Military pastors ordered to stop quoting
Bible, leave Jesus at home
Published: 12 hours ago
Drew Zahn is a WND news
editor who cut his journalist teeth as a member of the award-winning staff of
Leadership, Christianity Today's professional journal for church leaders. A
former pastor, he is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based
Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, which sparked his
ongoing love affair with film and his weekly WND column, "Popcorn and a
(world)view."
Two military chaplains are suing Eric
Shinseki, secretary of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, or VA, for
allegedly being harassed and drummed out of a training and placement program
because of their Christian faith.
Chaplains Major Steven Firtko, U.S. Army
(Retired) and Lieutenant Commander Dan Klender, U.S. Navy, claim they were
mocked, scolded and threatened for their faith while enrolled in the San Diego
VA-DOD Clinical Pastoral Education Center program, which trains and distributes
chaplains to military and VA medical centers in the San Diego area.
According to
their lawsuit, Firtko and Klender allege the Center’s supervisor,
Ms. Nancy Dietsch, a VA employee, derided them in classrooms and even had one
of them dismissed for failing to renounce his Christian beliefs.
For example, on Sept. 24, 2012, the lawsuit
claims, during a classroom discussion, Dietsch asked Firtko what he “believed
faith was.”
Firtko responded by quoting Hebrews 11:1 –
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Dietsch told Firtko, on the first of several
such instances according to the lawsuit, that he was not to quote the Bible in
the chaplaincy program classroom.
On another incident in October, Dietsch
allegedly shouted at Firtko for quoting Scripture again, banging her fist on
the table and stating “it made her feel like she had been pounded over her head
with a sledge hammer.”
The lawsuit also claims Dietsch told her
students that the VA in general and she in particular do not allow chaplains to
pray “in Jesus’ name” in public ceremonies.
Dietsch is also accused of allowing other
students to deride Firtko and Klender, mocking them in front of the class and
telling Firtko if he held to his beliefs on such things as evolution, salvation
and homosexuality, he “did not belong in this program.” Eventually, the lawsuit
states, she threatened to dismiss Firtko for refusing to recant his Christian
doctrine and ordered he serve a six-week probation.
The lawsuit claims Chaplain Klender’s superior
even encouraged him to challenge Dietsch for her “bias against evangelicals.”
Klender later left the program voluntarily,
citing Dietsch’s alleged abuse.
Firtko, however, according to the lawsuit, was
ejected from the program through a letter, signed by Dietsch, which stated his
probation period was not “yielding the results” desired.
In July, Firtko, Klender and their sponsoring
organization, the Conservative Baptist Association of America, filed formal
complaint against Dietsch and the VA.
Now the lawsuit, filed
with the help of Military-Veterans
Advocacy, explains that Firtko and Klender have exhausted all
administrative options and that the harassment the chaplains endured violates
the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedures
Act and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“No American choosing to serve in the armed
forces should be openly ridiculed for his Christian faith, and that is most
obviously true for chaplains participating in a chaplain training program,”
said Commander J.B. Wells, U. S. Navy (Ret.), executive director of
Military-Veterans Advocacy. “Not only was the treatment these men received
inappropriate, it was also a violation of federal law and the religious freedom
guarantees of the First Amendment.”
The lawsuit, Conservative Baptist Association
of America v. Shinseki, has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia.
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