(from the NYTimes)
A sad commentary. The Lutheran AFA chaplain who describes the problems says at the end: She added, “I realize this is the end of my Air Force career.”
Air Force Chaplain Tells of Academy Proselytizing By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
A chaplain at the Air Force Academy has described a “systemic and pervasive” problem of religious proselytizing at the academy and says a religious tolerance program she helped create to deal with the problem was watered down after it was shown to officers, including the major general who is the Air Force’s chief chaplain.
The academy chaplain, Capt. MeLinda Morton, 48, spoke publicly for the first time as an Air Force task force arrived at the academy in Colorado Springs on Tuesday to investigate accusations that officers, staff members and senior cadets inappropriately used their positions to push their evangelical Christian beliefs on Air Force cadets.
The academy began developing the tolerance program, called Respecting the Spiritual Values of all People, or R.S.V.P., in response to a survey it took last year. The survey found that more than half of the cadets said they had heard derogatory religious comments or jokes at the academy.
For more than a year, the Air Force has been struggling to respond to accusations from some alumni, staff members and cadets that evangelical Christians in leadership positions at the academy were creating a discriminatory climate. Air Force officials say the task force they dispatched this week shows that they are taking the accusations seriously. The investigators are to make a preliminary report on May 23.
In an interview on Tuesday, Captain Morton, a Lutheran who has been a chaplain at the academy for two and a half years, said that the initial reception to the tolerance program helped illustrate the climate.
She said the R.S.V.P. program was significantly altered after it was screened last fall for 300 academy staff members and officers. Military officials confirmed that the program had been altered but said changes were routine in the development of such training programs.
Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the chief of chaplains for the entire Air Force, screened the R.S.V.P. program in October, Captain Morton said, and afterward asked her, “Why is it that the Christians never win?” in response to some of the program’s dramatizations of interactions between cadets of different religions.
She said: “It was obvious to us that he had missed the point of the entire presentation here. It wasn’t about winning or losing, some kind of cosmic battle, it was about helping our folks at the Air Force Academy understand the wonders of the whole range of religious experiences.”
In an interview on Wednesday, General Baldwin acknowledged making that comment and said he had objected because too many scenes in the original program had portrayed Christians at fault for excessive efforts at evangelizing.
“In every scenario, where cadet met cadet in the hall,” he said, “every time it was the Christian who had to apologize and say, ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t sensitive to your needs.’ I said, that’s not balanced, and the Christians will turn you off if every time they were the ones who made the mistake.”
However, Captain Morton responded in an interview that it was “patently untrue” that all the segments portrayed Christians in error. She says that in most cases there was no religious identifier at all. “And I’ve got the film to prove it.”
General Baldwin said he asked that the Air Force cut out segments in the program on non-Christian religions like Buddhism, Judaism and Native American spirituality, as well as a clip from “Schindler’s List,” the 1993 movie on the Holocaust. The R.S.V.P. program was cut from 90 minutes to 50. Captain Morton said that instead of educating about other religions, it had been reworked to emphasize a more neutral message: that cadets should respect one another’s differences.
This is the second major investigation at the academy by the Air Force in recent years. An investigation into sexual assault in 2003 found 150 women who said they had been sexually assaulted by fellow cadets. That inquiry led to the replacement of the academy’s top commanders.
The investigation into the religious climate at the academy comes at a time of national discussion about the proper constitutional boundary between church and state. Critics say the academy allowed its staff, including some of its chaplains, to cross that boundary, charges that the Air Force says it is now investigating.
“Because we have committed ourselves to look at every allegation, we will find out what really happened at that moment and evaluate that,” the general said. “The tension always is, when is a person crossing the line, or when are they being a positive person of faith, like our president?”
Critics including Captain Morton attribute the problem in part to the academy’s location in Colorado Springs, headquarters to dozens of the largest evangelical ministries and churches. They say there is significant crossover between the leadership of the academy and those organizations and churches in or near Colorado Springs, including Focus on the Family, the Navigators and the Officers’ Christian Fellowship.
A report sent to the Air Force in late April by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group based in Washington, said that academy officers and staff members opened mandatory events at the academy with prayer, sent e-mail academy-wide with religious taglines, and published advertisements in the academy newspaper asking cadets to contact them to “discuss Jesus.” The report is based on interviews with current and former academy staff and faculty members and cadets.
Fliers advertising a showing of the movie “The Passion of the Christ” were placed at every seat in the dining hall, with the tagline, “This is an officially sponsored USAFA event,” according to the report.
Last summer, a team from the Yale Divinity School was invited to spend a week at the academy’s basic training program assessing the chaplains’ pastoral care. It found what it called in a report “challenges to pluralism.”
Captain Morton said, “People at the academy were making cadets feel an obligation that they are serving the will of God if they are engaging in evangelical activities, and telling them that this is harmonious and co-extensive with military service.”
Lt. Col. Vicki Rast, who is in charge of the “climate and culture” division at the academy, said on Wednesday that the problem at the academy was a “lack of sensitivity.”
She said, “We’re encouraging people that when something happens that makes you feel uncomfortable, go to that person and tell them, because they probably don’t know.”
She disputed Captain Morton’s contention that the R.S.V.P. program had been watered down. And she said the academy was developing two more phases of the program, the first of which will educate cadets about “world religions.”
Interviews with staff members and cadets must be approved by the public affairs office at the academy, and nearly all students and faculty members contacted independently this week said they were afraid to speak because it could harm their careers. The office denied requests for interviews with the academy’s chief chaplain, Col. Michael Whittington, because he was being interviewed by investigators.
One staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday: “There’s certainly an impression that evangelicals here have that the leadership is kind of on their side. And there’s a feeling among people who are atheists or people who are other varieties of Christian that the leadership does not really accept them.”
Captain Morton said she had decided to step forward without authorization from the public affairs office because: “It’s the Constitution, not just a nice rule we can follow or not follow. We all raised our hands and said we’d follow it, and that includes the First Amendment, that includes not using your power to advance your religious agenda.”
She added, “I realize this is the end of my Air Force career.”
