U.S. Military Involvement in Christian Reality Show Raises Flags
A watchdog group that guards against the promotion of Christianity in the U.S. military is crying foul after it came across three episodes of a Christian reality show that were filmed in Afghanistan.
The show, "Travel the Road," documents the lives of two young missionaries as they undertake expeditions into the most remote areas of the world to share the gospel.
Part of the non-profit organization Challenge for Christ Ministries, "Travel the Road" airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and has won multiple awards, including the NRB People's Choice Award for Best Series, a Nova Award for Best Series, Telly Awards for Best Series and Best Editing, and a Redemptive Film Festival Storyteller Award.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Travel the Road is a two-fold ministry," the show's producers explain in their mission statement. "First, we actively preach the message of Christ Jesus to remote people groups who have never heard the gospel, or are currently cutoff from active mission work. Second, we document our expeditions and present them in a weekly television series to motivate the church to be active in missions."
While the third season of the TV series has already been made available on DVD, it is the last three episodes of its second season that prompted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to issue an alert to its supporters on Friday.
"For these episodes, the missionaries were completely embedded and, thus, actually permitted to stay on U.S. military bases, travel with a public affairs unit, and accompany and film troops on patrols, all for the purpose of evangelizing Afghanis and producing a television show promoting the Christian religion," the watchdog organization reported.
It claimed that the number of DoD (Department of Defense) Public Affairs regulations that were violated in the military's participation and assistance in producing the religious program alone is "staggering."
Furthermore, MRFF called "outrageous" the alleged violation of the U.S. Central Command's General Order 1-A, which prohibits any proselytization whatsoever in the Middle Eastern theater of operations.
"In complete disregard of this bedrock standing order, the U.S. Army facilitated these evangelizing Christian missionaries in their distribution of New Testaments in Dari, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan," MRFF argued.
The group plans to amend a federal lawsuit it filed against the Department of Defense earlier this year – currently in federal District Court in Kansas City – to "include these despicable unconstitutional promotions of fundamentalist Christianity in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan," according to MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein.
Founded nearly three years ago, MRFF says it works to ensure that the U.S. government adheres to the spirit as well as the letter of the Constitution and that it leads by example. It also claims that it is playing a "critical" part in the effort to expand religious freedom in the military.
