As your Chaplain (and we have at least two others far better and more qualified for this job than I – Ed Gray and Dexter Miller), I would like to very briefly confront our membership with a challenge that I believe is crucial to our country’s future and the education of today’s youth. That challenge is how our courts and many of our fellow citizens have interpreted the First Amendment, commonly referred to as the ‘establishment clause’, to the US Constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” To many this means the freedom from religion not the freedom of religion as I strongly believe it is intended and so states.
I am a Christian and I strongly believe that my religious beliefs play an essential role in my life. As a Christian, I strongly believe I have a responsibility to practice my religion on a daily basis; I also believe that I have a responsibility to demonstrate and reflect the love of Christ for the benefit of others. I do not, however, believe that I have the right to force on others my beliefs – nor do I believe that they have the right to force their beliefs on me, whether they are Jewish, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, or agnostics. I should be free to practice my religion in the manner I believe; as should others. I believe this is what the First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees.
As VFW members, I believe we have a continuing responsibility to our Nation’s youth (and others), to serve as examples stressing what made and what continues to make this Country of ours great. Our Country was founded by men who clearly understood the inherent and God Given Right of Freedom including Freedom of Religion and not Freedom from Religion. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to worship (or not worship) our God in the way each individual or group of individuals – a church – freely chooses.