1 Boring Old Man

• The Cancer From Within
• Keep the Faith (to Oneself)
• Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers
• Fringe Evangelicals Distort US Policy

The Cancer From Within

Forty-two years ago, at the age of 18, I took the oath of office on my first day as an Air Force Academy cadet. The mission of the academy was not only to train future leaders for the Air Force but for America as well, because, in the end, most academy graduates do not serve full military careers. The honor code became an integral part of everyday life. These are the values that I, and most graduates of the 1960s and early ’70s, took with us from our four years at the academy. I, as did many graduates, underwent pilot training followed by tours of duty in Vietnam. Like military men and women of today, we did our best to become technically competent and professional leaders. Never, during my four years at the academy and subsequent pilot and combat training, was the word warrior used; nor, whether as a cadet or officer, did I ever encounter "Christian supremacist" rhetoric.

In April of 2004, my son, after receiving a coveted appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, asked me to accompany him to the orientation for new appointees. This 24-hour visceral event changed my life forever, and crushed my son’s lifelong dream of following in my footsteps. The orientation began with a one-hour "warrior" rant to appointees and parents by the commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida. The fact that the word warrior had replaced leadership was a signal of what was to follow. I later learned that cadets, to determine when a new record was established, had created a game in which warrior was counted in each speech Weida gave.

My son and I then made our way to the modernist aluminum chapel, where I expected to hear a welcome from one or two Air Force chaplains offering counsel, support and an open-door policy for any spiritual or pastoral needs of these future cadets. In 1966, the academy had six gray-haired chaplains: three mainline Protestants, two priests and one rabbi. Any cadet, regardless of religious affiliation, was welcome to see any one of these chaplains, who were reminiscent of Father Francis Mulcahy of "MASH" fame. Instead, my son’s orientation became an opportunity for the academy to aggressively proselytize this next crop of cadets. Maj. Warren Watties led a group of 10 young, exclusively evangelical chaplains who stood shoulder to shoulder. He proudly stated that half of the cadets attended Bible studies on Monday nights in the dormitories and he hoped to increase this number from those in his audience who were about to join their ranks. This "invitation" was followed with hallelujahs and amens by the evangelical clergy. I later learned from Air Force Academy chaplain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran who was forced to observe from the choir loft, that no priest, rabbi or mainline Protestant had been permitted to participate.

I no longer recognize the Air Force Academy as the institution I attended almost four decades earlier. At that point, I had no idea how invasive this extreme evangelical "cancer" had become throughout the entire military, that what I had witnessed was far from an isolated case of a few religious zealots.

It would be easy to blame such things on a few crackpots like Brigadier General Johnny Weida at the Academy. He took over during a sexual harassment scandal, and his hyper-religiosity was part of his clean-up campaign, but there were so many complaints about his preaching that he was passed over for promotion for a time, then moved to another command overseas – out of sight, out of mind. But, it’s bigger than [now] Major General Johnny Weieda. Fundamental Christianity apparently pervades the Military, including the Pentagon, and the ranks of Bush’s new Mercenery Army – Blackwater et al. It’s a funny marriage, the Gospel of turn-the-other-cheek Jesus and the war-mongering, eye-for-an-eye, subset of our military establishment. I used to jokingly say that the modern Christianity has a new Trinity – [1] the teachings of Jesus as revealed in the Old Testament, [2] American Democracy, and [3] Family Values. But, it’s not a joke any more.

US Air Force ‘is too Christian’

Monday May 16, 2005 3:41 PM EST

^{By The Church of England Newspaper}

… The Air Force Academy has forbidden cadets and staff to speak to the press during the investigation. However, members of the Air Force Academy community contacted by The Church of England Newspaper see the investigation as part of an on-going assault on Christianity by secularists and a denial of free-speech rights. One instructor told us the investigations were “payback” by liberals enraged with the Bush Administration—a survey of 4,000 full-time and part-time troops shortly before the November election found 73 per cent supporting President Bush and 18 per cent Senator Kerry. Military officers and evangelical Christians were among those constituencies who gave the President his highest level of support.

The Rev Don Armstrong, rector of the 2,400-member Grace & St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, the home parish for a number of Academy’s instructors, was sceptical of claims of institutionalised religious bigotry. “This is an intrusion from an outside group who looks at any vulnerable operation to terrorise its leadership with secularist standards that religion is private and only permissible when doing social work and blessing the unblessable.”

I would hope that the decent people who go to Church on Sunday and find a spiritual home there will rise up against these fundamentalist fools that have feasted on our country like a plague of locusts for the last decade. I hope the decent Moslems who find solace in the Mosques of Islam will rise up against the Jihadists whose blood-lust has turned their religion into a hate group. But if these religions can’t police their own ranks, then we "secularists" will have to do it for them. And one way to do that in this country is to make tax-exemption for religious organizations contingent on solid proof that they are not involved in politics or financial scams. For James Dobson to stand up and say [when he’s pushing some political agenda] that he’s not speaking as the head of Focus on the Family is malarkey.  Another remedy would be to make evangelizing in the workplace, particularly any government workplace, grounds for immediate dismissal. You’d be fired in a blue second if you proselytized for Communism or Jihadism.