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Breitbart News is reporting, "The Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has issued a damning report revealing the U.S. State Department’s promotion of atheism abroad in the name of 'religious freedom.'”
That's right. Your taxpayer dollars are funding the promotion of atheism under the guise of "religious freedom."
Be informed, not misled.
At the culmination of a two-year congressional investigation into the State Department’s funding of “ideologically charged foreign aid projects overseas,” Chairman Michael T. McCaul wrote in a summary report Wednesday that the current administration has failed to be an effective steward of the cause of religious freedom abroad, preferring instead to support atheism.
McCaul's report begins with this:
"For the last two years, a little-watched congressional investigation has been exploring the nature of religious freedom and, specifically, whether the United States is an effective steward of that cause when it funds ideologically charged foreign aid projects overseas. After obtaining information the Department of State tried to keep hidden, my colleagues and I have learned that some members of our nation’s diplomatic corps consider the concept of “religious freedom” to be as malleable as clay, even entailing, in some cases, government promotion of nonbelief. Regardless of one’s faith tradition or political allegiances, this distortion is cause for concern."
Indeed, this is another example of how far so-called "progressive" leadership in the country has led us away from our founding principles.
McCaul says, "For these bureaucrats, the term “religious” effectively denotes “having some disposition toward religion”—including the rejection thereof."
In the minds of the secularist humanists, "religious" means rejecting religion.
He continues: "The term 'religious,' therefore, can also mean 'nonreligious.' On this reading, funding for religious freedom initiatives may be diverted from religious minorities around the globe to support agnostics’ and atheists’ right to disbelieve in any deity and to manifest their nonbelief publicly."
The report explains, "In the State Department’s novel view, when difficult choices must be made regarding limited public funds, these nonreligious groups deserve the imprimatur of the United States government, sometimes to the exclusion of the truly imperiled faithful. And supporting these nonbelievers’ 'freedom' requires not only reducing state coercion of and societal discrimination against nonbelievers, but also actively promoting their worldviews, at least in certain countries."
Breitbart noted, "McCaul and his team obtained 'information the Department of State tried to keep hidden,' he notes, showing that funding for religious freedom initiatives has been 'diverted from religious minorities around the globe to support agnostics’ and atheists’ right to disbelieve.”
According to McCaul and his team, such a notice translates as: “We want you all to come up with ideas for expanding the presence and influence of atheists overseas.”
The report is quick to note that the State Department’s promotion of atheism abroad does not arise in response to a situation where nonreligious people were being persecuted but seems to be simply an ideological choice to promote non-belief--atheism.
If atheism is a "religion," as some atheists, as well as our own State Department, appear to believe, would the US Government financially supporting the advancement of religion be in violation of their claims about the separation of church and state?
"In countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka, the text observes, certain Christians and Muslims have recently faced persecution, whereas atheists or humanists have been left in peace. Yet the State Department deliberately chose to spurn the religious groups most in need of assistance in the relevant countries and devote funds instead to a pet project, one that appears to have been tailored for the grantee.”
Moreover, the report found that there were no countervailing religious freedom grants to support persecuted Christians and Muslims in Nepal and Sri Lanka. These groups were simply ignored.
The report also found that official grant documents, some of which were obtained by subpoena, proposed “translating and disseminating various humanist content (declarations, textbooks, guides, etc.) into the relevant national and local languages."
Takeaway
Turning the concept of religious freedom on its head, the training program implemented in Nepal promoted freedom of nonbelief but suggested that a so-called “freedom of religious belief” does not entail manifestations of faith such as Christian priests’ distribution of the Eucharist.
It also asserted that when a Christian adoption agency, acting on sincerely held religious convictions, denies services to same-sex couples, it violates human rights, a stance that contradicts U.S. policy.
McCaul notes that related training programs focused on recruiting for antireligious organizations and converting people into active “humanists. "
In the Nepal case, the State Department grant from U.S. taxpayer money was awarded to Humanists International, an anti-Christian group whose CEO has stated that people should be ashamed to be associated with the Catholic Church.
I suppose that would apply to the Protestant Church as well.
McCaul wrote: We observe “an elite, professional class that has no qualms about using taxpayer money to export its own secular agenda overseas, attempting to keep the details from being known outside the Department,” while calling on Congress to put an immediate halt to this new model of atheistic proselytism.
These are the kinds of things that caused Americans to pause in this last presidential election, set aside all the lawfare launched at destroying Donald Trump the past several years, and say, "I've had enough."
"I'm fed up with this insanity."
And resoundingly choose another path for our country.
Be Informed, Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.