By: Paul Rosenberg | Salon.com
Date: 8/24/2018

On Tuesday of this week, a fundamentalist prayer group associated with U.S. Senate chaplain Barry Black published what is known as an imprecatory prayer. It began: "Father, we ask that You take down Mikey Weinstein and his FFRF [sic] group," an apparent reference to Weinstein's group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and the 22-page complain it recently filed against Air Force Brig. Gen. John Teichert, as Salon reported last weekend. The MRFF complaint alleges serious violations of Air Force regulations stemming from Teichert's online ministry, and was filed on behalf of 41 clients, 32 of whom identify as Christian.

To underscore the prayer's apparent threat, it ineptly quoted Psalm 37:22: "For those who are blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those who are curses [sic] b [sic] Him shall be cut off." That's an approximate quotation from the King James Bible; in numerous other translations the word "destroyed" is used in place of "cut off." 

Weinstein has previously described such "imprecatory prayers" as "code words" used by the Christian far right to "troll for assassins," or at least to legitimize possible acts of violence. "We view this as a clear and present threat against me, my family and the foundation, and we take it very seriously," Weinstein told Salon.

Weinstein's organization, which is not popular among fundamentalist members of the military, has received previous threats, he said. "But this one is inextricably intertwined with the U.S. Senate, and that is intolerable." His lawyers are drafting letters to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, he says, demanding redress.

[...]

By: Ted Furlow | LATimes.com
Date: 8/23/2018

To the editor: The U.S. Air Force has had a mixed past in regard to the imposition of fundamentalist Christian principles on the rank and file.

Brig. Gen. E. John Teichert, the installation commander at Edwards Air Force Base who created a website promoting his brand of Christianity, should know that his faith is not under attack. It is simply getting pushback when it crosses a line drawn by our Constitution. No Christians are being martyred in America; they are only challenged to engage in dialogue by those who reject the sola scriptura literalism that folks like the general impose as their brand of truth.

Our nation’s founding principles are not biblical. While our founding fathers believed in God, they built a firewall into the Constitution to prevent the creation of a theocracy in America.

Teichert is a Christian nationalist whose fundamentalist zeal is not only misplaced, but presumes that all of us must believe as he believes.