Navy Chaplain Censored: ‘Don’t pray in the name of Jesus’

Lt. Cmdr. Wes Modder (Courtesy Liberty Institute)

By Todd Starnes

(Fox News) A Navy chaplain who faces the end of a stellar 19-year career because of his faith-based views on marriage and human sexuality was told by a base commander to refrain from offering a prayer in the name of Jesus, according to attorneys representing the chaplain.

That allegation was tucked away in an 18-page letter written to the commander of Navy Region Southeast by Liberty Institute attorneys representing Chaplain Wesley Modder. Liberty Institute is a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases.

Liberty Institute asserts that Chaplain Modder’s fate could have a significant impact on every Christian military chaplain.

The letter included the results of Liberty Institute’s investigation of allegations levied against the chaplain by Captain John Fahs.

I’ll tackle that newest allegation later – but first here’s a recap of what I believe to be the LGBT-inspired witch hunt against Chaplain Modder:

Last December, an openly gay officer at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in South Carolina, took offense at Modder’s take on homosexuality. The chaplain, who is endorsed by the Assemblies of God, was accused of discrimination and failing to show tolerance and respect – among other things.

Just a few months earlier, Modder’s commander had called him the “best of the best” and a consummate professional leader.” But now he’s on the verge of being kicked out of the military.
“After our investigation, it is clear that the facts and law are on Chaplain Modder’s side,” Liberty Institute attorney Michael Berry said. “He has done nothing more than provide ministerial services in accordance with the precepts of his faith – which is completely consistent with Navy rules and federal law.”

Their letter is a point by point repudiation of the allegations against the highly respected chaplain – a man who once led chaplains who ministered to Navy SEALs.

“We believe the Navy will exonerate Chaplain Modder and restore him to continue his true calling of ministering to sailors and Marines as he has done for the past 15 years,” Berry said.

Liberty Institute maintains that Modder’s private counseling on issues involving human sexuality and same-sex marriage were consistent with the beliefs of his endorsing agency – the Assemblies of God.

“As a result of honoring the tenets of his endorsing denomination, he now faces the loss of his employment and removal from the Navy,” Liberty Institute wrote.

While Chaplain Modder specifically denies accusations that he used inappropriate language or gestures, he does admit to providing answers to questions from a Biblical world view.

“On occasion and only when asked, he expressed his sincerely held religious belief that sexual acts outside of marriage are contrary to biblical teaching; homosexual conduct is contrary to biblical teaching and homosexual orientation or temptation as distinct from conduct is not a sin,” Liberty Institute wrote.

They also reminded the Navy that Department of Defense regulations allow Chaplain Modder to hold religious beliefs.

“Navy chaplains are never required to compromise the standards of their religious organization, but are required to perform in a pluralistic environment,” they wrote.

That brings me back to the moment when Chaplain Modder was told he could not pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Liberty Institute alleges it happened shortly after Modder assumed chaplaincy responsibilities at the training command. He was asked to deliver an invocation at a ceremony.

As he was walking to the lectern, Fahs is alleged to have told him to deep-six the Jesus talk – “counsel that Chaplain Modder accepted and with which he complied.”

Chaplain Modder’s fate could have a significant impact on every Christian military chaplain, asserts Liberty Institute.

Taking action, they argue, “Would send a dangerous message that other chaplains who share his beliefs – the vast majority of military chaplains – may also suffer adverse personnel actions and would have a profound chilling effect on any chaplain who seeks to provide biblical care.”

And if the Navy silences chaplains – they could certainly silence sailors.

“If the Navy can remove a chaplain who expresses his religious beliefs, then service members who share those beliefs will believe that they, too, are unwelcome in the Navy,” Liberty Institute wrote.

Link:

• Navy Chaplain Censored: ‘Don’t pray in the name of Jesus’

Here Rests in Honored Glory - The Mass and the Tomb of the Unknowns

By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.

Those are the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Here is a video of the Changing of the Guard.

I think we can all agree that the Tomb of the Unknowns, the 24/7 guarding of the Tomb, and the intense precision of the ceremonial rubrics are one of the most excellent things in American culture. The old saying goes, "You may judge a nation by how it treats its fallen warriors." In an otherwise degraded and despair-inducing society, the Tomb of the Unknowns is a beacon of cultural light and hope.

The Tomb of the Unknowns is also extremely instructive, and believe it or not, it instructs us about . . . the Mass. The reason the Tomb of the Unknowns instructs us today about the Mass is because the Tomb of the Unknowns rubrics originally came FROM the Mass. For those of you who have never seen a pre-1968 Tridentine Mass and are used to the clownish, degraded, irreverent Novus Ordo Masses of the last 45 years, or of Superfun Rockband church, I hope the sense of reverent awe and solemnity you feel when watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns helps you understand what exactly it is that has been robbed from you.

After watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns above, I want you to imagine the guards walking about casually, maybe wearing a partial uniform jacket, but with jeans and sandals. Imagine the guards walking out and introducing themselves, "Hi, my name is Lieutenant Jones, but you can call me Jake." Then the guard might say something like, "Isn't it a beautiful day today? It sure was rainy yesterday. I had to wear a rain jacket. I'm so glad you all could make to my shift today. I'm going to be guarding the tomb for the next few hours, and I know that it can sure get BOOOORING! That's why I have asked a local band to come in and play some music for you guys, because I want this to be A FUN EXPERIENCE for all of us!"

If this happened, you would be shocked and disgusted, right? Do you understand that what I have just described is a watered-down comparison of what has happened to the Mass? The Mass went from being even more reverent than the rubrics of the Tomb Guard to what I just described above - and many times even worse than what I described above.

Let's walk through some of the many parallels.

The soldiers are in full dress uniform, meticulously turned-out and maintained. They are not in combat gear that soldiers would use to walk a patrol in Afghanistan. The Tomb guards are doing something DIFFERENT, and thus their uniforms reflect that. Really, what the ceremonies surrounding the Tomb are is the highest form of ART. It is living ART, not consisting of a mere two-dimensional representation, not consisting of inanimate objects, but ART consisting of human beings in action. The uniforms, the gait, the precise rubrics, words, gestures and movements - these all combine into a perpetual work of art that not only moves and inspires the people who witness it, but also accomplishes the goal of making tangible a RESPECT for and a REMEMBRANCE of all of the fallen unknown soldiers. The Tomb Guards walk their patrol whether anyone is there to see them do it or not. It isn't a show. It is a service. It is a liturgy.

Here Rests in Honored Glory . . . Part 2

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - May 28, AD 2012 12:09 PM MST

The Mass is exactly what I just described, except that the Mass is the most perfect artistic action in the universe because the Mass is the artistic creation of God Himself. The Holy Spirit taught the Church the Mass. The Mass is art that is so perfect that it actually causes something to happen - it causes Heaven and Earth to touch, it causes time to be bent such that the moment of "now" touches and intersects with the moment of Calvary 1979 years ago, and it causes bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, made PHYSICALLY PRESENT. Man calls down God, and God, in His infinite love, responds and fully submits in complete love, making Himself present on the Altar both at the moment of His death, and in His resurrection, so that He may go into us physically as Food.

In the Tridentine Mass, the priest observes "custody of the eyes", never looking around and NEVER looking out at the people. Like the guards, priests are supposed to keep their eyes on exactly what they are doing without distraction. The Guards at the Tomb wear mirrored sunglasses to block out all eye contact. Priests are supposed to keep their eyes DOWN or CLOSED, with a couple of exceptions such as just before the consecration when they are to look up to Heaven. This is like the Guards' rubric of looking from side-to-side very deliberately when inspecting the rifle and the relieving officer. Did you catch that?

Priests are also supposed to walk with a very deliberate gait - slow, measured and reverent in exactly the same way the Tomb Guards walk in a slow, deliberate, reverent gait.

Priests are only supposed to say very specific words - no improvisation, no modifications. The Guards are the same way. They have a very strict announcement that they make at the changing, and they have very strict words that they say when telling people to be quiet and observe reverent silence (there is a YouTube video of that happening, look it up.) There is no chatting or extemporaneous speech. In the Church, the command is "Say the black, do the red," in reference to the layout of the Roman Missal with the words of prayer in black and the instructions for the intensely precise rubrics, down to every gesture, in red.

I would analogize the exaggerated heel-clicking movement that the Guards do to the genuflecting of the Priest (and servers, and laity, ahem) to the rubric of ALWAYS genuflecting to the right knee EACH AND EVERY TIME the axis of the Tabernacle is crossed. In many Catholic Churches, the Tabernacle, which is the center of the Church - heck, it is the center of the universe - has been moved off to the side, or even hidden in a sacristy. Where a Tabernacle is present, Our Lord, physically present inside, is largely ignored. I have never seen a Novus Ordo priest consistently observe the loving rubric of genuflecting to the Tabernacle every time the plane is crossed. In fact, most Novus Ordo priests wander around the sanctuary with their backs turned to the Tabernacle while they put on their "performance." This would be analogous to the Tomb itself at Arlington being moved "out of the way" and instead a stage being erected upon which the Guards would perform. It makes you sick to think of that happening at Arlington - but that is largely what has happened to the Mass.

There is even an analogue in the Changing of the Guard ceremony to the Consecration of the Host in the Mass. Did you hear it when you watched the video above? It comes at the 2:36 mark. A rifle is fired, its report thus commemorating the moment of death of the Unknowns. In the Mass, the moment of consecration and transubstantiation are the report of Christ's words spoken by the priest:

HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.

(This is My Body.)
 
Finally, the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns:

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD

This is analogous to the words of the Mass:

ECCE AGNUS DEI, ECCE QUI TOLLIT PECCATA MUNDI.

(Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.)
 
In the Mass, Christ is alive, physically present in the Eucharist, veiled under the mere appearance of bread and wine. At the Tomb, the Unknowns remain dead - only their memory, veiled in anonymity, is honored and made present.

The point is this: if we all know and understand and FEEL the power of the excellent, excellent ceremonial rubrics of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, if we understand the power of "living art", and we understand how important the concepts of reverence, solemnity, precision, dignity and beauty in movement and action are in the context of the Tomb, why, oh why, do we continue to tolerate the lack of reverence, the lack of solemnity, the absence of liturgical precision and dignity and the resulting UGLINESS that has been unleashed on the Mass, which is not just a mere memorial of Calvary, but is Calvary Itself, physically present, and Our Resurrected Lord physically present?

The Tomb of the Unknowns merits the excellent, beautiful, solemn, reverent, disciplined ceremony of the Guards.

Our Lord, Crucified, Risen and physically present to us deserves INFINITELY MORE excellence, beauty, solemnity, reverence, discipline and dignity in His Mass.

Demand it. Now.



Link:

• Here Rests in Honored Glory

Navy launches U.S.S. Independence, first of new class of weapons-bristling speedster trimarans

We’ve been hearing rumblings about the U.S. Navy’s triple-hulled ships, but here’s one that was launched last month, the U.S.S Independence. Built by General Dynamics, it’s called a “littoral combat ship” (LCS), and the trimaran can move huge weapons around faster than any ship in the Navy. Ironic that with all that high tech built in, the ship reminds us of the Merrimac ironclad from Civil War days.

Littoral means close to shore, and that’s where these fleet-hulled babies will operate, tailor-made for launching helicopters and armored vehicles, sweeping mines and firing all manner of torpedoes, missiles and machine guns.

These ships were designed to be relatively inexpensive — this one’s a bargain at $208 million — and the navy plans to build 55 of them. This trimaran is the first of the new fire-breathing breed, ready to scoot out of dry dock at a rumored 60 knots. It's like a speedy and heavily-armed aircraft carrier for helicopters.

• Link