Hey General Petraeus, Howâs That âSpiritual Fitnessâ Stuff Working For You? November 13, 2012 at 12:57 pm Chris Rodda I hate hypocrites. And the first word that came to mind when I heard about David Petraeusâs extramarital affair was âhypocrite.â One of the big issues weâve been dealing with for several years at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is the militaryâs push to make our troops âspiritually fit.â Thereâs the mandatory Army-wide âSpiritual Fitnessâ test, spiritual fitness concerts, spiritual fitness centers, and lots of other spiritual fitness events and programs to keep our military âspiritual.â But while the military insists that âspiritual fitnessâ does not mean religion, it does. All of this spiritual fitness stuff, which the military spares no expense on, is just a cover to push religion, and particularly evangelical Christianity. The spiritual fitness concerts always have evangelical Christian performers and most of the Armyâs Strong Bonds events are really just evangelical Christian retreats. And whatâs one of the big goals of all this âspiritual fitnessâ stuff? Strong marriages, of course! And who was a big proponent of this âspiritual fitnessâ stuff? Yeah, you got it â General David Petraeus. Gen. Petraeus first came on MRFFâs radar back in 2007, when we were looking into the completely unconstitutional practice of soldiers being forced to attend mandatory Christian concerts during basic training at several of the Armyâs largest training installations. Thatâs when we found Petraeusâs photo and endorsement of these concerts on the Eric Horner Ministries website, praising Hornerâs military base concerts. Then, in August 2008, Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of MRFF, noticed a half-page ad in the Air Force Times for a book by Army chaplain Lt. Col. William McCoy. Chaplain McCoyâs book, Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel, a manual promoting Christianity and asserting that non-religious service members had no defense against sin and could therefore cause the failure of their units, was endorsed by none other than Gen. Petraeus, whose blurb on the bookâs cover read: âUnder Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy.â This completely inappropriate endorsement of a book that denigrated the 21% of our military who donât happen to be religious led Keith Olbermann to name Petraeus one of his âWorst Persons.â But not everybody found Petraeusâs eagerness to promote religion to be inappropriate. In November 2011, Army Chaplain (Col.) Brent Causey, who had been the top chaplain to Petraeus in Afghanistan, told the Baptist Press that âGen. Petraeus played a leadership role in stressing the importance of spirituality,â and that it was âa reflection of Gen. Petraeus and his leadership in placing importance on spiritualityâ that â85 percent of our leadership were active in dynamic Bible studyâ and so many were âmaking first-time commitments to Christ.â And Petraeus (second from left) certainly appeared to be a model Christian leader, piously bowing his head in prayer at events like this reenlistment ceremony at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, July 4, 2011 ⦠http://freethoughtblogs.com/rodda/2...that-spiritual-fitness-stuff-working-for-you/
why do you say that. guilt should be reserved for those times when you do harm. not because some invisible guy in the sky might be unhappy you broke one one of his rules. i think its the mentality that you always have a "get out of jail free card"that gets christians in so much trouble.