every child of the US military around the world." To sum up the obvious constitutional violations being perpetrated by these evangelical Christian organizations, the chaplains and commanders who allow them on their bases, and the DoD officials and contracting officers who approve their funding: 1. Millions of dollars are being awarded in DoD contracts for the explicitly stated purpose of evangelizing military youth, in violation of the establishment clause; 2. No comparable non-Christian youth programs exist for the children of service members who are of other religions or non-religious, and the appeal of the activities and events that the Christian youth programs are able to offer aids these groups in luring the children of non-Christian service members into situations in which they can be evangelized, in violation of the establishment clause; 3. The requirement to provide exclusively Christian programs and services restricts the positions of military base Religious Education Directors to Christians, in violation of the Constitution's "no religious test" clause; 4. The targeting and use of public schools as recruiting grounds for U.S. military chaplain sponsored religious programs goes far beyond the constitutionally permissible activities of student initiated and led religious clubs, in violation of the establishment clause.
Military Youth Ministry Stalks Students on Public School Buses for Jesus | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
Military Youth Ministry Stalks Students on Public School Buses for Jesus | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
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