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MRFF stops Christian commander from forcing soldiers to attend mandatory Easter sunrise service [1]

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Date: 2025-04-17

Well, the Easter season is upon us once again, bringing with it the schemes of Christian nationalist and Christian supremacist commanders in our military to force a little Christian “love” on their unsaved subordinates.

In the last few years, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has put a stop to a few particularly creative Easter season proselytizing schemes, like the Good Friday lowering of the American flag on one military base “In honor of the Easter blood sacrifice of Our Savior Jesus Christ,” and a commander-hosted Easter event during duty hours at which the heavily-coerced attendees’ palms would be marked with red lipstick to symbolize the blood of Christ.

This year’s Easter story comes from a large military base where a commander didn’t just pressure but ordered all soldiers in his unit to attend an Easter sunrise service so as not to insult the Christians in the unit.

As one of the 61 soldiers who came to MRFF to stop this Christian commander’s illegal and completely unconstitutional order wrote:

“Very recently our commander ORDERED our unit to attend Easter Sunday sunrise services this weekend set for April 20. The commander stated that doing so would ‘show respect to one of the world’s great religions’ and that it was ‘mandatory unit spiritual fitness training’. He also stated that failure to attend the mandatory sunrise services for Easter would be ‘disrespecting one of the world‘s great religions’ and ‘insulting to the Christians in our unit’.”

Can you even imagine if a Jewish commander ordered their Christian subordinates to attend their synagogue or a Muslim commander ordered theirs to fast during Ramadan, telling them that not doing so would be “insulting” to the Jews or Muslims in their unit? The Christians (of the MAGA/Christian nationalist ilk) would be running to Fox News screaming “WOKENESS!!!!” and, with the MAGA regime in power, the non-Christian commanders would be unceremoniously and expeditiously fired.

Now, the Christian commander won’t get fired, of course, but MRFF did get his mandatory Easter service attendance order nixed, and he has now apparently gone off to sulk somewhere, as MRFF’s client continued:

“Mr. Weinstein contacted three levels of our chain of command above our commander. And in a period of just 24 hours the order to attend easter Sunday sunrise services has now been canceled by (superior unit name and nomenclature withheld) HQ! Our senior command made it clear to “belay that order” so that is a BIG WIN for all of us here. And it would not have happened without the direct intervention of Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF! Currently our commander is MIA and no one knows where he is?”

But the best part of the client’s e-mail was this paragraph:

“In appreciation for standing up for us when we couldn’t do it for ourselves we would like Mr. Weinstein and the entire Military Religious Freedom Foundation to become our unofficial ‘battle buddies’ in our combat unit! This is a big honor which is not often bestowed on anyone who would not be in our combat unit.”

MRFF is tremendously honored to become unofficial “battle buddies” with these 61 intrepid soldiers!

Here’s the full e-mail from the client quoted from above:

From: (Active Duty U.S. Army Soldier’s/MRFF Client's email address withheld)

Subject: MRFF stops mandatory Easter Sunday sunrise services

Date: April 15, 2025 at 11:42:07 AM MDT

To: Mikey Weinstein <[email protected]> In appreciation to Mr. Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation staffers: I am a United States soldier stationed at a large military base and part of a large combat unit. Very recently our commander ORDERED our unit to attend Easter Sunday sunrise services this weekend set for April 20. The commander stated that doing so would “show respect to one of the world’s great religions“ and that it was “mandatory unit spiritual fitness training”. He also stated that failure to attend the mandatory sunrise services for Easter would be "disrespecting one of the world‘s great religions" and “insulting to the Christians in our unit". This order seemed to be totally sketch and completely illegal and unconstitutional to many of us soldiers and we were shocked. Nobody knew what to do? Least of all to confront our commander without facing immediate and severe revenge and reprisal. I happen to be Christian myself but many of the soldiers in our unit with whom we have combat trained for months and years are either not Christians or practice other types of religions. Or some of them don’t practice any religion at all. As soon as this order came down we all knew how this would be perceived by soldiers of other faiths than Christianity and no faith. We contacted one of our installation MRFF representatives who connected us with Mr. Weinstein. He took our phone call even though it was late night time where he was and well past normal business operating hours. The total number of our group now in our unit asking for the help of Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF is at 61 soldiers. Which includes 38 Christians like me and the others are Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Sikh. And some others along with atheist and agnostics etc. Mr. Weinstein listened very carefully and asked us for the contact information for our commander’s immediate chain of command. Mr. Weinstein contacted three levels of our chain of command above our commander. And in a period of just 24 hours the order to attend easter Sunday sunrise services has now been canceled by (superior unit name and nomenclature withheld) HQ! Our senior command made it clear to “belay that order” so that is a BIG WIN for all of us here. And it would not have happened without the direct intervention of Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF! Currently our commander is MIA and no one knows where he is? In appreciation for standing up for us when we couldn’t do it for ourselves we would like Mr. Weinstein and the entire Military Religious Freedom Foundation to become our unofficial “battle buddies“ in our combat unit! This is a big honor which is not often bestowed on anyone who would not be in our combat unit. We are so thankful to our installation MRFF representative and to Mr. Weinstein and all of the MRFF staffers. They all provide a place for those of us in the military who are being abused regarding our religious rights under our constitution to fight back against the offender! We thank all of you for standing up for our civil rights and for teaching yet another lesson to this particular commander and others. Finally please do not release any identification on me and the other MRFF clients here. Thank you MRFF. (Active Duty U.S. Army Soldier’s/MRFF Client’s name, rank, unit, MOS, and military installation all withheld)

MRFF IS NOW ON BLUESKY! FOLLOW US FOR THE LATEST MRFF NEWS!

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