Truly, even a conservative war supporter should be able to understand this.

To pretend that U.S. soldiers are in any position to credibly preach the gospel, even as they attempt to carry out their duties within a state-funded army, is to insult the gospel — and even to insult the army. The army (at least theoretically) hasn’t descended to the level of the crusaders (actually is another matter). The gospel is desecrated when people try to spread it with the sword.

St. Francis, among other Christians, knew this.

Wait until the Ayatollah Sistani (the man who, I predict, will precipitate American forces’ destruction in Iraq) finds out about this:

http://edouardalxandre.livejournal.com/517801.html

Apostasy is the greatest sin a Muslim can commit (whether we, in our different Western Christian value-system, like it or not), and these troops are, by Shiah Muslim standards, doing more damage to Iraq’s indigenous culture than even the bombing of Fallujah. This is a dreadful mistake, and prima facie evidence that America cannot presume to “fix Iraq.”

No, what happened at Fallujah was a horrible crime. Our boys have committed much sin in Iraq – and done much good, too. Like you, I am disgusted by self proclaimed Patriotic Americans (TM) who view military personnel as sinless messiahs. At the same time the troops are not sitting around saying things like “unjust wars are my favorite kind!” or “how can we best act like arrogant imperialists today?” Half the time when things go wrong in the military, it’s not the result of somebody’s deliberate sin but the result of somebody’s oversight. Gross incompetance is the strongest term you could use.

Even if it was deliberate, the comparison to Fallujah doesn’t work at all. Purposely giving Muslims coins with inscriptions from the New Testament is not exactly depraved. Stupid and imprudent, maybe, but St. Peter is not going to greet them with, “You passed out a bit of metal with John 3:16 on it? Go below!” The massacre at Fallujah, on the other hand, involves serious sin.

And again I highly doubt, if this actually happened (the link calls it a “report,” and I haven’t seen this in any other MSM) I doubt the guys did it on purpose. Like I said, proselytizing is a major no-no in the United States armed forces, as any military chaplain would attest. Not to mention the soldiers and marines on patrol have no inclination, NONE, to purposely poke the hornets nest with a stick.

What it sounds like to me is some poor Lance Corporal got a care package from clueless loved ones – maybe even his pastor – and not thinking anything of it, decided to share the pretty play money. It’s not like they were minted by the Bush Administration and passed out to the platoons with secret instructions to use them to convert the Iraqis to Christianity.

It’s ALWAYS a “mistake,” right? Fallujah massacre? Just a “mistake”… There’s no way “our” boys would do anything wrong.

It sounds possibly like a mistake… well-meaning people on the homefront send alll kinds of things to the troops without reading the regulations on what is allowed. For instance, Catholics send rosaries, but they don’t realize that in the field, troops can’t carry anything that shows up, so they send white beads or blue beads or red beads when only brown or black or dark green will really work!

Probably the guys in this particular unit got the coins from home and handed them out like they do candy or pens, goodies for the kids, without peering at the tiny wriitng on them. I have a hard time believing that any soldier or marine would deliberately and consciously “evangelize” in this manner, especially if they are actually on patrol and would have to personally deal with the potential deadly consequences once the local religous authorities got a good look at the coins.

It all depends on what you mean by “we”. The church yes. The 1st Tank Battalion of the 1st Marine Division maybe not.

Faith is caught, not taught.

Act as if you have faith, and faith will come. St. Augustine.

Good intentions and delicate sensibilities are not moral arguments.

Once a fixed idea of duty gets inside a narrow mind, it can never get out.

This is worse than a crime; it is a blunder. Attributed to Tallyerand

The message gets across in inverse proportion to its being made conscious since the unspoken assumptions are what mold the audience. Alan Alda.

Yes. But delivery and witness are two criteria of spreading the Word faithfully.