Through the ages, time and time again we see that Religion can be blamed for man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Nations have toppled in the name of religion. Civilizations have been wiped clean because of religion. Can we not see the cause of all the chaos occurring in the middle east???

It’s 2006, and we’ve learned so little.

Inquiry Sought Over Evangelical Video

Defense Department Asked to Examine Officers’ Acts Supporting Christian Group

Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer

A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.

In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military.

I found a wonderful opportunity as a director on the joint staff, as I meet the people that come into my directorate,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr. says in the video. “And I tell them right up front who Jack Catton is, and I start with the fact that I’m an old-fashioned American, and my first priority is my faith in God, then my family and then country. I share my faith because it describes who I am.”
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All the officers are identified in the video by their Defense Department positions, “yet the video failed to include any disclaimers indicating that the views expressed were not those of the Department of Defense,” the letter says.

It asks whether the officers received permission to promote the Christian Embassy and whether any other religious or secular organizations have been allowed to use Pentagon facilities and uniformed personnel in promotional videos.

Catton said yesterday that he does not remember whether he sought approval to appear in the video, which he said was made in 2005. “If someone asked me today to do it, I for sure would ask permission,” said the general, who sparked controversy this year by raising money from fellow officers for a congressional candidate.

Christian Embassy officials in Washington did not return phone messages left at their homes and offices over the weekend.

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Separation of Church and State

Public Money Used to Indoctrinate Prisoners

Tax dollars are going toward an unlawful program of religious indoctrination in prisons, according to Iowa federal Judge Robert W. Pratt, who now finds himself fighting a battle against entrenched forces from evangelical ministries, prison corporations and the Bush administration.

New York Times: But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program-which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time’says on its Web site that it seeks “to A-cure- prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”

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