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.”
You waltz in here and bitch about the "unaccountable" religious right, call us vile, and expect to stick around?
Why did you delete your proud masonic self-identification?
Jesus is still not PC.......regardless of what you think...
Buh Bye!
Farewell, creep.
Unfortunately it does
Don't Ask. Don't Tell.
This is what the semenaries are spewing today.Q: But doesn’t he condemn people for choosing to be homosexual? Paul says they “exchanged” one form of intercourse for another.A: Yes, but, since the late 19th century, Western science has observed that some people are primarily or even exclusively attracted sexually only to people of their same gender. We call this “sexual orientation.” No one fully understands the reasons for this: Is orientation the result of nature (genetics) or nurture (upbringing) or a combination of both nature and nurture and other things? Whatever the reason for their orientation, people do not choose to be gay or lesbian; they simply are that.
Please do not try to put words in my mouth. You seem to be claiming to know all of Christ's plan. I'm not so sure that it is quite as cut & dried as you are trying to make it.
That is the way it always was, so therefore, that is the way is should always be, right? Care to explain Huldah and Deborah to me?
True.
Paul's epistles contain numerous instructions to the early churches regarding the qualifications of pastors, bishops, and other church offices. In every instance he mentioned only men as being qualified for those positions of authority.
Also true.
In his 1st epistle to Timothy Paul specifically rejected the idea of placing women in positions of authority in the church. The pastorate is certainly a position of authority, therefore any church or denomination which ordains women as pastors is deliberately ignoring the clear teaching of the word of God on that issue.
Luke 24:10 & 11 might help you understand why.
God designed two distinctly different genders for different roles in life. That doesn't mean the he loves one gender more than the other, or that one's role is less important than the other's. It does mean that God is sovereign and that he makes the rules for his Church, whether we think those rules are "fair" or not.
This is not about "fair" to me. It is about misuse of God's authority, regardless of whether that misuse is being done by a man or a woman.
Agreed. And placing a woman in spiritual authority over men is an outrageous misuse of that authority.
There is only one spiritual authority over me. NO human is qualified.
IMO, that was not called for.
The funny thing is I would not even have bothered to find links to support my instincts had the Russian Marshall not challenged me to "pony up." I've read all this nonsense before. They are simply not "blind guides" because they are willful and wanton.
Was "this" called for ?
Course not.
Okay, who called for "this" ?
Me, thus the "IMO".
"That" is jealous.
Huh?
I assumed you would figure it out. When you wrote your comments you did not reference any other comments so I, and probably others, have no idea what your really mean IYHO ...
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