As the United States sent tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan in 2010, a controversy erupted: the rifles they were carrying had coded scopes engraved with biblical references. In the war against the Taliban, already religiously charged, it was akin to tossing a match on gasoline in the ongoing fight over where religion should fit into military life.
The incident followed a script for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the activist organization that exposed the issue. Service members registered their complaint about the so-called “Jesus rifles.” Mikey Weinstein, its founder, distributed the information widely through the media, expressing outrage. And then the government responded, with some officials defending the practice while others — including Gen. David Petraeus, then the top commander in Afghanistan — called it problematic.
The scope’s maker, Trijicon, eventually promised that it would stop using biblical references, and the military said it would work to alter rifles already in service. They were inscribed with phrases like “PSA91:5,” short for Psalms 91:5: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.”
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On Wednesday, Weinstein will get one of his largest stages yet: An appearance before the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on military personnel. Weinstein, along with several other witnesses, will testify before Congress on the military’s current policy for religious accommodation, which requires Sikhs to seek a waiver from top service officials to wear their religion’s mandatory turbans and beards.
Weinstein intends to stretch the conversation beyond that, though, he said. He plans to tell Congress that numerous leaders in the military practice a “twisted version of Christianity” that oppresses not only Muslims and other religious minorities, but Christians who are not devout.
The Pentagon’s pugnacious critic on religion gets his day in Congress - The Washington Post
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