Air Force Academy Controlled by Evangelicals

(1 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

This essay is a companion piece to the “Atheists and Agnostics Need Not Apply” essay by The MomCat yesterday. It’s also a followup to a comment I made near the bottom of the threads.

It’s actually fairly common knowledge that RW evangelicals have been turning the USAF academy into a hell hole for non-evangelicals. Cadets are forced to pretend they are evangelicals or face harassment and /or expulsion.

A lot of what I’ll be quoting here goes to Thruthout. Here is their link. This essay was published 30 Sep 2010. It’s recent.

Like I said, the news is old. Here’s an article Air Force Removes Chaplain From Post

Officer Decried Evangelicals’ Influence
from WaPo dated 13 May 2005. That’s a five year time span. that’s a long term plan and a concerted effort to hijack the USAF, the Strategic Air Command and the Missile Command. This includes “Looking Glass” the nuclear super hardened command center deep in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain.

I’m going to toss out some blockquotes so you can get a sense of what’s going on. Truthout and WaPo will be the origins. I don’t need to go any further than two articles five years apart. For now. Note the one cadet quote going back to 1977.

There’s a veteran’s group, the MRFF, that follows this closely. Here’s their cred: MRFF Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

October 27, 2009

The USAF Academy is located in Colorado Springs. It’s nick name is “the Evangelical Vatican”. Some small background via Wiki:

The military boom continued and in 1963, NORAD’s main facility was built in Cheyenne Mountain. This placed NORAD directly next to Colorado Springs and permanently secured the city’s military presence. During the Cold War the city greatly expanded due to increased revenue from various industries and the prevailing military presence in the city. In the mid 1970s, Ent Air Force Base was shut down and later converted into the United States Olympic Training Center. Military presence was further increased in 1983 with the founding of Falcon Air Force Base (later changed to Schriever Air Force Base), a base primarily tasked with missile defense and satellite control. Fort Carson and Peterson are still growing and continue to contribute to the city’s growth. Air Force Space Command is located on Peterson AFB.


Religious institutions

Focus on the Family Visitors Center

Although houses of worship of almost every major religion can be found in the city, Colorado Springs has attracted a large influx of Evangelical Christians and Christian organizations in recent years. At one time Colorado Springs was counted to be the national headquarters for 81 different religious organizations, earning the city the tongue-in-cheek nickname “the Evangelical Vatican”[48] and “The Christian Mecca”[citation needed]. Religious groups with regional or international headquarters in Colorado Springs include: the Association of Christian Schools International, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Compassion International, Every Home for Christ, Focus on the Family, HCJB, the International Bible Society, The Navigators, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, WAY-FM Media Group, Andrew Wommack Ministries, and Young Life.

Italics mine.

The BQs are after the jump. Enjoy. And be sure to follow the link to the last on and read the full article. If you don’t, you’ll be leaving yourself very ignorant and vulnerable  to a Fifth Column effort in the USAF.

WaPo:

DENVER, May 12 — An Air Force chaplain who complained that evangelical Christians were trying to “subvert the system” by winning converts among cadets at the Air Force Academy was removed from administrative duties last week, just as the Pentagon began an in-depth study of alleged religious intolerance among cadets and commanders at the school.

“They fired me,” said Capt. MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran minister who was removed as executive officer of the chaplain unit on May 4. “They said I should be angry about these outside groups who reported on the strident evangelicalism at the academy. The problem is, I agreed with those reports.”

Surveys of present and former cadets have shown that some students said they felt a heavy and sometimes offensive emphasis on evangelical Christianity, with praise for cadets who pronounce their “born-again” status and insults aimed at Jews, Roman Catholics and non-evangelical cadets.

One staff chaplain reportedly told newly arrived freshmen last summer that anyone not born again “will burn in the fires of hell.”

Such slurs have been heard for decades on the campus, according to Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, a 1977 academy graduate who said he has repeatedly complained to the Air Force brass about the “religious pressure” on cadets. “This is not Christian versus Jew,” Weinstein said. “This is the evangelical Christians against everybody else.”

“The evangelicals want to subvert the system,” Morton said. “They have a very clear social and political agenda. The evangelical tone is pervasive at the academy, and it’s aimed at converting these young people who are under intense pressure anyway.”

When a two-page summary of the “Yale Report” became public this spring, Morton said, the academy’s chief chaplain, Col. Michael Whittington, responded angrily. But Morton said she agreed with the criticism in the report.

“The predominance of evangelical Christians reflects the chaplain corps of the Air Force overall,” Morton said. “The major mainstream Protestant divinity schools are no longer sending many graduates into the armed forces. And so the concentration of evangelicals among chaplains is strong through the whole service.”

Morton, 48, said that, having criticized the religious atmosphere at the academy, “I may be toast” in terms of an Air Force career. She said her next duty station is said to be a pleasant spot. “But serving in Okinawa as the most hated chaplain in the Air Force might not be so great.”

Truthout:

“The predominance of evangelical Christians reflects the chaplain corps of the Air Force overall,” Morton said. “The major mainstream Protestant divinity schools are no longer sending many graduates into the armed forces. And so the concentration of evangelicals among chaplains is strong through the whole service.”

Morton, 48, said that, having criticized the religious atmosphere at the academy, “I may be toast” in terms of an Air Force career. She said her next duty station is said to be a pleasant spot. “But serving in Okinawa as the most hated chaplain in the Air Force might not be so great.”

Academy leadership announced last month that the results would not be released, which angered the anonymous cadet who contacted the MRFF.

Results of the so-called “Climate Study” leaked to the press, and “353 cadets (almost 1 out of every 5 survey participants) reported having been subjected to unwanted religious proselytizing, and 23 cadets (13 of them Christians) reported living ‘in fear of their physical safety’ because of their religious beliefs,” according to the MRFF.

Weinstein received the email from the anonymous cadet after this initial spat with the academy and Gould.

The email describes a group of cadets who don’t fit the Protestant evangelical stereotype; they’re Catholics, mainstream Protestants, LGBT, atheists or agnostic. They tell Weinstein that his earlier advice to “trust the system” and take their grievances up the chain of command has failed, and they are forced to pretend to be something they are not. In order to achieve and prosper in the academy, these cadets pretend to be evangelicals and even attend Bible studies to avoid being “outed.”

“Despite the Cadet Honor Code we all lie about our lives,” the anonymous cadet writes. “We have to. We don’t have a choice. Thus we are all ‘invisible’ to our tormentors. They will never find us. My own parents don’t know. Only my fiancée knows and he/she is one of my classmates and a fellow member of our underground group. I keep ‘Christian’ books and ‘Christian’ CD’s in my room so others will be fooled and leave me alone and not suspect that I’m not actually with the USAFA ‘Christianity is the Only Way’ program here, even though I consider myself to be a Christian.”

Cadets and graduates, as well as concerned parents of several cadets and graduates, have contacted the MRFF with serious concerns about Cadets for Christ, according to the letter to Gates.

The letters details the startling testimony of two Catholic parents of a 2010 graduate who, at first, were happy to hear that their daughter joined a Bible study group at the academy. That was before they discovered that their daughter was being taught that her “career should be that of a wife and mother,” and in Biblical terms, “the female is the sheep and the male is the shepherd.”

“Our daughter was methodically brain washed into believing that she was unsaved in the Catholic religion,” the anonymous parents wrote in an email to the MRFF. “During spring break 2009, she urgently asked that we read the Bible everyday in order to ‘receive the grace of God and be saved.’ This manner of speech took us completely off guard.”

“This invisible force has rocked our family to the core. Two sisters no longer talk to one another. A mother has been asked to no longer contact her daughter. A father tries very hard to keep some sense of equilibrium in the family. This is what our family has become. Nevertheless, we will continue our attempts to bring our daughter back to us – we will never give up hope.”

“As parents, it is very difficult to see your child change in a manner that you no longer recognize her as your own. We grossly underestimated the power of this group. Being at such a geographical distance, coupled with the rigors of the USAFA, it becomes more difficult to monitor behavioral changes until they have taken deep root. Do you have any idea how it feels to grieve the loss of a child who is alive and healthy? THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN!”

The Christian Fighter Pilot blog claims the MRFF attack on Cadets for Christ for being a “cult” is hypocritical, and a cult has every right to be a cult as long as it does not break any civil or military laws.

And this is only the beginning of the problem. Colorado Springs is growing like a rocket (no pun):

Colorado Springs, CO – POPULATION GROWTH

You have to see the chart and numbers to believe it.

HuffPo:


Air Force Academy Chaplain Convinces Catholic League To End Call For Probe 02-24-2010

And here’s the best MUST READ of all on this subject; be ready to change your undies. From The Online Journal 01-04-2007. Here a just a few snippets for your delectation – and defecation, if so moved (sorry for that pun, it really was unintended). 😉


Evangelicals exploit Air Force Academy; military officials interlocked with local activists



‘Spiritual Gettysburg’

In addition to being headquarters for Air Force Space Command, Northern Command, NORAD, numerous Air Force bases, and the Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs is also home to the nation’s largest, most influential and politically active evangelical organizations: James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, which is so large that it maintains its own zip code, claims more than 200 million followers worldwide, and is located directly across the highway from the academy.

Focus on the Air Force Academy

The religious organizations of Colorado Springs, which literally surround the Air Force Academy, have been influencing school activities and interacting with academy officials and cadets for over a decade.

When the Focus on the Family headquarters opened in 1993, the academy’s parachute team, the Wings of Blue, participated in the opening ceremony by delivering “the keys of heaven” to James Dobson’s new facility — directly from the sky. [4]

During official Air Force Academy reunions, graduates are invited to the Focus on the Family headquarters for a tour that promotes James Dobson’s religious/political views and encompasses a video portraying Dobson as a hero receiving accolades from such figures as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

‘Legally Actionable Violations’

This spring, Americans United — a Washington DC-based organization created in 1947 to protect the separation of church and state — issued a report concluding that religious “practices and policies” at the US Air Force Academy “constitute egregious, systemic, and legally actionable violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

“[C]omplaints from multiple sources make clear that violations of the Establishment Clause are not merely aberrant acts by a few rogue individuals, but instead are reflections of systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the Academy command structure.” (Their emphasis)

According to the report, numerous former and current cadets have issued complaints, which have been confirmed by academy officials, that the Cadet Wing has been regularly pressured by members of the faculty, staff, chaplains’ office, and upper class, to attend worship services, undertake evangelical religious instruction, and proselytize fellow students.

I hope this was a bit enlightening for those who had no idea how much and by who our country is being taken over. Hope this doesn’t spoil your day but ignorance is not bliss. We need to be as aware as possible of what the Right is doing and react, plan and act accordingly.

If you read everything this far, God Bless You. You now are a semi-authority on the subversion of our nuclear delivery system. Now, what are you going to do about it?

Shanti.

22 comments

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    • RUKind on January 25, 2011 at 06:13
      Author

    Dedicated to LHMan. 😉

    • Diane G on January 25, 2011 at 13:15

    In 2007, I transcribed an interview with Mikey Weinstein for Shockwave at MLW.

    http://www.myleftwing.com/show

    Evangelicals have infiltrated the military, and gotten almost entirely away with it.

    (that and an interview with David Iglesius ended my transcription career – it is painstaking HELL to do.. never again!)

    • RiaD on January 25, 2011 at 20:18

    reading this guy Chris Rodda over at Street Prophets. he is:

    I’m the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History

    you may be interested. i am sickened by his reports.

    • Xanthe on January 26, 2011 at 02:34

    dangerous.  

    thank you for so much information.  Killing innocents from the sky because you are so good and right. Disgusting.  

  1. What?  Are we returning to “The Crusades?”

    Very frightening stuff, indeed.  

    I have much material I wanted to post here tonight, but I’m too tired to get into and there is too much, as I have been following this issue for some time now.

    But, I will add briefly, HERE is where it has ALL emanated from:

    The Fellowship The Fellowship (Christian organization)

    The Fellowship, also known as the Family,[1][2][3] is a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship experiences and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.[4][5]

    The organization has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy.[6] The Fellowship’s leader Doug Coe and others have explained the organization’s desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.[6]

    Fellowship Foundation was incorporated by Abraham Vereide in Chicago in 1942 as Fellowship Foundation, Inc. and also acquired the names International Christian Leadership (ICL), Fellowship House, and International Foundation as venues of global outreach ministry expanded.[7][17]

    The Fellowship Foundation, Inc. does most of its business as the International Foundation,[6] which is its DBA name.[18]. . . . .

    The Fellowship, amongst its many activities, hosts all kinds of “play activities” for those in our government, including trips overseas, etc.  It also is large enough to give “haven” to overnight visitors, etc.  

    I have so much more that I want to elaborate on here, but I’m simply too tired tonight.  Suffice it, it ALL has been and is a grandiose effort to “convert” Muslims, if not the world to Christianity!  Members have even been going about the world trying to convert such people into Christian ways of thinking, while, it is really nothing more than a sick gimmick to war and kill in the name of God and Jesus, as they say, “it is the calling of Jesus that we have come to “save” Christianity!”  Whatever!

    I have much to add and hope that I will be able to do so, perhaps, tomorrow!

    Thank you again, RUKind!  This is a very important issue!    

  2. and nearly lost it — don’t ask!

    As promised, here is a long, convuluted effort concerning an issue that should raise the hair on everyone’s bodies!

    The Fellowship is also known as “C Street” and “The Family.”  Jeff Sharlet, of Harper’s Magazine, and whose name came up in your Online Journal article,

    . . . .  For this reason (see above link) Haggard believes “spiritual war” requires a military component. He teaches a “strong ideology of the use of power, of military might, as a public service” and supports preemptive war because he believes the Bible instructs Christians to proactively abolish sinners. He told Sharlet he believes in violent warfare because “the Bible’s bloody. There’s a lot about blood.”

    One New Lifer who spoke to Sharlet thinks of Colorado Springs as a “spiritual Gettysburg” — “a battleground between good and evil.” He believes God called him to Colorado Springs and says many of the people he knows, including those working at the surrounding Air Force Bases, feel the same way. [3] “I’m a warrior for God. Colorado Springs is my training ground,” he said. . . . .

    is the author of “The Family.”   He actually “interned” at the Fellowship at a point in time.  I have not yet read the book yet, but have listened to him on Progressive Radio, in an interview:   Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

    RFK, Jr. and Jeff Sharlet Discuss “C Street”

    October 29th, 2010

    For decades in Washington, D.C., a secretive group known as The Family has been working behind the scenes to empower a few select politicians, and to influence the decisions that shape our country. Not only has this group operated in almost complete secrecy, but they’ve also skewed Christianity to the point where they believe that God wants us to take care of the rich and powerful more than the poor and hungry. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks about this secret Family in Washington with Jeff Sharlet, author of the new book “C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy.” . . .

    Here you may see Jeff Sharlet, speaking about his book, in Lancaster.  

    And, here, David R. Carroll,*discusses “The Family,” by Jeff Sharlet:

    Described as a Church or Christian Fellowship House, this place on “C Street” in Washington D.C. also serves as a residence for numerous members of Congress. The members of this organization tagged as “The Family” regard it as Refuge; a place to be able to, be their self, and get relief from the aggressive agendas of Washington, D.C. Evidently having been in existence for quite some time, outside of public knowledge, Secrecy seems to be a critical component of this organization. Strangely, it is also rumored that the Members believe that they are “Chosen Ones” appointed by God to see over the rest of us peons or “less than”, people of the United States and maybe even the entire world.

    Several extra-marital affairs of Congressional leaders, that have recently made the news, were reportedly disclosed to the members of The Family, long before becoming public knowledge. The way that they handled the cover-up and the disclosure of their inequities, was with counsel from The Family. . . . .

    *David R Carroll, CADCA is a certified drug counselor.  He has served as a Program Director & in California prisons recruiting inmates for Aftercare.  He is now primarily a consultant. . ..

    The Fellowship, has always invited Presidents and International dignitaries to its National Prayer Breakfasts, in D.C. (most of them attend for fear of seeming anything but religious, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton) and, of course, the thrust is to get “Jesus” into your life.  Members go abroad to many countries, stretching the issue to those of non-Christian beliefs, with what could only be deemed a form of intimidation.  

    But, it seems, despite its claims of “Christianity,” blah, blah, blah, it is deeply political, as one may have gathered by now.  Remember well how George W. Bush, always spoke of receiving his messages “from God?”

    Group Linked to C Street House Pays for Overseas Excursions Lawmakers Accepted Trips Worth $100,000

    A handful of Members of Congress have accepted more than $100,000 worth of free international travel from the religious organization affiliated with the “C Street house,” a Capitol Hill townhouse linked to recent Congressional sex scandals.

    While most of the Members have taken a trip or two from the Fellowship Foundation, also known as the International Foundation, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) accepted foreign trips worth more than $50,000 over the past four years.

    The Fellowship Foundation is a low-profile religious organization that has been in the news recently because of its connection to the C Street house, a townhouse on Capitol Hill that hosts regular prayer meetings and serves as the D.C. residence for several Members of Congress.  . . . .

    So, now, connecting the dots, see the efforts made here

    Wednesday 19 January 2011

    by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report

    Lt. Clebe McClary, a motivational speaker whose web site features praise from right-wing Christian leaders, will be speaking at the National Prayer Luncheon at the US Air Force Academy on February 10.

    During the first two weeks of February, military bases and schools across the country will join dozens of other organizations in holding annual “prayer breakfasts” and luncheons in coordination with the controversial National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC.

    [One must ask oneself:  Is this truly happening?]

    At this point, I am reminded of the murals at Colorado International Airport!  I urge everyone to take a good look at them.   Look very carefully, so you can see the “art portrayed,” regardless of the so-called purpose!

    And, finally, this article from William Rivers Pitt, concerning Mikey Weinstein, whose son was in a Cadet Training Center, and called a “……..!”  See it for yourself!

    Onward Christian Soldiers … To Hypocrisy

    Wednesday 26 January 2011

    by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

    Talk to Mikey Weinstein for even a few minutes, and you get the definite sense that the man must have gills. It is the only explanation for how he can say so much, so quickly, without pausing to take a breath. This should come as no surprise, as Mr. Weinstein has a great deal to say on a topic that affects us all, and threatens the constitutional fabric of the nation: a frontal assault by elements within the active military on the separation of church and state, and a crusade by those elements to transform the Armed Services into a fundamentalist Christian entity.  . . . .

    This subject matter is truly one for the books — how far must we retrogress?

     

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