Navy chaplain fired from teaching job after re****t exposed his anti-Islamic
views
By Jason Leopold
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Mar 31, 2008, 00:16
Email this article
Printer friendly page
A top Navy chaplain who wrote a book several years ago attacking Islam,
calling the religion
“evil,” and urging the United States to launch a “jihad” against the
faith, has been fired from
a prestigious theological institute after officials at the school recently
became aware of the
chaplain’s controversial book.
The chaplain’s dismissal comes nine days after an investigative story I
wrote exposed his
stance on Islam as well as the chaplain’s numerous degrees and training
which were obtained
through discredited diploma mills, one of which was the subject of a
criminal investigation.
Lieutenant Commander Brian K. Waite came under scrutiny last year after a
senior researcher for
the government watchdog group, The Military Religious Freedom Foundation
(MRFF), an
organization that seeks to enforce the separation of church and state in
the US military,
discovered that Waite appeared in uniform on a website for a
fundamentalist Christian group.
Waite used his position as a Navy chaplain to promote the fundamentalist
organization in what
appears to be a violation of long-standing military rules.
In an email I obtained, John Morgan, president of the Graduate Theological
Foundation (GTF) in
South Bend, Indiana, wrote to members of his faculty March 20 that
Lieutenant Commander Brian
K. Waite was “dismissed” from the school’s faculty and “is NO LONGER
affiliated with the
Foundation in any capacity” because of offending material in Waite’s book,
“Islam Uncovered.”
The book, which was first discovered by MRFF last year, was not included
in Waite’s lengthy bio
that was once posted on the foundation’s website.
In the book, Waite writes that the Islamic faith itself was culpable for
the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks.
"Undoubtedly our world will experience additional terrorist attempts or
strikes all in the name
of Allah. Some of these attacks may occur within the borders of our own
nation by the remaining
cell groups interspersed and hiding among the Muslim population of the
United States. My words
may make a number of Muslims in this country and abroad very
uncomfortable. To them I would
say, 'Deal with it!' The suspicion that you encounter is merely a
consequence to your own
belief system. . . . ," Waite's book says. " . . . Should Islam be immune
from attack because
it calls itself a religion? If Adolf Hitler called Nazism a religion,
would we be speaking
German today? Evil is evil, no matter what nomenclature it hides under."
The publisher of the book, HeartSpring Media, withdrew the book from
bookstore shelves after
they discovered that Waite had plagiarized much of the material and that
the sup****ting blurbs
on the back cover of the book from prominent members of the religious
community had been
fabricated. Waite is also the author of "For God & Country: One Chaplain's
Perspective of War
and the Life Lessons Learned," published in 2005, also by HeartSpring
Media.
In addition to relieving Waite of his teaching duties, Morgan, the GTF
president, said the
school has scrapped its Military Ministries program, which Chaplain Waite
presided over, in an
effort to “distance ourselves profoundly from his name and his ideas.”
“It has come to our attention that a "former" member of our faculty, Brian
Waite, has written a
book which is now withdrawn by the publisher attacking Islam!” says a copy
of the email written
by Morgan sent to Muslim faculty members. “Please know that we have
dismissed him from our
faculty and terminated our military ministries program . . . If anyone
enquires of you
regarding Brian Waite (a military chaplain serving in Iraq), please assure
them that he was
appointed to the faculty without our knowledge of his book or his feelings
about Islam. Please
know that the Foundation as an institution and myself as its President are
deeply committed to
our Islamic program, faculty, and students.”
Neither Waite, who is currently assigned to the U.S. Navy Operational
Ministries Center in
Norfolk, Virginia, nor a Pentagon spokesman responded to telephone and
email queries seeking
comment.
Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the MRFF, said Waite’s dismissal
from GTF was welcome
news.
"We at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation heartily commend the
Graduate Theological
Foundation for its expeditious action in removing Chaplain Waite from its
faculty,” Weinstein
said. “Sadly, the United States Navy has not only allowed this well
recognized plagiarist into
its Chaplains Corps, it has also taken absolutely no action whatsoever to
rid this miserable
disgrace from our nation's honorable armed forces."
GTF scrubbed its website removing all references to Waite and, in an
interview last Thursday,
Morgan said the school is now referring all students interested in
military ministries studies
to Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut
“After it became know to us that Mr. Waite wrote this book we immediately
terminated our
relation****p with him,” Morgan said in an interview. “We had no knowledge
whatsoever about this
publication. If we had, he never would have been appointed to our faculty.
We have Muslim
students and faculty and our Islamic studies program is very well
respected. Our Islamic
faculty are practicing imams. In fact, there are a wide range of religious
studies at this
school and there is simply no place here for a person like Mr. Waite whose
views on Islam are
not only offensive but conflict with our beliefs and practices.”
In the summer of 2005, GTF launched the Military Ministries program
offering chaplains who are
on active military duty doctorates in military ministries and philosophy.
Waite was appointed
director of the school’s military ministries program in July 2005 and
taught chaplaincy cl*****
at the school on a periodic basis.
Waite’s resume says he holds two doctorates, a Ph.D. in Historical
Theology from Georgia's
Covington Theological Seminary, and a doctorate in Religious Studies from
American Christian
College and Seminary in Oklahoma.
But his credentials are a bit misleading since they were obtained through
unaccredited
institutions.
Indeed, Covington Theological Seminary is just one of the religious
institutions that has been
identified as a "diploma mill," and has been found to award degrees to
students through
"correspondence" studies. Covington had received its accreditation status
by The International
Accrediting Commission for Schools, Colleges and Theological Seminaries
(IAC) of Missouri,
which was caught up in a federal investigation more than a decade ago for
accrediting more than
150 higher learning institutions that failed to meet the most basic
standards under the US
Department of Education, the Generally Accepted Accrediting Principles,
and the Council on
Higher Education (CHEA).
In 1989, Missouri's attorney general launched an investigation to
determine the ease of which
IAC awarded accreditation to schools, particularly Bible colleges, as long
as the educational
institutions had the cash. The attorney general set up a fictitious
college, the East Missouri
Business College, and rented a one-room office in St. Louis and issued a
typewritten catalog
with such school executives as "Peelsburi Doughboy" and "Wonarmmd Mann."
Their marine biology text was The Little Green Book of Fishes. The
school's motto, translated
from Latin, was "Education is for the birds," according to Bears' Guide to
Earning Degrees by
Distance Learning, written by John and Mariah Bear. Nonetheless, Dr.
George Reuter, Director of
the IAC, visited the school, accepted their money, and duly accredited
them. Soon after, the
IAC was enjoined from operating and slapped with a substantial fine, and
the good Dr. Reuter
decided to retire.
Waite's other alma mater, American Christian College and Seminary,
formerly American Bible
College and Seminary, which itself was formerly the University of Biblical
Studies & Seminary,
permanently shut down in 2005 after losing their accreditation with the
Transnational
Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS).
TRACS is a recognized accrediting association that also approved
accreditation for Liberty
University, Bob Jones University, and Patrick Henry College. American
Christian College and
Seminary, however, apparently didn't meet TRACS's rigorous standards. At
the association's
April 2003 meeting, officials refused to reaffirm the school's
accreditation because it failed
to comply with numerous educational standards.
On the website for St. John's church, a civilian Anglican church near the
military station
where Waite is stationed, he is listed as a Former Priest Associate and
Chaplain-in-Residence.
Waite's bio on the church's website contains additional information about
his background that
could not be verified with state officials. The bio states "Chaplain Waite
is also recognized
as one of the foremost traumatologists in the nation, holding
certification as a Field
Traumatologist with the International Traumatology Institute at the
University of South
Florida. He holds 'Diplomat' [sic] status with the American Academy of
Experts in Traumatic
Stress, and has served as point person for Harvard University’s Crisis
Response ****tion of the
Kennedy School of Government’s National Securities Program."
"Field Traumatologist" appears to be the lowest level of certification
issued by the University
of South Florida's International Traumatology Institute. The American
Academy of Experts in
Traumatic Stress provides applicants with certification in traumatology by
simply filling out
an application for a fee of $375, according to its website.
Military chaplains have come under fire from civil rights groups over the
past several years
for allegedly force feeding soldiers a form of fundamentalist Christianity
originating from
highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times" evangelists and their
mega-churches. Evangelical
Christians have become such a dominating presence in the military’s
chaplain corps that the Air
Force held a four-day Spiritual Fitness Conference at Hilton Hotel in
Colorado Springs in 2005
for chaplains and their families.
The presence of evangelical Christian chaplains in the military is
certainly nothing new, but
it comes at what some believe are widespread constitutional violations
with the full knowledge
and sup****t of Pentagon brass. Chaplains and their evangelist counterparts
who lead mega
churches across the country have been invited to US military installations
throughout the world
and have been openly proselytizing military personnel, in violation of the
basic tenets of the
United States Constitution. Under federal law, chaplains are only
authorized to offer
“spiritual guidance” to soldiers. They are strictly prohibited from using
government resources
to proselytize or convert soldiers.
Last October, Waite appeared in an advertisement published in Time
magazine using his Navy
chaplaincy position to promote another Christian organization. That would
be another violation
of military regulations. Weinstein excoriated Waite for exaggerating his
educational background
as well as Waite’s alleged constitutional violations conducted in the name
of religion.
Waite, who was formerly the pastor of a 3,600 member mega-church in
Oklahoma City, first came
under scrutiny last year after MRFF senior research director Chris Rodda
noticed Waite’s
photograph on a website for Revival Fire Ministries, a fundamentalist
Christian organization.
Waite was photographed in his Navy uniform which is prominently displayed
on the Revival Fires
website and was featured in a brochure for a 2006 camp meeting that
advertised Waite as having
"distributed thousands of Bibles provided by Revival Fires" in Iraq. He
believes the
organization has played an integral part on the war on terror.
"I believe Revival Fires truly became a genuine hero in the war on
terror," Waite says in a
statement that appears under his photograph on Revival Fires’ website.
"Not knowing where I was
going to get a sufficient number of God's Word for my men, I began to
inquire from others about
the possibility of securing bibles. The immediate response I received was
that Revival Fires
had provided literally thousands of copies of the Word of God for the U.S.
Military. Needless
to say, I could not pass them out fast enough."
In an article in Oklahoma’s Ponca City News last August, Waite said that
the distribution of
Bibles to US troops in 2003 resulted in several dozen troops asking to be
baptized.
“I personally saw 60 men come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I
baptized 44 of them at
midnight (for security reasons) in the Tigris River on Easter Sunday, with
another 16 following
shortly thereafter," Waite said, according to the re****t in the Ponca City
News. But Waite
appeared to have exaggerated details of the baptism. However, photographs
of the baptism, which
were featured on the Baptist Press website show that the ceremony took
place not at midnight,
but in broad daylight. Moreover, Waite said that 20 members of the
military who asked to be
baptized were turned away because they “did not seem ready to make such a
commitment.”
Jason Leopold is the author of the National Bestseller, "News Junkie," a
memoir. Visit
newsjunkiebook.com for a preview. He is also a two-time winner of the
Project Censored award,
most recently in 2007, for an investigative story related to Halliburton's
work in Iran. He was
recently named the recipient of the Military Religious Freedom
Foundation’s Thomas Jefferson
Award for a series of stories he wrote that exposed how soldiers in Iraq
and Afghanistan have
been pressured to accept fundamentalist Christianity. Leopold is working
on a new nonprofit
online publication, expected to launch soon.
|
