(CNSNews.com) – The advocacy group that brought worldwide attention to the fact that an American company has been stamping biblical references on combat rifle sights used by the U.S. military said Thursday it hoped the damage done was not “beyond repair.”

Trijicon’s “outrageous practice” of stamping Christian references on rifle scopes used by the U.S. military “was an unconstitutional disgrace of the highest magnitude to our military and an action that clearly gave additional incentive and emboldenment to recruiters for our nation’s enemies,” Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) head Mikey Weinstein said, after Trijicon Inc. announced it would now stop the practice.

“It is nothing short of a vile national security threat that, despite our nation’s efforts to convince the Muslim world we are not pursuing a holy war against them, our military and its contractors time again resort to unlawful fundamentalist evangelical Christian practices, even on the battlefield,” Weinstein said in a message posted on the MRFF Web site.

MRFF, a watchdog group that describes itself as an advocate of "the free exercise of religious freedom in the military," says on its Web site that it “brought to light” the existence of “the secret ‘Jesus’ Bible codes.”

It is taking credit for breaking the story, which ABC News first reported on Monday, and it is calling for a congressional investigation: “We can now only hope that the United States Congress and The Pentagon will comprehensively investigate how this catastrophe and countless other examples of military religious extremism infiltrates every branch of our honorable armed services.”

Before the MRFF-initiated “ABC News investigation,” Trijicon had included the biblical references alongside other markings on its products for more than two decades, a practice it ascribed in a statement this week to “our faith and our belief in service to our country.”

Thanks to the MRFF, the obscure sets of numbers and letters like 2COR4:6 and JN8:12 are now widely known to refer to New Testament verses.

The news reports prompted governments as far away as Australia and New Zealand – whose forces in Afghanistan also use the scopes – to consider their options.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, meanwhile, called the presence of the markings “a potential recruiting tool for anti-American forces” and a Muslim Public Affairs Council official said they provided “propaganda ammo to extremists who claim there is a ‘Crusader war against Islam’ by the United States.”

According to the U.S. Central Command, the Trijicon rifle scopes were bought in 2005 for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. It said in a statement it “only became aware of these codes in the past several days.”

“The codes on the scopes are contrary to U.S. Central Command guidance,” CentCom commander Gen. David Petraeus said Thursday.

“Our mission is to protect the population we’re serving and establish conditions for security, stability, and development, and we strive to do that while remaining sensitive to the cultural and religious norms of the populace we are supporting.

“We deeply respect the cultures of the host nations and our coalition partners in the Central Command Area of Responsibility,” he said.

Trijicon on Thursday issued a statement saying it had agreed to stop putting references to scripture on products manufactured for the U.S. military, and would also provide modification kits to enable the military to remove the markings on products already deployed.

In response to concerns raised by the Department of Defense, Trijicon, Inc. initiated this action to ensure the war-time production needs of the troops are met as quickly as possible.

“Trijicon has proudly served the U.S. military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate,” said company president Stephen Bindon.

“Trijicon’s more than 250 American workers are proud and humbled to provide critical hardware for our nation’s brave service men and women and we look forward to working with the Department of Defense to ensure our immediate solutions are in compliance with the military’s standards requirements.”