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Bonnie Weinstein: We're a military group that goes after unlawful Christian proselytizing in America's military.
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Absolutely not. We're pro-military, we're pro-religion, and we're pro-no-religions. What's happening is that there's a proselytizing conflict going on in America's military today that is exceedingly dangerous.Is there a particular branch of the armed forces that's the number-once source?
No, it's pretty evenly distributed, although we have come across lots of opposition at the Air Force Academy. So a lot of our stories come out from there, because we're not able to work with them internally and can't fix the problems.That's in Colorado Springs, which is an evangelical hotbed that's home to Focus on the Family, and probably other groups.
Exactly.The collection you published is just a tiny fragment—the greatest hits, so to speak, although that might be putting too much of a positive spin on it.
We get ten of those a week, basically. Ten of the really bad ones. I went through thousands of them and came across the best of the worst, but I'm not at all selective, aside from putting them into different chapters. I could have written the entire book on anti-Semitism.I'm struck by how a lot of these people view the US military not merely as an agent of the Lord's work, for bombing Muslims, but that they're specifically seeking it as a dominion for evangelizing. They want to make sure it's Christianized.
They have completely hijacked the idea of patriotism and of standing behind the flag to mean that you're a Christian patriot standing behind the Christian flag of a Christian nation.
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I think they have a lot of misinformation and they don't take the time to check, because the information they're hearing checks all their boxes. It's either white supremacy, or misogyny, anti-gay, anti-black. It fits perfectly into their way of thinking.How much have you actually feared for your personal safety?
My dog is a security dog that is with me all the time. Each time I speak, I have security there. You're always looking over your shoulder these days. I usually travel under a pseudonym.Do you notice if these letters tend to peak around the holidays? Or is it just a general torrent of hate all year long?
Oh yeah, this is all year long. If anything, it peaks when we've had more exposure than normal and we've done something positive for people in the military. In 2011, there was something about proselytizing going on in gift boxes that were being sent out to children. We stopped that, because they were being given out by a military command organization on a base. So we got horrible letters about that one, how we're stealing Christmas from children.Did you write this book to shake it off, or to draw attention to the fact that you're under siege?
The latter, absolutely. To expose these people. So many people go around and have a wonderful Christmas and a wonderful holiday, and they don't think about and/or they don't know about this subterranean culture, and it's important that they know. What's going on in the name of the Christianity, in the name of this benevolent Lord that has supposedly taught love and kindness. I know it's shocking, but it needs to be out there.Is there one that stands out as the most intense? Do you have a least favorite?
The one that hoped Mikey would have a heart attack while driving a car near our house and kill as many live things as he could, that one was especially creative.Follow Peter Lawrence Kane on Twitter.
