Recently, via an article on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), we here at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) became aware of a fundamentalist Christian church with the goal of “planting” churches near military installations. Now, we’ve come across many, many churches and groups over MRFF’s two-decade history that talk about the goal of “planting” churches in their own image near military installations, but these have generally been small churches and groups for whom any sort of large-scale “church planting” scheme was nothing more than a pipe dream that was never actually going to happen. The church in the CBN article, however, is in a different league.
The CBN article, titled “Manna Church's God-Sized Goal: Planting a Church Near EVERY US Military Base in the World,” described a large, well-established church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), one of the Army’s largest installations, whose “church planting” operation is already well underway, with, according to CBN, “33 expressions of Manna Church near U.S. military bases as shown in a map on a wall in the church.” Manna’s goal is to plant 273 of its churches.
In the CBN article, one of Manna’s pastors is quoted as saying:
“Uncle Sam, who's kind of become our mission-sending organization because he takes great talented people and relocates them, so that's kind of the vision.”
Manna, like other organizations such as Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry, now called CRU, is using the fact that military personnel move from location to location, and are used as what these organizations refer to as “government-paid missionaries.” (Examples of the use of this government-paid missionaries term can be seen in this MRFF compilation video.) How does this work? Military members are recruited and “discipled” at one location, white the expectation that they will make new converts at their subsequent duty stations, making new disciples at each place they are stationed, who will in turn make more disciples at their duty stations. Manna has given this tactic of using ever-relocating military personnel as missionaries for their church a name: the “Military Highway.”
Unlike most smaller churches and organizations whose “church planting” ambitions are unlikely to come to fruition, we at MRFF did take notice of Manna Church and looked into its activities, and what we found at first was an Army Reserve 1st Lieutenant, Todd Capen, who in his civilian job is the “site pastor” of one of Manna’s several North Carolina locations.
1st Lieutenant Capen is seeking to become an Army chaplain, attending Manna University, which, as you might surmise from its name, was founded by Manna Church, and now has 11 “Extension Sites and Mentoring Centers.”
1st Lieutenant Capen’s goal of becoming a military chaplain brings up an issue frequently seen by MRFF — military chaplains who are paid by the government to serve in military chapels but whose real goal is to use their government-paid position to lure service members away from military’s chapels and into their off-base civilian churches, where their real loyalty lies.
But 1st Lieutenant Capen, who appears in uniform in CBN’s video, in a flagrant violation of several Army and Department of Defense (DoD) regulations, is a small fish compared to another member of Manna Church — Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson, the 3-star general in command of I Corps.
Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson, who attended Manna Church for a number of years while stationed at Fort Liberty, brought into the church by his wife, a retired military judge, and “born again” there, was the guest speaker at Manna’s 2023 Memorial Day service.
While Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson was not in uniform during his actual speech, the promotional materials and videos for his appearance use the following image of him in his 3-star general uniform and using his military title, both of which are incontrovertible violations of Army and DoD regulations. It is clear that Brunson was completely aware of these illicit promotional materials because he made reference to them in his speech.
But, beyond his flouting of the regulations on the use of uniforms and military titles by this very senior officer, Lieutenant General Brunson made it clear that he endorses Manna’s “Military Highway” mission, saying in his speech:
“This holiday for me is deeply rooted in not only the mission of this body and the Military Highway but also in the word.”
Yes, this 3-star general, speaking to a congregation full of far lower-ranking soldiers, who he referred to in his speech as “Christian Soldiers,” gave his unequivocal endorsement to using “Uncle Sam” as Manna Church’s “mission-sending organization.”
The soldier congregants of Manna Church were not only getting the message from a 3-star general that their church’s mission trumps military regulations, but were told by Jonathan Fletcher, Teaching Pastor at Manna Church, that God speaks directly through Lieutenant General Brunson.
The following was Fletcher’s message hyping Lieutenant General Brunson in a promo video the week before his appearance:
“Hey, Manna Church, next week is Memorial Day and I mentioned to you last week that we’ve got General Brunson coming to be our speaker for our special Memorial Day Service. General Brunson is amazing. He is the commander of First Corps and JBLM. In fact, he’s the commander of JBLM. He’s been a part of our church for a long time. Unbelievable leader. I’m telling you, any time you spend with him you just walk away realizing God called this man to lead in a powerful way and I can’t wait for him to bring a deposit, I believe, from God for our church as we take this time to properly honor Memorial Day and as he takes some time to apply what we can learn from Memorial Day to each one of our walks with Jesus. I really hope you’ll make time to be there in person. If you’re watching online, make an appointment to be a part of Manna online. I believe we’re all gonna be blessed as we receive from God through Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson.”
So, getting down to the nuts and bolts of the Army and DoD regulations violated by Lieutenant General Brunson, and also by 1st Lieutenant Capen, we basically have the same violations as we did way back in 2006 when MRFF exposed the participation of a number of high-ranking officers in Campus Crusade’s “Christian Embassy” promotional video filmed at the Pentagon. What happened in that case? Well, the DoD Inspector General found those officers, which included a number of generals, guilty of misconduct for “improperly endors[ing] and participat[ing] with a non-Federal entity while in uniform.”
For example, this section from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) was clearly violated by Lieutenant General Brunson in both the promotional materials and his speech:
5 C.F.R. § 2635.702(b), an employee who is serving or affiliated with an outside organization in a personal capacity may not permit the organization to reference the employee’s official title, position, agency, or government affiliation, if the context is such that the reference “could reasonably be construed to imply that his agency or the government . . . sanctions or endorses his personal activities or those of another.”
There are also DoD and Army regulations similar to the above CFR section which need not all be listed here with the exception of one violated by 1st Lieutenant Capen that was not among the “Christian Embassy” violations.
As mentioned, Army Reserve1st Lieutenant Capen’s civilian job is as a Manna Church “Site Pastor.” By appearing in uniform at Manna Church to be interviewed for CBN’s video, Capen violated Army Regulation 670-1, “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia,” which prohibits wearing the uniform “In connection with the furtherance of any political or commercial interests, or when engaged in off-duty civilian employment.” 1st Lieutenant Capen’s position at Manna Church is his “off-duty civilian employment,” so we can add that one to the other violations he committed by his being in uniform for the CBN video promoting Manna Church.
These two officers, especially Lieutenant General Brunson, absolutely must be held accountable for their gross violations of DoD and Army regulations every bit as much as the DoD Inspector General held the “Christian Embassy” Pentagon officers accountable nearly two decades ago.
AS much as these “Christian Soldiers” would like it to be, the United States military is NOT a Christian missionary organization!!!