During the Fourth of July service at Christ Church UM, Eric Skidmore sang a special song
in honor of the troops.  Before the song he told us he chose the song because of the
worrysome things discussed by Dr McIntyre during his time with us for the Evanglisium
Event and other things he's now noticing happening to Christainity here in the United
States. So when I heard about this problem with Military Chaplains on the Radio, I just had
to find out more about it.  Eric! I'm sure you'll be as astonished as I was when you read
these articles.

WASHINGTON TIMES | December 21, 2005      By Julia Duin

To pray -- or not to pray -- in Jesus' name is the question plaguing an increasing
number of U.S. military chaplains, one of whom began a multiday hunger strike outside the
White House yesterday.

"I am a Navy chaplain being fired because I pray in Jesus' name," said Navy Lt. Gordon
Klingenschmitt, who will be holding 6 p.m. prayer vigils daily in Lafayette Park.
The hunger strike is intended to persuade President Bush to issue an executive order
allowing military chaplains to pray according to their individual faith traditions. The
American Center for Law and Justice has gathered 173,000 signatures on a petition
seeking an executive order.

Seventy-three members of Congress have joined the request, saying in an Oct. 25 letter
to the president, "In all branches of the military, it is becoming increasingly difficult for
Christian chaplains to use the name of Jesus when praying."
About 80 percent of U.S. troops are Christian, the legislators wrote, adding that military
"censorship" of chaplains' prayers disenfranchises "hundreds of thousands of Christian
soldiers in the military who look to their chaplains for comfort, inspiration and support."

Official military policy allows any sort of prayer, but Lt. Klingenschmitt says that in reality,
evangelical Protestant prayers are censored. He cites his training at the Navy Chaplains
School in Newport, R.I., where "they have clipboards and evaluators who evaluate your
prayers, and they praise you if you pray just to God," he said. "But if you pray in Jesus'
name, they counsel you."

Muslim, Jewish and Roman Catholic chaplains are likewise told not to pray in the name of
Allah, in Hebrew or in the name of the Trinity, he added.
But the Rev. Billy Baugham, executive director of the Greenville, S.C.-based International
Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers, says restrictions on other religious
expressions have "yet to be tested."

"No Islamic chaplain has been refused to pray in the name of Allah, as far as we know.
Neither has a rabbi been rebuked for making references to Hanukkah, and no Catholic
priest has been rebuked for referring to the Blessed Virgin Mary."
The Navy allows chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah or any other deity
during chapel services, spokeswoman Lt. Erin Bailey said.At other public events, "Navy
chaplains are encouraged to be sensitive to the needs of all those present," she said,
"and may decline an invitation to pray if not able to do so for conscience reasons."
Lt. Klingenschmitt has not been formally punished, she added, and there are no plans to
take him off active duty.

However, the lieutenant contends that he may lose his job next month and be evicted from
military housing. He says he got in hot water during the summer of 2004 while aboard the
USS Anzio for preaching an evangelistic sermon at the funeral of a Catholic sailor in a
base chapel. The lieutenant said he was reprimanded by two senior chaplains and, in
March, sent ashore to Norfolk.

Lt. Klingenschmitt also has fought at other times for the religious rights of non-Christians,
having backed a Jewish sailor's bid to get kosher meals and sought to include a Muslim
seaman in the rotation of sailors offering the ship's nightly closing prayer.
The lieutenant is not alone in fighting to pray to Jesus. The Navy is facing two lawsuits,
filed in 1999 and 2000, by 50 Christian chaplains, saying the Navy discriminates against
evangelical and Pentecostal clerics.

Mr. Baugham said the 350 chaplains he oversees are concerned about a new set of
guidelines issued in August after complaints about Christian evangelism at the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs. The Air Force guidelines allow "a brief, nonsectarian
prayer" during military ceremonies "to add a heightened sense of seriousness or
solemnity, not to advance specific religious beliefs."

"So, to what deity do you address your prayer to?" Mr. Baugham asked. "No one knows.
And who gets to write the prayers? Once the government becomes the approving
authority, the poor chaplain is forced to be an agent of the state."

Mr. Baugham said he had "just got a call from an Army chaplain in Iraq who says he'd be
hammered if he used Jesus' name. Chaplains are scared to death. They must clear their
prayers with their commanders, they can mention Jesus' name at chapel services, but not
outside that context."

Chaplain Rebels at Prayer Censorship, Then Removed From Assignment
By Chad Groening  February 23, 2006  (AgapePress)

- Another military chaplain has gotten into trouble with his superiors because he has
refused to go along with orders not to pray in the name of Jesus.
Captain Jonathan Stertzbach is an Army chaplain assigned to the 10th Mountain Division
in Iraq. He was recently removed from his chapel after he commented to the Washington
Times about how chaplains of all faiths are being told to offer up only non-sectarian
prayers.

Chaplain Stertzbach is now under orders not to talk to the media -- but his representative,
Dr. Billy Baugham of the International Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers, is
under no such restrictions. According to Baugham, Stertzbach was upset at having a
prayer censored.

"He was told to write out his prayer," Baugham explains, "and when they saw 'In Jesus'
name. Amen,' his brigade chaplain struck through it and said, 'You're going to have to
change it.'"

Baugham says Stertzbach's response was that he cannot pray a prayer unless he uses
Jesus' name. The chaplain, adds Baugham, said: "My local church is an independent
Baptist church, and that's the way we pray."

The retired Army chaplain adamantly notes that military regulations forbid restrictions on
chaplains' prayers. "There are Department of Defense instructions which state that a
chaplain is to adhere to the faith group of his tenets before they do the military," Baugham
says. "[A chaplain] has no authority to pray any other prayer other than what his sending
agency or his sending church allows him to pray." In short, says Baugham, a chaplain's
duty is to represent his faith group. "It's not to represent another faith group, it's not to
represent the prayers of the United States government or the United States Army," he
says. "He can only speak for his endorsing agency, be that what it may be."

Baugham indicates he is working with North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones and
others to get Chaplain Stertzbach reinstated to his chapel.

Conservatives Try to Protect Military Chaplains' Prayers  By Monisha Bansal     
CNSNews.com Staff Writer    September 18, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Religious conservatives who favor greater freedom for military chaplains
are upset by a Senate challenge to their proposal, saying the move amounts to opposition
to religious freedom. The Defense Authorization Bill is currently in a conference
committee, as the House and Senate work on a final version. Rep. Duncan Hunter
(R-Calif.) authored a provision in the House bill that would allow each military chaplain to
pray according to his or her individual faith.

"Each Chaplain shall have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of the
chaplain's own conscience," the House proposal states, "except as must be limited by
military necessity, with any such limitation being imposed in the least restrictive manner
feasible."

Amanda Banks, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the House
version "would protect a chaplain's right to pray according to the dictates of their
conscience."  "This is, in our view, a very common sense issue," Banks said. "Certainly
religious leaders in the military should be allowed to pray however they desire to pray in
accordance with their faith."  But Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, opposes the House provision.

Banks told Cybercast News Service that Focus on the Family is "very disappointed that
this is causing such a ruckus in a conference committee." "It is a freedom of religion and
freedom of speech issue, but Sen. Warner is leading the charge to replace this language
with some very weak language that we believe would in fact prohibit a chaplain from
praying in Jesus' name outside of a church service," said Banks. "It really goes way too far
in restricting the religious freedom of military chaplains.

Warner's proposal states that, "In situations other than theological services or sectarian
ceremonies when a prayer is offered, the policy shall require chaplains to be sensitive to
and respect the diversity of faiths represented." Banks calls Warner's plan "unreasonable."
"Military chaplains are the religious leaders for our men and women serving in the military.
They look to them for guidance, for support, for encouragement," Banks said. "To prohibit
how they can pray is really mind boggling."

The Defense Department also opposes the House version, according to the Army Times.
"It doesn't make sense, and is unacceptable to change the language in this way," Banks
said of the House proposal. Warner's office did not return multiple phone calls seeking
comment for this article.