Precursor to the militant religious groups who are so strongly pushing their agendas on the rest of us?
Jeff Sharlet's The Family is a book I have been reading in a random order as something catches my eye. The Militant Liberty term got my attention because of the recent attention on the rise of religion in the military.
The Abram referred to is Abram Vereide of The Fellowship.
Page 202 of The Family by Jeff Sharlet discusses the effort to force spiritual conforming in the military.
Sharlet points out that President Eisenhower
embraced Abram’s Idea of strength through spiritual conformism, allowing prayer cells to proliferate within the Pentagon and signing off on a Fellowship project called “Militant Liberty,” developed by a fundamentalist propagandist on Abram’s payroll named John C. Broger.
Broger, also an ill-defined “consultant” on the Pentagon payroll, was promoted
to the Department of Defense’s Office of Information and Education, a post from which he’d control the Pentagon’s propaganda on more than 1,000 military radio and television stations and in 2,000 newspapers for almost three decades.
In 1958, Abram made him a vice president of the Fellowship, bringing Broger’s propaganda to the elites even the Pentagon couldn’t reach. “The seed,” Broger would say, speak-
ing of his fundamentalist faith, “was dropped thousands of times.” A tall, jowled man, balding and mustachioed, a squinter, Broger learned how to propagandize as an American aide to Filipino guerrillas in World War II. In December 1945, he turned those talents toward the Gospel, incorporating the Far East Broadcasting Company to bring the Good News to Asia. In 1948, from a patch of Philippines jungle littered with the scraps of war, he first sang “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” live on KZAS, “Call of the Orient” radio. He built more stations, scouting them out himself from planes made of corrugated tin in which he’d y over China, Vietnam, Cambodia. In 1950, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, a zealous Presbyterian, asked for a briefing; Broger would now get his chance to combine his passions for propaganda and evangelism.
More about the goal of Militant Liberty:
A statement of its goals can be found in the Fellowship’s archives:
the recruitment of “indoctrinated personnel who will form nucleus groups for the implementation of . . . the highest concepts of freedom, whether socially acceptable or not.” By highest concepts of freedom, Broger meant the American Jesus, a Christ of strict order; “Social Order,” “Law and Order,” “Economic Order,” and “Religion”
were among the main topics of indoctrination.
All about order, their definition of order.
About Broger's use of Hollywood propaganda.
From pages 203 and 204 of The Family.
..."Early on, he managed to recruit more talented
collaborators. Some of the most talented in America, in fact: the di-
rector John Ford, John Wayne, and Merian Cooper, the producer
who paired Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers.
Ford had worked as a spy during the war, photographing guerrilla warfare in occupied Europe; Cooper had fought Pancho Villa in Mexico and own against Germany in World War I; and John Wayne was John Wayne. In 1955, Broger flew to Hollywood for a series of daylong meetings with the moviemakers, and Ford asked for eighteen copies of the Militant Liberty program to distribute to his screen-writers. He also suggested that Broger insert Militant Liberty into the movie he was directing at the time, The Wings of Eagles, in which Wayne played a navy flier battling naive pacifists in Congress for
funding. Broger obliged; thankfully, the movie has disappeared from
film history.
The film has not disappeared from history....I found the
original trailer with no trouble at all. Quite an all star cast.
The Wings of Eagles is filmmaker John Ford's paean to his frequent collaborator--and, it is rumored, drinking buddy--Cmdr. Frank "Spig" Wead. John Wayne stars as Wead, a reckless WW1 Naval aviator who (it says here) was instrumental in advancing the cause of American "air power".
..."Not one of John Ford's more coherent films--in fact, it's downright sloppy at times--The Wings of Eagles nonetheless contains several highlights, not least of which are the "I'm gonna move that toe" scene with John Wayne and Dan Dailey, and Ward Bond's inside-joke performance as irreverent film director "John Dodge".
Movies like that played a huge part of building "patriotism" and militarism in a feel good sort of way. John Wayne's specialty, I fear, though few recognized it at the time.
It seems the Pentagon never fully implemented Broger's Militant Liberty program, but Broger had years to spread his message.
"It was nevertheless relentlessly promoted by the Defense Department, with Broger delivering briefings on its provocative precepts to war colleges and service schools around the country."
That is from Alternet in 2007.
Birth of the Christian Soldier: How Evangelicals Infiltrated the American MilitaryIt took decades for evangelicals to infiltrate the military, but eventually fundamentalist theology adapted as its entry points the culture of authority, duty, and sacrifice in the armed forces.
...."Another front-and-center fundamentalist was John C. Broger, whose more than two decades at the helm of Armed Forces Information and education (AFIE) from 1961 to 1984 provided him, according to Anne Loveland, "a central role in the ideological indoctrination of armed forces personnel." A former radio evangelist, Broger was hired by the Defense Department at the height of the Cold War to provide what his mentor, Admiral Arthur Radford, called "Spiritual stiffening" of the troops in their battle against atheistic communism. Broger's view of that battle was quickly made clear: it was a fight that could not be won on the basis of "military manpower and production potential" alone.
What was needed was "godly precepts and principles," and "strength and inspiration in godly righteousness." To that end he created the Militant Liberty program, consisting of what some observers at the time dismissed as "pseudo-scientific jargon and high-sounding clichés." It was nevertheless relentlessly promoted by the Defense Department, with Broger delivering briefings on its provocative precepts to war colleges and service schools around the country. The eventual refusal of the Pentagon to fully implement Militant Liberty hardly slowed the peripatetic evangelist's military career track: he was subsequently appointed director of AFIE, from which perch he delivered such pronouncements as "If the government is to be ordained of God, then spiritual and moral concepts must under-gird and relate to all political, economic, educational and cultural areas of national life."
The religious component continues in the military now, and this United States Army Captain shared his experiences.
From Dispatches from the Culture Wars:
An Officer's experiences.
I see no reason why I should have to bow my head to participate in this involuntary prayer. But if I stand at attention, I am still showing that I am subject to religion in my professional duties. I have discovered that any other movements or fidgeting are viewed as disrespectful to those who wish to pray. Army leaders send the message out that prayer is voluntary, and that Soldiers do not have to participate. As a Platoon Leader serving in Iraq, my Squad Leaders and I were ordered to attend a mission briefing with the Battalion Command Team's security squad. The briefing concluded with a Soldier being ordered to lead the group in prayer. I was disturbed because I knew that there were Soldiers on this team who did not share the specific, sectarian Christian religious beliefs being expressed.
I was standing at the edge of the formation, and chose to quietly walk away. I was later counseled by my Commander and informed that the Battalion Command Team had heard of the incident and recommended I be relieved from my duties as Platoon Leader.
My Commander explained that, by not bowing my head in blatantly Christian prayer with the others, I was sending a message that I "want my Soldiers to die." These words penetrated my core. What leader can imagine a worse accusation? Who wouldn't doubt herself or himself when confronted with this message? The threat of being relieved was completely overshadowed and, again, I was an outsider, incapable of leadership because I refused this unconstitutional perversion of Christianity synonymous with the Command.Could I not, would I not be an effective combat ready officer/leader/warrior without first very publicly and repeatedly demonstrating my singular loyalty to Jesus Christ? Could I not lead brave military women and men into combat for my country without being an avowed fundamentalist Christian? I stopped practicing my own religion; I disassociated myself from Soldiers who were similarly persecuted; I lost hope.
An Officer's Experience in Our Christian MilitaryThere is a militancy through our nation now. There is a pushiness, a demand that we all be just like the religious right in our views of social issues. There was a terrible confrontation over Iraq...we were supposed to believe our leader was chosen by God in a war of good and evil.
Most of us on the left know what we are wanting for our country. We don't have the anger, and we don't have the pushy methods like the other side does.
It's like the themes of religion, control, and again.."militancy" are so entrenched on the right now. I think we relaxed too much after the elections of 2006 and 2008. We did not see them coming...the teabaggers, the truthers, the birthers, the ones who don't know what they are angry about. We must not underestimate them.
They started years ago under many guises, and we in our party never really caught on.
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