This Week in Christian Nationalism

Back in August 2011, Beth Dowty, wife of Air Force Major Jonathan C. Dowty, a.k.a. the “Christian Fighter Pilot,” wrote an article for Command, the magazine of the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF). In her article, Mrs. Christian Fighter Pilot claimed that many OCF groups exist at the service academies and ROTC colleges, as well as on military bases. But why should we believe her? Isn’t she, after all, the wife of Maj. Dowty, a known OCF member? The OCF claims to have over 15,000 members, but we only have OCF’s word for that. I smell a conspiracy. Unless I see a list of all of OCF’s members, I’m not going to believe they’re not just making up their numbers. We have no way of knowing if these people actually exist. Mrs. Christian Fighter Pilot even admits in her article that the OCF is just selling a “product.”

OK, the paragraph above is deliberately intended to sound ridiculous — as ridiculous as Maj. Dowty’s latest Christian Fighter Pilot blog post about the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

Maj. Dowty’s latest conspiracy theory is that all of MRFF’s complaints come from people who are existing MRFF clients, and that our clients are fabrications who don’t really exist. Of course, this begs the question: How do we have the existing clients that Maj. Dowty speaks of if, as he claims at the same time, our clients are made up and don’t really exist? But then, consistency and logic have never been Maj. Dowty’s strong suits.

The issue that prompted Maj. Dowty’s latest diatribe is MRFF’s letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta regarding the distribution of the virulently anti-semitic “Manga Messiah” comics in the military. (See http://www.talk2action.org/story/2013/1/6/232210/2079/ for a description and images of the “Manga Messiah.”)

Maj. Dowty, to feed his insatiable obsession with all things MRFF, is crying conspiracy because the people involved in bringing this issue to light all have ties to MRFF. Apparently, it’s a real head-scratcher for the Christian Fighter Pilot to figure out why a MRFF issue might be brought to light by people who are somehow connected to MRFF. Therefore, it must be some kind of conspiracy.

Here’s how it went down: The other day, Bruce Wilson of Talk2Action.org emailed MRFF president Mikey Weinstein. Bruce, who had written about the “Manga Messiah” comics on the Huffington Post back in 2008 for reasons other than them being distributed in the military, had, for whatever reason, come across a November 2011 post about these comics on Justin Griffith’s Rock Beyond Belief blog here on FTB. In that post, Justin said that he had received one of these heinous “Christian” comics while deployed in “the sandbox.” Mikey asked me to check it out, so I went and read Justin’s 2011 post.

I should mention here that MRFF has had a number of complaints over the years about anti-semitic and anti-Muslim Christian comics being distributed not only to our service members, but to Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, so, although I’d never looked particularly at the “Manga Messiah” comics, the issue of these types of comics is an ongoing issue for MRFF.

After I read Justin’s post from November 2011, I reported back to Mikey that it was not a new post, and that it didn’t contain enough details to know whether or not the distribution of this particular comic was a widespread thing, and, if it was a widespread thing, if it was still a current problem.

My recommendation was that we should look into it, but that we needed to make sure that this wasn’t just an isolated incident of one soldier placing this Christian comic on a particular atheist soldier’s bunk, and that there was in fact a more coordinated effort by commanders and/or chaplains to distribute these comics. Even though the post was from Justin, who we know quite well, we still needed to have his story corroborated by other service members for MRFF to get involved, and, as I said, we needed to see if these particular comics were still being distributed, since Justin’s experience of receiving one was over a year ago.

A bit of asking around at various military installations confirmed that the “Manga Messiah” was and continues to be widely distributed by both commanders and chaplains both here in the U.S. and on military bases overseas. Service members at sixty-one different military installations (including several naval vessels) were contacted by MRFF, and one or more service members at forty-eight of the sixty-one installations confirmed that they had seen the “Manga Messiah” at their installations.

Because this comic violates the military’s regulations prohibiting chaplains from distributing materials that denigrate other religions, this is a publication that isn’t even acceptable for chaplains, let alone commanders, to give out.

Among the methods of distribution we were told about were the placing of copies of the comic where soldiers in training would find them while navigating an obstacle course, and the inclusion of them in gift bags given out to children at a base’s Easter egg roll.

The email we received about the Easter egg roll came from a military spouse — a Methodist who found this comic so offensive that they immediately threw it in the trash:

My name is (name withheld). I am the spouse of (name, rank and U.S. military branch withheld) and we are stationed at (military installation withheld). My spouse is a (military specialty withheld) who has been deployed in combat many times. We are Methodists. On Easter Sunday 8 April 2012 my children and I attended a Easter Egg Roll on base. Sponsored by as far as I could tell my spouses commander and his staff. They were all there and very much participated. I remember that it was allowed for only children age 12 and under. We have (# of children withheld) kids under 12 so we all went. There were well over a hundred children there. Maybe two hundred? Not sure but alot. The kids were all given plastic gift bags. My youngest kept dropping hers so I held on to it for her. I don’t recall what all was inside but I do remember some things. Bubble gum a plastic glasses, nose and mustache toy some pencils and erasers and a plastic magnifying glass. There was also 2 booklets. One on the meaning of Easter and the other was that manga messiah comic book. I will never forget that shock. I read that comic book right there and was disgusted. I threw it right away into the nearest trash can. I took the others in my other kids gift bags out. I threw them away too. I do admit that I was worrid that I might be seen throwing them away. I did not complain to anyone. I am not proud that I didn’t but I seen what happens to those who do. When it comes to this Christian stuff in the U. S. (military branch withheld) you better be on the right side. Please do not give my name to anyone. I don’t want any more trouble. But if this helps I am happy.

After confirming that the “Manga Messiah” is, in fact, currently being distributed throughout the military, MRFF decided to take the action of writing to the secretary of defense, demanding that all distribution of this anti-semitic “literature” cease immediately.

Maj. Dowty will, no doubt, claim that the above email about the Easter egg roll is made up, since its author asked to remain anonymous, but Maj. Dowty’s condemnation of people who choose to remain anonymous is laughable considering the lengths that he himself has gone to to remain anonymous. He plugs his Christian Fighter Pilot book on his website, but doesn’t reveal there that he is the Major Jonathan C. Dowty who wrote the book; he was listed as the OCF leader at Edwards Air Force Base until I mentioned that somewhere, at which point his name was removed from the OCF website; and whenever I’ve referred to him as Maj. Dowty in comments on his blog, rather than his pseudonym “JD,” he has edited my comments to remove his real name. Does this mean that Maj. Dowty doesn’t really exist? Unfortunately, no.

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As I wrote previously, in mid-November I noticed that David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies was once again being sold by Amazon, despite having been pulled by its publisher, Thomas Nelson, back in August because of its inaccuracies. When the book reappeared on Amazon, however, the publisher for it was listed as Barton’s own WallBuilder Press, not Thomas Nelson. So, I ordered a copy to see if it was the new edition that Barton had been promising his followers, in which there was to be 20,000 additional words of material that Barton claimed had been edited out by Thomas Nelson — material that Barton claimed would prove that his disputed claims were supported by documentation that had been edited out of the book.

When I received the copy of Barton’s book I ordered in November, I found out that it was not a new edition published by Barton’s WallBuilder Press; it was exactly the same Thomas Nelson edition I got back at the end on March when I pre-ordered it from Amazon before it was released. Clearly, what Barton was doing was trying to sell off the 17,000 copies of his book that he had to buy back from Thomas Nelson by fraudulently claiming on Amazon that the book was published by his own WallBuilder Press.

So, I sent the following image/explanation to Amazon via their thing where customers can submit suggested corrections for a product’s information:

On December 26, I received the following email from Amazon, saying they were making the correction:

So, now Barton’s book, which was pulled by Thomas Nelson, is being sold on Amazon with Thomas Nelson listed as the publisher. I have a feeling that Thomas Nelson isn’t going to be too happy about that.

To ensure that Thomas Nelson hears about Barton’s little scheme, and sees that the book is once again being sold under their name, I enlisted the mad internet skills of my friend Deborah Beeksma, a frequent conspirator in my diabolical plots. Deborah’s God Discussion website is a Google News site — meaning that her story about this — “Who is the publisher of David Barton’s ‘The Jefferson Lies?’ Amazon listing raises questions” — is now on Google News, where, thanks to people sharing it (particularly via Twitter), it’s been moving up in in the rankings since the wee hours of this morning and is sure to be noticed by lots of people, including the good folks at Thomas Nelson, of course.

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I usually ignore pingbacks when moderating the comments on my blog here, but thought people would get a kick out of this one that showed up last night. The blog that linked to my post from yesterday about Isaac Newton is a new one — American Christocrats — written by a guy named BJ Swearer who seems to be some sort of David Barton wannabe who lurks on Barton’s Facebook page trying to score brownie points with the master. I love picturing people like this spending so much time and effort sitting in front of their computers twisting their brains trying to defend Barton. Enjoy!

http://americanchristocrats.org/2012/12/26/the-typical-work-of-rodda-and-her-minions/

OK, I’m actually a day late … Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day … but I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday.

In his book The Jefferson Lies, pseudo-historian David Barton claims that the reason Thomas Jefferson considered Isaac Newton to have been one of the three greatest men who ever lived was not because of Newton’s work in the fields of science and mathematics, but because of Newton’s theological writings.

As I wrote in a previous post, Barton uses a series of lies, misquotes, and anachronisms to support his ridiculous claim that Jefferson rejected all of the secular Enlightenment writers, and only embraced the religious ones. In that post, I used an excerpt from my book, Debunking David Barton’s Jefferson Lies: #2 – Jefferson Founded a Secular University, to show how Barton rises to a whole new level of misquoting Jefferson to make it appear that Jefferson rejected the secularism of writers like David Hume and Abbé Raynal. The following excerpt from my book picks up where that post left off (so if you didn’t read my previous post, you might want to read that first).
 

With his two examples of Hume and Raynal – both of which are complete misrepresentations of what Jefferson wrote – Barton now proceeds as if he has proved that Jefferson was not influenced by any secular Enlightenment writers:

So if secular Enlightenment writers were not a primary force in shaping Jefferson’s thinking, then who was? Jefferson himself answered that question, declaring that “Bacon, Newton and Locke… [are] my Trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced.”

Barton then proceeds to explain that the reason Jefferson admired and was influenced so much by Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke was because of their theological writings. …

Barton begins by pointing out that Bacon, Newton, and Locke all wrote theological works. This is true. They all did. But this doesn’t mean that it was their theological works that made Jefferson consider them the three greatest men who ever lived.

The reason given by Jefferson for his choice of Bacon, Newton, and Locke as the three greatest men who ever lived was that they had “laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences,”(1) not that they were his favorite theologians. Barton is just once again making something all about religion that wasn’t all about religion.

First of all, it is impossible for Jefferson to have even read Newton’s theological writings because almost none of them had been published at the time that Jefferson was alive. There was one book on church history, and one on the Apocalypse, but the rest of Newton’s “1.3 million words on Biblical subjects” that Barton writes about didn’t come to light until over a century after Jefferson’s death, when they were auctioned off in 1936 by someone who had inherited them. Barton very deliberately hides this inconvenient little fact by chopping it out of the article he quotes about Newton’s theological writings, replacing the words “Yet this vast legacy lay hidden from public view for two centuries until the auction of his nonscientific writings in 1936”(2) with an ellipsis.

The reason that Newton’s theological writings weren’t published at the same time that his scientific papers were published was that they were rejected by Cambridge University because of Newton’s heretical religious views. All that diligent studying of the Bible that Newton did had apparently turned him into a Unitarian, rejecting the Christian doctrine of the trinity and everything else that he considered irrational and superstitious (pretty much the same opinions that Jefferson later independently arrived at from his own study of the Bible).

So, no, Mr. Barton, you lying sack of Christian nationalist crap, Thomas Jefferson never even read Newton’s theological writings. Without a time machine, Jefferson obviously could not have read something that wasn’t even published until over a century after his death. Jefferson considered Newton great because he was a scientist, not a freakin’ theologian!

1. Thomas Jefferson to John Ttrumbull, February 15, 1789. Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 14, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), 561.
2. Charles E. Hummel, “The Faith Behind the Famous: Isaac Newton,” ChristianHistory.net, April 1, 1991. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1991/issue30/3038.html.

For the first time, Air Force Major Jonathan C. Dowty, the Christian Fighter Pilot, has had to make a change to one of his egregiously offensive blog posts.

For years, the Air Force has let Major Dowty get away with far more than what anyone would reasonably consider the First Amendment rights of an active duty member of the military, taking virtually no action when this Christian supremacist officer was cyber-bullying lower ranking non-Christian service members and posting potentially libelous statements, and even letting him get away with posting insulting and disparaging remarks about superior officers.

(If you’re not familiar with Major Dowty and his “Christian Fighter Pilot” blog, see my previous posts about about his disturbing obsession with Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and his cyber-bullying of non-Christian enlisted service members.)

So, what was it that finally crossed the line in the eyes of the Air Force? The virulently homophobic Major Dowty’s recent post attributing an incident of bestiality in the Marine Corps to the repeal of DADT.

As I wrote a few weeks ago:

… Air Force Maj. Jonathan C. Dowty, a.k.a. the Christian Fighter Pilot, whose countless blog posts about the repeal of DADT show his obvious distress over the repeal not causing any of the catastrophic problems predicted by his fundamentalist brethren, is gleefully attributing this bestiality incident to the repeal.

Maj. Dowty begins one of his posts this morning, US Marine Arrested for Indecency with Dogs:

“Apparently, he thought the repeal of DADT meant he didn’t have to live a lie, and wouldn’t be punished just for loving someone…er, something…whatever.”

A few days later, MRFF’s Director for LGBT Affairs, Edith Disler, wrote the following letter to the Secretary of the Air Force and United States Air Force Chief of Staff:

Michael B. Donley
Secretary of the Air Force
1670 Air Force Pentagon
Washington, DC 20330-1670

 

General Mark A. Welsh III
Chief of Staff, United States Air Force
1670 Air Force Pentagon
Washington, DC 20330-1670

 

Re: Major Jonathan C. Dowty, USAF AIR ARMAMENT CE/SEF
Eglin Air Force Base Safety Office, Flight Safety Element Section
96TW/SEF
1001 N. Second St.
Eglin AFB, FL 32542

 

Dear Secretary Donley and U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Welsh,

 

Every fiber of my logic screams that Air Force Major Jonathan Dowty just isn’t worth the time it’ll take to write this letter. I can easily reason that the Air Force deserves whatever public affairs nightmare Major Dowty will eventually bring on, for the PA “train wreck” is not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.” But, in equating bestiality and same sex relationships Major Dowty has personally insulted not just all lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, not just personnel he must work with (theoretically “lead”) every day, and not just me. Please see the attached link and screenshot of Major Dowty’s post in question. Major Dowty has, by virtue of his implication, cast cowardly assertions which imply that I, my partner, and our children are but animals. So, I must speak out.

 

I served the Air Force as a commissioned officer for 25 years, having been an ROTC cadet and a Civil Air Patrol cadet for the nine years before that. I’m the great grandchild of a Baptist preacher, the grandchild of a Lutheran minister, the child of a Lutheran minister, and the first cousin of a Methodist minister. Never did I confuse my responsibility to respect the Constitution and take care of the people in my charge with my religious convictions or conventions. But apparently officer training, professional development, and leadership are not what they used to be.  Major Dowty seems confused as regards his responsibilities to his people and his Constitution, and not one Air Force professional, apparently, has the courage to set him straight.   As a result Major Dowty clearly sees himself as superior to the directives of Department of Defense and Air Force leadership.  He also clearly sees himself as superior to the teachings of Christ, for the rants and insults cast by the “Christian fighter pilot” are as un-Christ-like as any I’ve ever seen or heard.

 

We all know that when we swear our oath of commissioning we limit our freedom of speech, and that our promise to lead our people means that we lead them equally and without prejudice, regardless of our personal convictions. Given Major Dowty’s readiness and willingness to disregard policy and leadership, do you REALLY think he’s conducting himself as an Air Force officer should? I’m immensely disappointed that the Air Force I served for so long has failed in its duty to take corrective action. This lack of disciplinary action gives the impression that Air Force leadership is cripplingly weak and being held hostage by a brand of Christianity which has pathologically misinterpreted the words of Christ. I have seen Air Force commanders punish so many enlisted members and officers for so much less, but Major Dowty’s commanders seem paralyzed to act. On behalf of the 654 lesbian, gay and bisexual service members represented by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF: http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org), in order to send a supportive message to all people serving in the Air Force, and in the name of decency, we insist that Major Dowty’s commanders take swift and severe corrective action under Air Force Instruction (AFI) 1-1 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

 

Respectfully,

Edith A. Disler, PhD, MBA, Lt. Col. (USAF) Ret.

MRFF Director for LGBT Affairs,

Advisory Board Member,

Military Religious Freedom Foundation

 

CC:

Lt. Gen. Richard C. Harding, Judge Advocate General, U.S. Air Force

General Janet C. Wolfenbarger, Commander, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

Brig. Gen. David A. Harris, Commander, 96th Test Wing, Air Force Materiel Command, Eglin Air Force Base, FL

Randal G. Mathis, Esq., MRFF Lead Trial Counsel

Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq., MRFF Founder and President

Shortly thereafter, the offensive comment was removed from Major Dowty’s blog post.

Here are screen grabs of the original post …

… and what’s there now:

We don’t know the exact reason that action was taken this time — if it was the new Chief of Staff, the fact that Major Dowty recently moved to new base and has a new commanding officer, the particular subject matter of Major Dowty’s post, or something else — but, as I said, this is the first time the Air Force has done something about this disgrace of an officer, which is a very good sign. We’ll have to wait and see if it was a fluke or if it signals a genuine improvement in the Air Force’s leadership regarding the disgraceful and contemptible online behavior of officers like the Christian Fighter Pilot.

So, while taking a break from trying to figure out where the hell the batteries go in a toy I got for one of the kids I hang out with on Christmas, I decided to check my MRFF emails. As usual, December 24 is one of those days when I just have to shake my head at the irony. Yes, as one of the “instruments of satan,” I’m spending my Christmas Eve engaging in diabolical war-on-Christmas activities like wrapping Christmas presents, while the nice little “Christians” are apparently gathered around their Christmas trees thinking about the people they hate — and emailing them, of course:

From: [email protected]
Subject: lake of Fire Awaits you
Date: December 24, 2012 10:56:50 AM MST
To: <——@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>

Christ was born and lives to conquer the World with grace and His Word away from satan. The U.S. of A was born to carry the Word of Jesus to the fallen world at large. Our military is the sacred instrument of Jesus to save the world from itself. And etenity in Lake of Fire. You and your ‘charity’ are the instruments of satan, mr. Mickey Wienstien. You use your jew lawyer clever traits to enslave our soldiers away from the Only Truth ofChrist. But you will fail of course. (2 Timothy 2:26) Only the lake of Fire will be your award for all time. And the inheritance of your evil wife and ugly children. and all who serve you. You all will burn forver as you serve the dark one. Merry Christmas to the doomed fool mickey. Enemy of our Lord and Savior. your time to plunge draws close. And heaven and earth will rejoice in your certain damnation. ‘and you (wienstein) will be tormented day and night forever and ever.’ (Revelations 20:10)

Well, Merry freakin’ Christmas to you, too, “[email protected]”

Now, back to figuring out where the hell the batteries go in this damn toy! I will not have my Christmas ruined by Christians!

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A rabbi and a priest get into a car accident and it’s a bad one. Both cars are totally demolished, but amazingly, neither of the clerics is hurt. After they crawl out of their cars, the rabbi sees the priest’s collar and says, “So you’re a priest. I’m a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There’s nothing left, but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God. God must have meant that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace the rest of our days.”

The priest replies, “I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God.”

The rabbi continues, “…and look at this. Here’s another miracle. My car is completely demolished, broken glass everywhere, but this bottle of Mogen David wine didn’t break. Surely it is a sign. God wants us to drink this wine, give thanks, and celebrate our good fortune.” Then he hands the bottle to the priest.

The priest agrees, takes a few big swigs, and offers the bottle back to the rabbi. The rabbi takes the bottle, immediately puts the cap on, and hands it back to the priest. The priest asks, “Aren’t you having any?”

The rabbi replies, “No…I think I’ll wait for the police.”

#95 — Mikey Weinstein

Founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation

 

A former Air Force officer and White House lawyer during the Reagan administration,Weinstein is today a one-issue whistle-blower who has driven real change in religious policy throughout the military.Advocating for secularism in the military through the Military Religious Freedom Foundation he founded in 2005, Weinstein has fought a campaign against public prayer and proselytizing by Air Force officers, particularly at the Air Force Academy, his alma mater, where he says he and his sons experienced religious discrimination. Weinstein has been accused of tilting at windmills in his struggles, but he scored a major victory in 2011, when the Air Force suspended a training course for nuclear missile launch officers that used Bible passages and religious imagery in a PowerPoint presentation about the ethics of war. Weinstein’s public persistence continues to influence Pentagon religious policies, including new rules released in 2012 restricting the sale of Bibles adorned with military insignia.

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How the list was compiled:

This inaugural 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense list was compiled over five months by more than two dozen reporters and editors representing the world’s biggest military newsroom and the award-winning staffs of Gannett Government Media’s sector-leading publications: Defense News, Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, Armed Forces Journal and Federal Times.

Individuals’ personal influence — not just the power that comes with their offices — was foremost in our minds. What makes someone influential? One individual on the list explains it this way: “Influence is making change, it’s not just celebrity.”

More than 200 candidates were nominated by staffers and vetted through sources. Each person’s clout in shaping American defense policy, strategy and capability was discussed, debated and analyzed.

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