Friday, June 24, 2005

An Evangelical Air Force?

CRChair recommended this article to me. I am not quite sure what to think of it.

It was with happy anticipation that retired Air Force Colonel David Antoon and his son Ryan, 18, arrived last year at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., for an orientation for accepted students. But their pride soon turned to perplexity. On the schedule was a visit to the school chapel. A loyal alumnus, Antoon remembered academy chaplains as a low-key group who made no attempt to press their brand of faith on others. But that day, before a crowd that probably included future cadets of all creeds, the chaplain at the microphone boasted about the huge popularity of Christian Bible studies, and several of his colleagues, Antoon recalls, responded, "Amen" and "Hallelujah."...The Antoons' experience was not an aberration. This week, after a six-week barrage of allegations, the Air Force is expected to release a report based on more than 300 interviews, addressing charges that the academy is rife with an officially encouraged religious evangelization. Critics say the behaviors violated the Constitution and Department of Defense regulations--and threatened troop unity by teaching future commanders overt religious favoritism.
Disclaimer up front, I am what some would call an Evangelical, Bible-believing, Born Again Christian. So I am often skeptical of stories like this which turn a simple prayer over a meal into "indoctrination" and which tend to make it sound like Evangelicals are comic book villains with dreams of world domination. At the same time, the armed forces - like other parts of the American government - must be free of religious bias in order to be genuinely American. We are founded on the idea that each man/woman should be free to worship in the way they see fit. But finding the balance between "freedom of religion" and "freedom from religion" can be tough.

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