Posted on 05/12/2005 12:41:32 PM PDT by wagglebee
Here’s a story that will throw you for a loop: a "chaplain” at the U.S. Air Force Academy is complaining that the school’s administration has a "systemic and pervasive” problem of promoting religious religious values with a Christian bent.
The chaplain, Capt. Melinda Morton, a "Lutheran minister” spoke out publicly on Tuesday as an Air Force task force arrived at the academy to investigate charges that officers and staff members pushed their religious beliefs on cadets.
And she claimed that a tolerance program developed at the academy, called Respecting the Spiritual Values of all People (R.S.V.P.), was watered down after it was shown to officers.
Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, chief of chaplains for the Air Force, screened the 90-minute R.S.V.P. film in October, according to Capt. Morton, and asked her: "Why is it that the Christians never win?” in reaction to some of the program’s depictions of cadet interactions.
"Chaplain” Morton’s complaints about too much religion at the military academy is creating waves, and earned her hero status in a report in the New York Times Thursday.
Gen. Baldwin acknowledged in an interview that he felt too many scenes in the film portrayed Christians at fault for excessive evangelical proselytizing.
He also said he asked that the Air Force cut segments on non-Christian religions such as Buddhism, Judaism and Native American spirituality.
The problem in dealing with proselytizing and church-state issues at the academy, he explained, "always is, when is a person crossing the line, or when are they being a positive person of faith, like our president.”
Last year, the Colorado Springs academy invited Yale Divinity School professor Kristen Leslie and six Yale graduate students to visit the school and observe how the chaplains minister to the cadets.
A memo from the Yale team cited the "stridently evangelical themes” at a worship service attended by 600 new cadets.
Leslie said a chaplain urged cadets to pray for those who didn’t attend and "remind them of the consequences ... those not ‘born again will burn in the fires of hell.’”
But academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker disputed that account, saying several other chaplains told him that no one mentioned burning "in the fires of hell.”
Morton, a 48-year-old "Lutheran minister," said she was removed from her post as executive officer to the chief chaplain, Col. Michael Whittington, last week. She claimed the dismissal came after he pressured her to deny details of what happened at the religious service.
But Whitaker said Whittington sent Morton an e-mail on May 4 saying he was removing her "to ensure a smooth and complete transition” for new leaders.
Morgan said she had stepped forward because "it’s the Constitution, not just a nice rule we can follow or not follow. That includes not using your power to advance your religious agenda.”
She acknowledged that after speaking out, "I don’t think I have much future in the Air Force.”
This is old news.
Just do a google. You'll get numerous hits.
The New York Slimes is actually owned by Jews (non-practicing I'm sure) who are blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
You may be half right. She does have an agenda, but does she have Christianity?
Many will be asked and few will come.
I've know preachers who thought that giving a sermon on Sunday was just a good way to earn a living.
To me the survey could be phony.
Absolutely. But I don't believe for a second that a pastor addressing an assembly of 600 students would use the kind of language alleged in the article.
Frankly, I don't care what the students do. It's the staff that bothers me. When it's staff and officers doing it, then it becomes semi-official. That just isn't right.
That's a fair point. From a Christian perspective, one should not convert out of fear or favor but conviction.
Not much money in the pastorate---but military chaplaincy does pay well and can be powerful.
I guess she is also an expert in constitional law???
She's ELCA...a fake "Lutheran". REAL Lutheran churches don't have women ministers.
Bush and Rumsfeld are stupid to allow the politically correct people to run riot over our military academies. First, making evangelical christians feels uncomfortable in the military will dry up one of the biggest sources of recruits -- and they already have a recruiting problem.
Second, Bush is undermining the GOP's political base if he allows the PC people to run the military -- because GOP voters will start to wonder what the difference is between having Clinton and having a Republican in the White House.
Ping to self for later pingout.
I would think that the Air Force would employ real chaplains. Historically, the functions of military chaplains has been to serve the religious needs to the servicemen and also to inform families that their loved ones have died for their country. The last thing any family needs is to be told that their son/daughter/mother/father/husband/wife has been killed in combat, only to have the chaplain then also say that they are not there to talk with them about God.
As opposed to non-religious religious values.
That was my same reaction when I saw those numbers. Being a lifetime LCMS member, I've never run into any LCMS minister who did not believe the entire Word of God.
I'm a recent LCMS convert myself, born and raised Episcopalian. Our parish, and I thought the whole synod, considered the Word of God inerrant.
So, it's A-OK for a moslem in the Air Force to have sincere beliefs that he should behead his buddies?
Methinks that the anti-war subversive socialists have infiltrated our armed forces by way of the chaplaincy.
Almost looks like Janet Reno with a bad haircut.
Most if not all of the older congregations do consider the Bible as the Word of God. There are some newer inner city congregations that are more "liberal" in their teachings.
Excellent information. Gee, I wonder why the so-called mainstream denominations are loosing attendance? Could it be that Biblical Christians found out there is no there, there. If you want truth, find a good evangelical, non-denominational church that is unapologetic about Christ.
Bet she's a lesbian, also....what a dumba@s.
<< Second, Bush is undermining the GOP's political base if he allows the PC people to run the military -- because GOP voters will start to wonder what the difference is between having Clinton and having a Republican in the White House. >>
Insofar as by-his-own-action confimed oligarchyist President Bush's effective rehabilitation of the until then justifiably, abjectly and absolutely disgraced Cli'toon is concerned and with regard to the present administration's approach to the criminal alien invasion and colonization our nation is presently experiencing, I am sure there are many hundreds of thousands of previously devoted and loyal but essentially siingle-issue Republicans -- and/or consequentially-former Republicans -- who already have very serious misgivings along those lines!
BUMPping
FWIW ... I would think the word has already gone out to delicately place this perversion of Christianity under a rock.
Here's to her next assignment in some remote catacomb. ;)
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