Arms Manufacturer Under Fire for Inscribing Biblical References on U.S. Weapons

Meredith Jessup | January 18, 2010 1:49 PM

A Michigan-based company that sells rifle scopes to the U.S. military is being investigated by ABC News and recieving of backlash from "religious freedom" activists after admitting it has added small biblical references to its products.

Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan, confirmed to ABCNews.com that it has always added biblical codes to sights and scopes it has sold the U.S. military. The company says the practice began under the company founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

These coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ include examples like 2COR4:6. Though this combination of letters and numbers tends to blen in with regular serial numbers, this code is an apparent references to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the Bible's 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." (click here to see ABC's images of the scopes)

The company's website describes its vision: "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. This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals."

"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...

"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."

Meanwhile, the military says it had no knowledge Trijicon was including biblical references on its scopes. No word yet if this ABC investigation and the activist groups' pressure will force the DoD to drop its contracts with the company...