Best-selling Charisma House author Stephen Mansfield, who recently wrote The Faith of the American Soldier and the New York Times best-seller, The Faith of George W. Bush, is drawing national media attention for writing “an open letter” to the mother of a slain soldier who has kept a vigil outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, this month to protest the war in Iraq.

On Aug. 16, Mansfield posted a 502-word letter to Cindy Sheehan on his blog, www.mansfieldgroup.com . Sheehan, whose son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in April 2004, has generated a media firestorm since Aug. 6, when she camped outside Bush's ranch in hopes of meeting with him.

Mansfield, who read his letter to Sheehan on National Public Radio's All Things Considered last Thursday, said he does not want to diminish her grief, but he is concerned that she is detracting the heroic death of her son through her demonstration.

“I fear, though, that what began as a mourning mother's righteous cry for meaning is becoming something that threatens to dishonor Casey's heroism,” Mansfield wrote. “Though I mean no disrespect, it is clear you are becoming swept up in a cynical drama that is far afield from the meaning of the war and your son's sacrifice.”

Mansfield, who was a pastor for 21 years and holds a doctorate degree in American history, said he wrote the letter to Sheehan because he wanted “to help her have a different perspective.”

“I have great compassion for her as a Christian who grew up in the military,” Mansfield said. “She's grieving, but she has become an easy influence to people around her who want to use her grief for their political purpose.”

Mansfield noted that Sheehan “has occasionally read” his blog. “She's interacted with me before over a totally unrelated subject,” he said. “I'm pretty sure that she'll read the letter. … It was really just part of being in the public debate.”

Mansfield, author of The Faith of George W. Bush, a New York Times best-seller for more than 15 weeks which has sold more than 500,000 copies, examines the religious nature of the soldier ethic today in The Faith of the American Soldier, published in April.

He shows how the American warriors' religious choices frame their moral perspective on war, on killing and on the possibility of death. “War is a religious enterprise,” said Mansfield, who comes from a long line of U.S. Army officers. “When men and women go into battle, they are forced to both confront eternity and produce a moral rationale for killing another human being. These are matters of faith and they are all the more important when our primary enemies in this generation believe they are fighting a holy war.”

Stephen Mansfield is a best-selling author, speaker, the director of a research and publishing firm, and former pastor. The son of a U.S. Army intelligence officer who grew up largely in Europe, Mansfield has two master's degrees and a doctorate in the fields of history, philosophy and literature.

Charisma House is part of Strang Communications, publisher of Christian Retailing.

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