{"id":815,"date":"2009-06-12T09:59:17","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T09:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/us-army-burns-bibles-in-afghanistan.html"},"modified":"2009-06-12T09:59:17","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T09:59:17","slug":"us-army-burns-bibles-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/us-army-burns-bibles-in-afghanistan.html","title":{"rendered":"U.S Army Burns Bibles in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"burning_book.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Picture courtesy of  http:\/\/images.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/mycontemplations.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/burning_book.jpg&imgrefurl<\/p>\n

In the what’s the U.S. coming to department, we have now learned that the U.S Army has been burning Bibles in Aghanistan to prevent them from being given to Afghans and influencing them. This apparently has been going on for a while now and is not a recent development.  Here is the link to the CNN story for you to check out—-<\/p>\n

http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2009\/WORLD\/asiapcf\/05\/20\/us.military.bibles.burned\/index.html?eref=edition<\/p>\n

The Bibles in question were translations into Pashto and Dari, the two main dialects likely to be read by Afghans.  Here is the gist of the story courtesy of CNN—<\/p>\n

“The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were
\nconfiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because
\nmilitary rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while
\ndeployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.<\/p>\n

Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.<\/p>\n

\n‘The decision was made that it was a ‘force protection’ measure to
\nthrow them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by
\nAfghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to
\nconvert Muslims,’ Wright told CNN on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Burn their trash?   The Bible is trash?  If you had any doubts that the official policies of the U.S. government are not particularly Christian, even during the Bush administration, you need look no further than this action.  Real Christians would simply refuse to burn the Bible.  That’s even worse than burning the American flag.   But let’s hear what you think about all this. A special kudo to Ben Devan for sending me this story. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picture courtesy of  http:\/\/images.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/mycontemplations.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/burning_book.jpg&imgrefurl In the what’s the U.S. coming to department, we have now learned that the U.S Army has been burning Bibles in Aghanistan to prevent them from being given to Afghans and influencing them. This apparently has been going on for a while now and is not a recent development.  Here is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nU.S Army Burns Bibles in Afghanistan - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/us-army-burns-bibles-in-afghanistan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S Army Burns Bibles in Afghanistan - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Picture courtesy of  http:\/\/images.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/mycontemplations.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/burning_book.jpg&imgrefurl In the what’s the U.S. coming to department, we have now learned that the U.S Army has been burning Bibles in Aghanistan to prevent them from being given to Afghans and influencing them. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}