US Army Reserve training: Catholicism, like Ku Klux Klan and Al-Qaeda, an example of ‘religious extr

[Paul E Ester]

US Army Reserve training: Catholicism, like Ku Klux Klan and Al-Qaeda, an example of ‘religious extremism’

A slide presentation used in training US Army Reserves in Pennsylvania has included Catholicism and evangelical Christianity on a list of 18 religious extremist organizations. Also included on the list of religious extremists are Al-Qaeda, the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas, Sunni Muslims, and “Islamophobia.”

“Every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs, and traditions are the only ‘right way’ and that all others are practicing their faith ‘the wrong way,’ seeing and believing that their faith/religion [is] superior to all others,” the slide explained.

“Extremist organizations’ goals are inconsistent with the Army’s goals, beliefs, and values with regard to equal opportunity,” another slide stated. Soldiers are prohibited from “participating in” an extremist organization’s “public demonstration or rally,” from “taking a visible leadership role” in the organization, or “distributing literature” on behalf of the organization, whether “on or off a military installation.”

The slide presentation prompted a protest from the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=17524

The slide presentation http://www.adfmedia.org/files/ExtremismPresentation.pdf

[hedgehog]

1. Religious extremist:

[MotherPetrie]

2. Perfect example

[MADem]

3. I didn't spend an hour looking, but I scanned that slide show and only saw two Catholic

references, and they weren't to the "Catholic church," they were to two "radical catholic" organizations--Catholic Apologetics Intl, and Catholic Counterpoint. I think these are groups that are way off the chart....kind of like trying to suggest that Al Qaeda is representative of all of Islam.

The Archdiocese should have probably checked the reference before complaining. I think USARMY used the Southern Poverty Law Center as their source:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/radical-traditional-catholicism/active_hate_groups

Tempest, meet teapot.

[cleanhippie]

5. Why would they check? To them, ANY criticism of Catholicism is bigotry.

And the POV that criticism of an idea is itself is bigotry is extreme.

[Paul E Ester]

7. Your lazy

[MADem]

8. No, that would be YOU'RE lazy--and you are the one who is.

You didn't bother to read the teaching text under the slide. You ignored the context of the presentation, totally. This is exactly what the nitwits at the Archdiocese did--and they created a controversy where there should be none.

Perhaps you are unclear how these things work. The slide is just "quick notes"--the teaching text provides context. This slide is saying that there are extremist elements in all of these religions, not that Catholicism is an extreme religion.

Here's the teaching text that accompanies the slide. This stuff is classic SPLC material, and the SPLC is a highly respected organization--it is a tempest in a teapot.

Extremism is a complex phenomenon; it is defined as beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions, or strategies of a character far removed from the “ordinary.” Because “ordinary” is subjective, no religious group would label itself extreme or its doctrine extremism.”However, religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region ofthe world; every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only “right way” and that all others are practicing their faith the “wrong way,” seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others.

What the teaching text says is every one of these religions is known to have a few fruitcakes, not that everyone in these religions is a fruitcake.

[haele]

10. Not Lazy. Go past slide 24 (pictured ^) and read the rest of the presentation.

That's a standard presentation attention getter in the middle of long presentation - "Now that I've recaptured your attention by shocking you with linking an ordinary organization to these terrorist groups, let me break the reasons why I've included them..."

There are specific true believer clique organizations that align themselves with the Catholic Church and various evangelical churches , not just religious extremist sects and other anti-social organizations (Hell's Angels, inner city gangs) that are extremist in nature. These true believers are "last man standing" type of terrorists that can't accept opposition to their creed - basically can't accept reality - and fight against everyone else's rights every step of the way - they're the Fred Phelps groups, the "Left Behind" groups and Dominionists that would have no problems torturing or beating their own children to death just to beat an imaginary devil out of that child.

Further slides go on to discuss those groups, why they are antithetical to "good order and discipline" and how to recognize members and proselytization efforts of those groups.

It is imperative that all strong organizational groups recognize the extremists that are determined to take those organizations beyond the law and into an unsustainable fantasy existence.

Haele

[haele]

4. Key words -extremism. Seems as if they're trying to re-enforce the no proselytizing rule.

I might agree with the complaints from presumably the gamut of flavors of churches about the wording of the probations in slide 5, and group identifications on slide 24, but slide 7 onward distinctly identifies an extremist "a person who advocates the use of force of violence; advocates supremacist causes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or national origin; or otherwise engages to deprive individuals or groups of their civil rights.", and identifies activities and signs that are extremist, and slide 24 specifically comments that

"every religion has some followers that believe their beliefs, customs, and traditions are the only "right way" and that all others are practicing their faith the "wrong way".

That is the critical difference between a blanket condemnation of a religion or organization and a condemnation of extremism that may be part of sub groups within a religion or organization.

I've read the presentation, and having retired from 20 years in the military, I tend to agree with it. With the caveat to readers that as I do not belong to a mainstream religion, even in the military, I have on occasion had my rights discounted our experienced outright discrimination.

My understanding reading the presentation is that if you are involving yourself in organizational activity that is promoting that sectarianism, setting itself above other organizations or people who do not belong, that is what is being addressed in this lecture - not volunteering in a food bank or homeless shelter, facilitating sunday school or church picnics, or even just going to services.
Unless your preacher is telling you to go out and convert the masses - or that you're "in mortal combat for your survival" against people who don't believe your organization's teachings, it's pretty much a given that they'll ignore what your church or temple is telling you over the weekend and wont' interfere with religious activity off government time.

And when you're on government time, representing the US government, religious proselytizing or activities should not be acceptable.

Historically, even the military chaplain service is not supposed to promote one religion over another as part of an expansion of an interpretation of both the 1st Amendment and the portion of the Constitution that reads "there shall be no religious test for public office" (Being in the military is being in a public office...).

Haele

[MADem]

6. They got those 2 organizations from the SPLC website...it's not an indictment of the religion at all

This is a faux poutrage thing, happening, here.

I think what they were doing was making it a point to not "single out" Islam by throwing in a few groups that are Christian, myself...

[cbayer]

9. I think the mistake here was in not being specific about what evangelical and catholic

groups they are talking about. The failure to do that led to the complaint, and rightly so.

The definitions of "extremism", which can be seen in the slide show, speak to violence and bigotry, and is not applicable to the broad categories in the list.



A person who advocates the use of force or violence; advocates supremacist causes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or national origin

They are talking about hate groups which have identified themselves as evangelical or catholic.

[MADem]

11. I think the "mistake" was that someone got a hold of the slides to a lecture and took them

entirely out of context! They did it deliberately, without asking first, and they did it to make a fuss and present themselves as aggrieved and wronged, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who has been in the military has been victimized ....er.... subjected... er...been taught in this fashion. The slides go up, with keywords on them, the lecturer drones. It's awful. The words are there for your glazed eyes to see, to keep you "on track" with the lecturer's points as he or she makes them.

The slides are never expected to stand on their own. They are 'bullet points' to keep a discussion on track, they're not complete, and they aren't intended to be complete.

The teaching text below the slide elucidates. The teaching text makes it very clear that not all religious people are extremists, and that religions have extremists in them.

This slide isn't a list of religions, either--it's conversation points (Islamophobia isn't a religion).

This entire embroglio could have been avoided with a phone call. However, that wouldn't have suited the purpose of the writers of the article. It's way more fun to paint oneself as a "victim" who is being abused than to investigate the context before getting irritated. People always want to leap to defend victims; the thing is, though, when folks figure out that they've been played, they get annoyed.

The Military Archdiocese, I suspect, has had some problems lately with the personnel people within DOD. This is real "inside baseball," but that's what I smell, here. Perhaps the Archdiocese coughed up a few "low quality" priests, resulting in gaps of coverage at remote military installations, or they tried to hand off a woefully unhealthy/unfit priest (the priests get waivers all the time, they don't meet standards, many of them--but the military doesn't want the ones who are about to die or need hospitalization!) or a priest with legal problems. If this happens, the personnel shops can get sharp with the MA, and there's sometimes a little bit of a pissing contest that goes on, where the MA will try to make the military "pay" for demanding that the MA live up to their agreed-upon obligations. The military, for their part, gets pissed when they train and outfit a priest at no small expense, and he washes out, either before or after they've spent money to ship him to his duty station. It's usually resolved when some Catholic flag/general officer calls the MA and tells him "If you don't cut the shit, they're going to put a (Lutheran/Episcopalian/You Name It--almost always Liturgical, though) substitute in those "Catholic" slots, and once they're lost, you might not get them back." Then, next thing you know, some young and cheerful priest who really didn't "volunteer" but had his arm twisted--sometimes HARD--by a bishop--shows up, slogs along in the job, sometimes decides he likes it, sometimes decides he's done with the military when his obligation is up, but he does the job in acceptable fashion.

If I had to guess, I'd say there might be something like that happening....!

[cbayer]

12. Agree with that, but perhaps they anticipated the kind of internet phenomenon this might

become and felt the need to pre-emptively defend themselves.

The web is full of things taken out of context and populated by people too lazy or too gullible to look any further than the one image on their screen.

While you and I are able to and invested in looking further to see the context, so many are not and will use this to create outrage.

The OP is a good example of that, and responses will also show how it works.

Of course they were not saying what the slide in isolation would appear to be saying, but the vast majority of people who become aware of this story will only see the slide in isolation.

Just do a search for that single image and it becomes clear how it is being used to create all kinds of messages that were never intended.

[MADem]

13. I'm curious as to how those slides got out. I can see them being on a unit intranet,

but there's no real reason for a NG unit to be putting that stuff out on the WWW. I think someone did 'em in, with a goal of creating an imbroglio.

Thing is, the church-state thing has been under a level of rather intense scrutiny, off and on, at the Pentagon level, since the 90's. There's nothing to be gained by the "church" team here (though they may be hoping to create a bit of drama), because since funds need to be cut as a consequence of sequester, the church team is a really good place to start, from the perspective of a beans-n-bullets manager. When you draw down the soldiers, you quite logically draw down the religious support for the soldiers. If it doesn't put ordnance on target, it's vulnerable, as the theme goes.

Perhaps, in these "between the wars" years that are coming to fruition (continued Dems in the Presidency willing), the folks at the Five Sided Funny Farm will revisit the "Contract Chaplain" scheme that was proposed (and used in limited fashion--to good effect, I might add) nearly 20 years ago. I think that's probably a better way to play it, honestly. Put logistics or planning people in charge of delivering the assets, who are contracted civilians--like Blackwater, only with blessings-- for a specific term, say, two years, renewable to five, and who have no rank (treat them all like field grade officers, so they can eat in the wardroom), and get rid of all this "military chaplain" drama. I'll tell ya, sometimes the Pentagon can have more religious drama than the Vatican--and there's no need for it. It would be a paradigm shift in a big way, but I think it's time. They're non-combatants anyway, so need for them to be uniformed and no need for them to have rank except for vanity. Give them Red Cross designation so they fall comfortably under Geneva, and leave it all there.

[cbayer]

14. I wondered that as well and was surprised that the whole slide show would

be so readily available.

IIRC, they had already starting making cutbacks in some of their religion oriented services. I think there was a RIF in the numbers of clergy assigned and a move towards what you describe.

I was not aware of the degree of drama until I started posting in this group and still don't know a lot about it. But my knowledge/overall interest in the military is limited.

While working in the medical field, I once relayed the concerns of a serviceman's wife to his CO. His response: "If we had wanted him to have a wife, we would have issued him one".

That told me much of what I needed to know, lol.

[MADem]

15. Family services has improved down the years! It used to be that most of your junior enlisted were

single, but now a good chunk are married, so the whole paradigm has shifted.

When times were fat, they used to keep chaplains, like medical people, on a wartime footing. In peacetime, medical personnel are kept busy caring for space A patients (retirees, e.g.), because if you go to war in a hurry, you need a core of military medical personnel who know what the hell they are doing and can train the newbies, so you keep more on hand than you need. Chaplains were a "well larded" subset, too, because they were a regarded as a spiritual comforter in the stress of battle.

Now, they do a lot more of that "Just In Time" filling in, so all of those "extras" from the old days are being cut.

I wonder what Hagel is gonna do on those lines--there's lots of efficiencies to be made, and not all of them involve installation drawdowns and vertical cuts.