''Travel the Road'' is an American

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early ...

series that documents the lives of young missionaries Tim Scott and Will Decker through more than 25 different countries since 1998, in their efforts to bring

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

into the most remote areas of the world. ''Travel the Road'' is a part of the non-profit organization Challenge for Christ Ministries located in

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. They are also partnered with Overland Missions.

Controversy in Afghanistan

In December 2008, the program attracted criticism from the

Military Religious Freedom Foundation The Military Religious Freedom Foundation'' (MRFF) is a watchdog group and advocacy organization founded in 2005 by Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein. The group's goal states it will, "Ensure that members of the United States Armed Forces receive the ...

, a watchdog group whose stated goals are to ensure that

religious freedom Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...

is maintained in the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is th ...

. The MRFF claimed that Scott and Decker were embedded with American troops stationed in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, despite the fact that, according to MRFF president Mikey Weinstein, the military exercises a "complete prohibition of the proselytizing of any religion, faith, or practice...You see

cott and Decker Primo Water Corporation (formerly Cott Corporation) is an American-Canadian water company offering multi-gallon bottled water, water dispensers, self-service refill water machines, and water filtration appliances. The company is headquartered in ...

wearing American helmets. It is obvious they were completely embedded." When

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

contacted the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

in Afghanistan about Scott and Decker's alleged embed, which had taken place four years previously, they said that they no longer have the documentation of the missionaries' status with the troops.Missionaries Face Death, Criticism to Preach
ABCNews.com, 2 February 2009 Scott defended the trip to Afghanistan, telling ABC, "It wasn't like we were hiding in the back saying we're going to preach.

he military He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

knew what we were doing. We told them that we were born again Christians, we're here doing ministry, we shoot for this TV station and we want to embed and see what it was like. We were interviewing the chaplains and we talked to them. We spoke at the services and things like that. So we did do our mission being over there as far as being able to document what the soldiers go through, what it's like in Afghanistan. So I could say that we were on a secular mission as well as far as documenting. I would say we were news reporters as well, we were delivering news of what was actually happening there, but we were also there to document the Christian side." Scott argued that since the pair were acting as Christian journalists, they had the same right to cover the war in Afghanistan as secular networks.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Travel The Road 2003 American television series debuts 2000s American reality television series 2010s American reality television series 2020s American reality television series Trinity Broadcasting Network original programming Christian entertainment television series