Congeries of cross connected concepts
Another NPR story this morning was about the excessive Christianity at the Air Force Academy1. I kept waiting for the ugliness and oppression to be described, but that never came through to me.
The worst thing that I heard was that some upper classman sent out an e-mail that contained Biblical passages. Almost as bad was a scene in which a cadet was struggling with a physical test and her classmates were shouting encouragements in the name of … Jesus. Horrors! And, believe it or not, at one Protestant service the worshippers were encouraged (in public!) to prosletyze. Just like it was part of the religion or something.
Perhaps I missed that part, but I did not hear a single allegation that anyone was denied rewards, promotions, privileges, etc. because of religious orientation. Only that people were exposed to the religious beliefs of others. This is what passes for a reign of theocratic oppression these days?
1 Personal bias note: I have a friend who attended the Academy who was also the most deeply religious person I’ve ever known and who, IMHO, was clearly a better person (even by my own criteria) than I was. I suspect that much of my personal respect for the truly religious stems from my friendship with her. She walked in faith and you can’t forget a thing like that.
| Jeff Guinn Thursday, 09 June 2005 at 19:26 |  |
AOG:
There is a lot more to it than you heard (BalloonJuice covers it pretty well).
There has been pressure from upper classes on the first and second year cadets, and several officers have explicit in their evangelism.
Their may be faster ways to destroy unit cohesion than evangelism, but I can’t think of any offhand.
| Annoying Old Guy Thursday, 09 June 2005 at 20:33 | |
I’ll check it out. Certainly putting pressure on underclassmen is inappropriate. That would make NPR guilty of very bad reporting but I suppose that’s hardly a shock.
