The post-9/11 world is a world of national decline that has become a world of Christian opportunity. Increasingly, churches of both liberal and conservative temperament are practicing new forms of solidarity with the primary victims of decline: the poor. More churches are involved in mercy ministries of feeding and clothing and sheltering, and in advocacy ministries of welcoming the immigrant and the stranger. More churches are erasing old dividing walls that segregate us into ethnic enclaves, and more churches are tearing down old moralistic walls that separate hetero from homosexual. On the one hand, great things are beginning to blossom in churches trying to grasp the implications of a post 9/11 world.
But, on the other hand, there are frightening, ominous signs emerging from some branches of the Christian faith. In the midst of a post-9/11 culture of permanent war we are seeing the signs of an emerging Holy War crusader mentality. It is infiltrating our military, our economic discourse and most certainly the Republican Party. I call this emergence Christian Fascism, and over the course of my next several articles I want to highlight some of the dangers that are inherent in this growing movement.
For example, most of us are completely oblivious to the fact that tax dollars fund evangelical Christian rock concerts at military bases. Or that taxes funded a $30 million mega-church at Fort Hood.
We don't think about the tax-funded pre- and post-deployment retreats for soldiers and their families that are quite often hosted at evangelical Christian retreat centers. We simply think such things are benevolent. But what happens when the teachings of supposed benevolent organizations assert that they alone are the one true path and everyone else is a heretic or an infidel outside God's will? What has been the history of Christians when they assume others are outside God's will? Most of us don't realize that the infrastructure of Holy War is built on the ideological grounds of doctrine. What doctrines are being taught that interest the military enough to spend multiple millions of dollars to help support the continual crusade throughout Islamic countries?
Most of us aren't aware that the Department of Defense has spent more than $12 million in the last decade to fund Christian ministries that target the children of soldiers.
Cadence is one of the many tax-funded Christian ministries that target military communities. Why do they do it? In their own words: "Deployment and possibly deadly combat are ever-present possibilities. They (military personnel and their families) are shaken. Shaken people are usually more ready to hear about God than those who are at ease, making them more responsive to the gospel." In other words, these ministries are ambulance chasers.
Over the next few articles I'll share the content of the Holy War gospel they teach to these shaken families and our shaken nation.