[TH Spangler]

http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147534657

This is just another example of the Christian faith coming under attack in the military. Earlier this month, an Army email listed prominent Christian ministries like the Family Research Council and American Family Association as "domestic hate groups."

This prompted Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA) to question Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about religious liberty issues during a House Armed Services Committee meeting just two weeks ago.

http://www.frc.org/op-eds/hagel-grilled ... terrorists

[jbock13]

You mean you don't remember all the times those crazy anti-abortion white Southern Baptists have blown up buildings?

[JK37]

You mean you don't remember all the times those crazy anti-abortion white Southern Baptists have blown up buildings?

Way to throw gasoline on the conflagration.

[jbock13]

You mean you don't remember all the times those crazy anti-abortion white Southern Baptists have blown up buildings?

Yeah, me neither

[TH Spangler]

I hope Christians men and women don't stop volunteering to serve. They are a big part of our military. We owe them a great deal.

[jbock13]

Well, let's just take a look at who Big Sis says is the mostly likely to commit acts of terrorism.

You see, we disagree with their liberal ideology, therefore, we must be enemies of the state. It's estimated that 70% of baptists vote Republican, although in fairness there's no way we can know that for sure, it's just from exit polls I've seen.

They hate libertarians too but there's not enough of them yet to present a political opposition to the status quo.

[phoenix]

lol. Seriously, lol


The truth is there was probably something in the coding of SBC.net that set off a warning that there was malicious code there, so it was blocked. The Pentagon could still access the site, and both parties are working on making sure that sbc.net is availablee for chaplains and soldiers.

[adam42381]

Pretty sure this is much ado about nothing. Websites get filtered incorrectly all the time.

[TH Spangler]

Fixed ....

April 26, 2013

Within hours of an AFA Action Alert, the Pentagon said it had resolved the reasons it blocked the Southern Baptist Convention website, http://www.sbc.net, from military computers.

The block came just a few weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as examples of religious extremist groups, and a separate email identified two prominent Christian ministries as "domestic hate groups."

In this case, the Pentagon said the block was a matter of website security and not an infringement on religious liberty. "In this case, security systems performed as expected in detecting a threat to DoD (Department of Defense) networks," Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said in a prepared statement.

"We determined that our web filters recently detected malware at the SBC website, which resulted in the block for some service members," Pickart said. "The department has verified that the Southern Baptist Convention website no longer contains malware that may pose a threat to our networks and will be unblocked today."

Pickart added the block did not have anything to do with the "hostile" or religious content. "The Department of Defense strongly supports the religious rights of service members, to include their ability to access religious websites like that of the SBC," he said.

Immediately after releasing the AFA Action Alert, dozens of military personnel and chaplains told AFA they could not access the Baptist website on base computers, while a few said their military computer allowed the site.

WHY THIS WAS IMPORTANT

Had this issue not gained national attention, the sbc.net website would still be blocked today. Because hundreds of Baptist military personnel and chaplains depend on their denomination's website, it was critical that the site be unblocked quickly.

However, Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA) recently noted during a congressional committee meeting, there is still a level of anti-Christian sentiment within the military, and cited several examples. You can read them here. http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/to ... itary.html

THANK YOU

It is critical that we remain vigilant in defending religious freedom, especially in the military. Because of your actions, the Pentagon quickly resolved this issue and unblocked the sbc.net website.

[phoenix]

http://www.edstetzer.com/2013/04/no-the ... rce=feedly

Bottom line -- we need to stop being so paranoid.

There are real issues out there-- issues of religious liberty, the marginalization of traditional Christian views, and, yes, real persecution around the world.

Like the boy who cried wolf, no one wants to listen to us when we speak of the grave ramifications on very real issues. They won't listen because we've been yelling about the Defense Department censoring an evangelical website.

When we scream so much about that which is not true, we lose our voice in the culture. We must find a way to speak prophetically on issues of real substance without becoming gullibly worked up over the latest controversy du jour.

Before we can be counted on to speak the truth, we must first be committed to seek the truth.

[jbock13]

One should always remain vigilant against the violation of civil liberties no matter if it was all an accident.

[adam42381]

Like the ACLU does?

[phoenix]

One should always remain vigilant against the violation of civil liberties no matter if it was all an accident.

The problem is that we are vigilant to the point of paranoia. We actually believe that the government is trying to get rid of Christian radio, or has labeled denominational websites as hostile because they don't like what it says. We go off on things without checking to see if what we're hearing is true.

Anyone who works in IT could have told you what it meant for a website to be considered hostile by blocking software. We just jumped to a wrong conclusion and pitched a fit about something that wasn't even an issue.

We are too quick to believe the worst in everything. If a public school decides to stop letting a church use it's facilities on Sundays, it's because the school board hates Christians, not because the church was leaving the building trashed every Sunday and it was costing the school extra money to pay janitors to get the building ready for Monday. If Google decides to put up a graphic of something other than an empty tomb on Easter, it's because they hate Jesus.

There is a difference between being vigilant and being paranoid. Sometimes they really aren't out to get you at all -- sometimes they just don't know that it's that big of a deal.

[jbock13]

Like the ACLU does?

They do a few useful things. Except all the sudden they believe that the government shouldn't protect it's citizens from illegitimate force (abortion) so if theyre missing one of the key tennants of libertarian philosophy, one of the few things government shoukd do, they're pretty useless. Most of the ACLU are made up of liberaltarians as I like to call them (plus, I know how much you enjoy me using the word liberal.)

Phoenix, fair enough.

[bluedevilflame]

to you Phoenix!