Good evening Michael Weinstein. I am a classmate of yours from the USAF Academy Class of 1977. I have written to you before. I am a Spirit-filled born again Christian. My wife is a spirit-filled born again Christian and my children are as well. I came to the Lord during my years as a cadet at the Academy. A number of your classmates have asked me to convey a simple message to you. It is a two part message. First, we ask you to reconsider coming to our 35th reunion next week. Yes, we found out you are coming. And second we ask you to believe in and fear the Power of Prayer if you refuse to reconsider.
I didn’t know you well at the Academy but well enough to see the darkness of spirit within you. You hate the followers of the Lord. You elevate Christ’s enemies over our Savior. Gays and Muslims and atheists are the object of your love. I even recall your love of the perverted Muslims back then. You dressed up as a cadet as a Muslim. You wore the attire of Yasser Arafat and gave a fiery speech as this same terrorist. Supporting his terror against those who follow Jesus. Don’t try to deny this Michael Weinstein. You thought we would forget that? I watched that speech in the lectinar in Fairchild Hall. I and others remember feeling your powerful spirit of evil that very day. You have only gotten stronger in your walk with satan as the years have past. Haven’t you.
A number of your classmates, myself included, have had enough of you. We thought you weren’t coming to any more reunions. But then we watched your website and saw you’re giving another one of your Christian hate speeches at UCCS the first night of the reunion. So you’ll be in town? Clever of you to make sure your name doesn’t appear on the AOG registry for the reunion. Our friends of friends there have confirmed that you intend to be there anyway.
Your darkness and evil is unwanted. You shame our class and our alma mater. You shame the Christian heritage of America, You have the hell-spirit of the devil within you and I have seen and felt it. Eye witness, personally. You use your evil powers to pull the wool over the eyes of the innocents. Just as scripture warned and foretold (2 Corinthians 11:14-15, John 8:44, James 4:7).
No longer Michael Weinstein. Your time has past. You are helpless to the Power of Prayer (Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, Mark 9:29). On behalf of our classmates, I ask and beg you to publicly announce that you are withdrawing from the speech at UCCS. And that you and your wife Bonny will not be attending our Class of 1977 Academy reunion. We will give you until this Wednesday night to do this. If you refuse to do it then we will pray the Psalm 109. We will pray at home and at church. Our families will pray it together. We will pray to the Lord to stop your poison. We will pray the Psalm against you and your wife and all those who give you sanctuary and protection in Colorado Springs.
Let me be clear. None of us will harm you or your wife. That would be illegal and wrong. It is not our place to mete out the justice and punishment you and your followers deserve and have earned. We won’t have to. The Lord will. It is our God-given right to pray for His intervention and protection from your evil. Even under the Constitution you worship as an idol in place of the Son of God.
Reconsider and know the Power of Prayer. Fear the Power of Christ, Michael Weinstein (1 Peter 1: 17-21).
(name withheld)
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Dear Mikey,
This is one of the sickest things I’ve ever read, and I’ve read plenty of sick stuff coming from these who pretend to be Christians. This insane nonsense being the work of one who considers himself a “Spirit-filled born again Christian” offers vivid proof of the absolute meaninglessness of the term. It testifies that one can poison oneself with hatred and express his personal inability to deal with reality only by lashing out at one who, to his clearly twisted mind, somehow threatens the comfort he has hypnotized himself into believing he has found through this demented belief system.
I pity this poor man and those, if there actually are any, who share the darkness in which he lives.
Please feel free to forward this response to this poor, sad, pathetic soul.
Mike Farrell
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Good evening Mikey’s classmate,
I am on the Advisory Board of Mikey’s Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). I, too, am a Spirit-filled, born again Christian and an ordained minister in the Assemblies of God.
I find your email as un-Christian as it gets. Your ignorance of Jesus’ teachings, judgmental attitude (Jesus said not to judge but Paul did – which one do you follow?), and veiled death threats (I’m not going to do it but I pray God picks someone who will – otherwise you wouldn’t be saying this) are despicable! It’s Christians like YOU that are a real SHAME to true Christianity.
You are obviously ignorant of the make-up of the Board, Advisory Board and volunteers, so I’ll educate you. 75% of us are Christian. 96% of our clients who contact us for help are Christians.
We are not out to destroy Christianity or stop its practice in the military. We are trying to stop the in-your-face continuous proselytizing of Christianity by officers all the way up to the Commander and put it back in the hands of the Chaplains where it belongs. Period!
Seeing as you are a classmate of Mikey’s then I’m assuming – you know what they say about assuming – that you know he graduated with honors as a JAG officer. He spent 10 years at the USAFA as a JAG. Don’t you think he knows Military Law better than you?
He spent over 3 years in the West Wing of the Reagan Administration as legal counsel in the White House. Don’t you think he has a better understanding of the Constitution than you do?
You can pray anything you want but you are slapping Jesus in the face by not following his words on how to treat your enemies. David’s prayer does not say who his enemies are and because of this we have no way of knowing if it worked.
God blessed Solomon beyond belief because he DID NOT ask for Him to kill his enemies. Why would God even mention this to Solomon if he loved killing his enemies?
“And God said to Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people, over whom I have made thee king: Wisdom and knowledge [is] granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that [have been] before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.”(2 Chronicles 1:11)
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”(Matthew 5:43-46)
Do you see that? One of the conditions for being a child of the Father is to love, bless, do good to and pray for them that are your enemies. In this case, we are not your enemy.
Who are you to tell Mikey he can’t attend his graduation reunion? Really, who do you think you are?
I will give you a timeline like you gave Mikey. I give YOU one second after you read this to get down on your knees and beg forgiveness for your vile email so that YOU can be a child of the Father according to Jesus’ teaching. I think he knows the Father better than you do.
It's interesting how some things change. Evolution suggests a natural process of growth and development based on a somehow-perceived need for an entity to adapt to new or altered circumstances. The implication, since it is a natural process, is that the change, the new evolved state, will be an improvement over the old.
But what does one call it when it's not?
The question arises from a story I just read about the experience of a young soldier who was shipped home near the end of World War II. He was filled with bitterness and despair at having to be sent home due to illness because he felt he was "failing his outfit," deserting the buddies who needed him. He said he met a young chaplain on the ship, spilled his guts to him, and was greatly helped by the clergyman's tender and wise counsel. On reflection, he said, he was even more impressed by the fact that the chaplain had never asked his religion, nor had he offered his own. He simply helped.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), has been sounding the alarm about the brazen sectarian assault on our Constitutionally protected separation of church and state that this cultish group's tactics represent (See here .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB1UifGIqaw&feature=player_embedded .. for an example). While no one disputes the individual American's right to believe -- or not believe -- as he or she chooses, the degree to which the purveyors of this particular belief system -- fundamentalist, Dominionist Christianity -- have insinuated themselves, not only in the chaplaincy but in the military hierarchy as well, is unnerving.
For the General in command of the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center to think of himself and his co-religionists as "the aroma of Christ" is one thing, but when evangelizing from a position of authority is used to inspire an aura of "rightness" around one belief system and "wrongness" around all others -- and in a military situation to boot -- it teeters dangerously on the precipice of fostering a cult, in this case a government-sponsored-and-endorsed cult.
Of course, our chaplain corps continues to include representatives of other faith perspectives, but the size and sway of the Dominionists, who don't subscribe to the position of less-fervid Evangelicals that there is a right time and place to bring the Word to the people, has become so strategically placed and passionately embraced that many Catholic, mainline Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and other believers (or non-believers) in the military feel themselves becoming oppressed minorities. The zealous pursuit of converts to this singular view, this One Way, reminds me in part of the dragooning by glassy-eyed Moonie recruiters or seductive Scientologists whose victims and whose heartbroken families we tried to help when I was associated with the original Cult Awareness Network.
But while the Moonies, the Scientologists and their ilk do great harm, they don't have the power to get the Pentagon to buy rifles with Biblical references on their sights, attach inappropriate, emotionally loaded names like "Crusader" to units, or to issue their religious documents with the official insignia of the U.S. Armed Forces imprinted on the cover and propaganda inside. They can't order our servicemen and women to distribute their bibles to those of another faith in the country they're occupying. Our military leaders can, and they do.
For the chaplains of old, the "padres" who gave succor to those in the foxholes regardless of belief, to be replaced by the zealots of today is not evolution; it is perversion. Passionate religious conviction is one's right, but rational minds must remain aware of what it caused on September 11th.
One's belief system is a matter of personal choice. It cannot be government sponsored and it is not the business of our military.
Mike Farrell, best known as BJ Hunnicutt of TV's "M*A*S*H," is a member of MRFF's Board of Advisors and the author of "Just Call Me Mike; A Journey to Actor and Activist," and "Of Mule and Man."