Because nothing says “Jesus loves you!” quite like making someone’s head disappear in a cloud of pink mist….

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes (Joseph Rhee, Tahman Bradley, and Brian Ross/ABC News/Nightline; Jan 18)

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as “the light of the world.” John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.” The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

The company’s vision is described on its Web site: “Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom.”

“We believe that America is great when its people are good,” says the Web site. “This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.”

[Apparently those "Biblical standards" do not include those passages about "Thou shalt not kill," "Resist not evil," or "Turn the other cheek."]

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both said their services were unaware of the biblical markings. They said officials were discussing what steps, if any, to take in the wake of the ABCNews.com report. It is not known how many Trijicon sights are currently in use by the U.S. military.

The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company’s Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

“It’s wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws,” said Michael “Mikey” Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

“It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they’ve told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as “spiritually transformed firearm(s) of Jesus Christ.”

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of “those who are calling this a Crusade.”

According to a government contracting watchdog group, fedspending.org, Trijicon had more than $100 million in government contracts in fiscal year 2008. The Michigan company won a $33 million Pentagon contract in July, 2009 for a new machine gun optic, according to Defense Industry Daily. The company’s earnings from the U.S. military jumped significantly after 2005, when it won a $660 million long-term contract to supply the Marine Corps with sights.

“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

Marine Corps Concerned About ‘Jesus Guns,’ Will Meet With Trijicon (Joseph Rhee and Mark Schone/ABC News; Jan 19)

Following an ABC News report that thousands of gun sights used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with secret Bible references, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps said the Corps is ‘concerned’ and will discuss the matter with the weapons manufacturer.

“We are aware of the issue and are concerned with how this may be perceived,” Capt. Geraldine Carey, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps, said in a statement to ABC News. “We will meet with the vendor to discuss future sight procurements.” Carey said that when the initial deal was made in 2005 it was the only product that met the Corps needs.

However, a spokesperson for CentCom, the U.S. military’s overall command in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he did not understand why the issue was any different from U.S. money with religious inscriptions on it.

“The perfect parallel that I see,” said Maj. John Redfield, spokesperson for CentCom, told ABC News, “is between the statement that’s on the back of our dollar bills, which is ‘In God We Trust,’ and we haven’t moved away from that.”

Said Redfield, “Unless the equipment that’s being used that has these inscriptions proved to be less than effective for soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and military folks using it, I wouldn’t see why we would stop using that.”

A spokesperson for the Army told ABC News that the Army was looking into the procurement “to see if anything is amiss here. We are still checking.”…

On Monday, spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both told ABC News their services were unaware of the biblical markings. On Tuesday, Redfield of CentCom told ABC News that the inscriptions did not violate the directive against proselytizing. “This does not constitute proselytizing because this equipment is not issued beyond the U.S. Defense Department personnel. It’s not something we’re giving away to the local folks.”

But ABC News was able to find repeated references to the Biblical citations in on-line discussions of the gun sights. In August 2009, a poster named “Latex Ducky” tells other posters on a forum for firearm enthusiasts called “The Firing Line” about the inscriptions. “Here’s something interesting: There should be a reference to a Bible verse on the base of the scope.”

Back in 2006, on a self-described “Armageddon Forum,” a number of users discuss the Bible references. “Seems there’s a different verse on each model,” writes Mr45auto. “They chose some whoppers too!”

After the Blotter’s report Monday morning, the TPM Muckraker news Web site listed numerous references to the Trijicon Bible codes on-line dating back several years, including a January 2006 thread on a gaming forum that said “DoD contractor puts bible verses on it’s (sic) products.”

In May of 2006, a poster on Militaryphotos.net began a comment thread by asking, “Has anyone ever noticed the Bible verse on their ACOG sight?” Another user responds, “Yeah I read about that recently, but I didn’t know there were than many different verses on all the different optics.”

A video on YouTube that discusses the Bible verses had close to 20,000 views. “One of the really cool things that I like about this sight,” says the maker of the video, is the Bible verse. “It says JN8:12. What that is is John 8:12.”

At the end of the model number on Trijicon’s ACOG gun sight, you can read “JN8:12″, a reference to the New Testament book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 12, which reads: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The ACOG is widely used by the U.S. military.

“I love it. I love it. Yes, Trijicon, those guys are Christians. On all of their different sights they have verses on there.”

“For those of you who aren’t Christians, well, you know, get over it.”

In another video, the same YouTube user notes the reference to Second Corinthians on a Trijicon scope….

Retired Army Major General William Nash, now an ABC News consultant, said he had “no problem” with organizations providing Bibles and other religious tracts to U.S. troops. “But I do have a problem,” said Nash, “with military equipment being labeled in a way where it seems like it’s our god against their god.”

Nash, who commanded the first brigade of the third armored division during Desert Storm in Iraq, said the Pentagon should make Trijicon remove the Bible codes from their sights.

Said Nash, “They should fix them all, they should do a modification on those sights and take off those inscriptions. And if they fail to do that they should be penalized.”

“Jesus Guns”: Two More Countries Rethink Using Weapons with Secret Bible References (Joseph Rhee and Mark Schone/ABC News; Jan 20)

After an ABC News report that secret Bible messages are encoded on gun sights used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least two other countries that also use the equipment in Afghanistan are now considering what action to take.

A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Defence Force told the New Zealand newspaper The Press that the coded citations on Trijicon scopes were “inappropriate” and would be removed. A spokesperson for Britain’s Ministry of Defence told the BBC that the ministry was contacting Trijicon, was unaware of the markings at time of purchase, and understood that the markings might be considered offensive.

Major Kristian Dunne of the New Zealand Defence Force said his country’s military was unaware of the Bible references and “unhappy” to learn of them from the media.

“It’s put us in an uncomfortable situation,” Dunne told The Press. “We can see how they would cause offense.” Dunne said that in addition to removing the codes from its 260 existing scopes, New Zealand would ask Trijicon to remove the code from future weapons

According to the BBC, the British military recently ordered 480 Trijicon ACOG sights, and is already using versions of the ACOG sight….

No More Jesus Rifles (Luis Martinez, Joseph Rhee, and Mark Schone/ABC News; Jan 21)

Trijicon, the gunsight maker that has imprinted Bible verse numbers on its scopes, has announced that it will no longer imprint the verses on the sides of scopes intended for the U.S. military, and will also provide clients with the kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes….

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the Department of Defense “applauds the voluntary actions announced today by Trijicon.”

Morrell said the coded Bible reference were clearly inappropriate. Said Morrell, “It is not the policy of the Department of Defense to put religious references of any kind on its equipment.”

Earlier today, Gen. David Petraeus, who commands CentCom, which oversees U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a D.C. thinktank that the company’s practice was “disturbing …and a serious concern for me” and field commanders. He said there had been considerable discussions within the Department of Defense about how to deal with Trijicon’s practice….

Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a civil-rights group, said his organization welcomed the announcement. Said Tarin, “We must ensure that incidents like these are not repeated, so as not to give the impression that our country is involved in a religious crusade, which hurts America’s image abroad and puts our soldiers in harms way.”…

The New Zealand military and the Australian military have already announced their plans to remove the inscriptions from their Trijicon scopes. The British military had also expressed concern about the codes.

Ah, some Christians sure do love their guns, don’t they?

As many other entries I’ve posted over the years on OpenDiary (including this one) have revealed, the Pentagon has repeatedly had a problem with those in its ranks who can’t seem to be able to tell the difference between being soldiers in the US military and being warriors for Christ.

Given what the Bible says about not killing, and given that the early Christians seem to have believed one couldn’t be both a follower of Jesus and a soldier (as explained here), I’m surprised that more Christians today aren’t outraged by stories like this.

Imagine how outraged they would be if the government started passing out “Virgin Mary” condoms or “St. Peter” dildos to its female soldiers in an effort to boost morale and reduce pregnancies.

Why is linking the “Prince of Peace” with an instrument of death apparently far less offensive?