By: Carl Prine | Contact Reporter, San Diego Union Tribune
Date: April 26, 2018

Last week's decision by a San Diego-based Navy admiral to nix an investigation into the use of a Christian Bible in a "Missing Man" display in Okinawa apparently did nothing to quash a controversy that now has engulfed at least 31 other military units worldwide.

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To drive their point home, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is now demanding that the display inside U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa - the Navy's largest overseas hospital - be amplified to include similar sacred texts from more than a dozen other faiths, plus books championed by atheists and agnostics.

"To claim that the Bible isn't there for something religious is patently ridiculous," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, a former Air Force officer and the foundation's founder.

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The controversy stems from a complaint made to Weinstein's nonprofit in early April by 26 service members, Department of Defense civilian workers and their families in Okinawa.

Initially, an official at Navy Medicine West told the foundation that the San Diego-based department overseeing all Navy hospitals in the Pacific region would probe the complaint. But last week commander Rear Adm. Paul D. Pearigen reversed course, telling the foundation in a letter that "neither further review nor an investigation of this matter is necessary."

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"As one of nine symbolic references on the table, the purpose of the book and accompanying description is not to promote religion, but to commemorate the strength and resolve required of POW and MIA personnel in the most difficult of times. Each item on the table contributes to an atmosphere of remembrance and solemnity, without emphasizing the book as a religious text," explained Navy Medicine West spokeswoman Regena E. Kowitz in an email to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Weinstein countered by saying the "bottom line is that the Constitution is going to trump whatever is in a manual by the Army or the Navy or the (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)."

In recent years the Air Force, American Legion,* VA and other agencies and organizations quit featuring a Christian book in their displays. Partly that's because the Pentagon requires the armed forces to honor the religious diversity of all troops, Weinstein said.

*(MRFF EDITOR NOTE: The article incorrectly states the American Legion 'quit' featuring a 'Christian book.' The American Legion DIDN'T quit featuring a Bible on their tables. They never had one. (As explained here))

To truly honor it, he wants the Okinawa "Missing Man" display to include texts sacred to Roman Catholics, Protestants, Satanists, Muslims, Jews, Shintoists, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons and others, plus several humanist and secularist works that nonbelievers favor.

Pearigen hasn't responded, but it's a tactic that's worked for the foundation in the past.

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Weinstein said that since news of the Okinawa controversy broke, his foundation has received complaints from troops at 31 other units worldwide who say they're bothered by Bibles in displays.

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As for Camp Arifjan's exhibit, Weinstein worries it could insult citizens in a Middle Eastern country that's overwhelmingly Muslim.

"What if Kuwaitis think we should put a Koran there?" he asked.

Soldiers at the Pentagon did not return messages seeking official comment on Thursday.

By: Tom Krattenmaker
Date: April 26, 2018

(RNS) — The usual adversaries are at it again in the ongoing war over the place of the Bible and Christian faith in the U.S. armed forces. On behalf of 26 military families, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is battling with the Navy over a POW/MIA display at the naval hospital on Okinawa, Japan.

At issue: the placement of the Bible alongside the POW/MIA and American flags with a placard that says: "The Bible represents the strength gained through faith to sustain those lost from our country, founded one nation under God." Since the Okinawa news hit the media, the MRFF says it has received complaints from 31 other U.S. military installations that have the Bible included in their "missing man" displays.

Do the Bible and faith statement in the POW/MIA displays violate the constitutional prohibition against the government promoting a religion? Or are they a harmless nod to the fortitude and comfort many soldiers derive from their country's majority religion?

You can argue it either way -- and believe me, those caught up in this drama are doing just that. But for those intent on maintaining the Bible's prominence in American culture, the POW/MIA displays are more symbolism and sideshow than anything of substance. There's a much bigger problem in civilian life and Americans' homes that ought to concern them:

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Our rampant biblical illiteracy also helps explain why those most passionate about pushing the Bible in settings of dubious appropriateness (like a Navy hospital in Japan) often press their case in deeply unbiblical ways.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the group that filed the Okinawa complaint, showed me some of the correspondence he has received. Let's just say that the writers of this vile and unprintable material demonstrate the opposite of the Jesus-style "love your enemy" teaching found between the covers of the Bible.

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