Boys Will Be Boys
On June 5, I posted "Christianizing America" which started off with a cite to a Washington Post article which revealed some rather serious complaints about the pressures being brought to bear on non-evangelical Christian cadets:
THE REPORTS OF the religious climate at the Air Force Academy are unsettling: A chaplain instructs cadets to try to convert classmates by warning that they "will burn in the fires of hell" if they do not accept Christ. During basic training, freshman cadets who decline to attend after-dinner chapel are marched back to their dormitories in "heathen flights" organized by upperclassmen. A Jewish student is taunted as a Christ killer and told that the Holocaust was the just punishment for that offense. The academy's head football coach posts a banner in the locker room that proclaims, "I am a Christian first and last. . . . I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."
The complaints (and the news articles) prompted an investigation, and today a preliminary report has issued from the Pentagon:
The U.S. Air Force Academy failed to accommodate the diverse religious needs of cadets and staff, although there has been no overt discrimination, a military investigative panel concluded Wednesday.
"The (Air Force) team found a religious climate that does not involve overt religious discrimination, but a failure to fully accommodate all members' needs and a lack of awareness where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs," the report says.
Brady said he found seven specific incidents that he referred to the military's chain of command for possible investigation. He did not provide details.
The Air Force report cites some incidents but does not go into details: religious slurs and disparaging remarks between cadets and statements from faculty and staff with strong religious beliefs that some cadets found offensive.
"There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," said Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for personnel, in a press conference at the Pentagon.
Careful, Lt. Gen. Brady: people are already upset at how Christians are being hounded and discriminated against. I mean, after all, how can we expect our military to operate honorably if they are constantly under attack by heathens, Jews, and such like.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
THE REPORTS OF the religious climate at the Air Force Academy are unsettling: A chaplain instructs cadets to try to convert classmates by warning that they "will burn in the fires of hell" if they do not accept Christ. During basic training, freshman cadets who decline to attend after-dinner chapel are marched back to their dormitories in "heathen flights" organized by upperclassmen. A Jewish student is taunted as a Christ killer and told that the Holocaust was the just punishment for that offense. The academy's head football coach posts a banner in the locker room that proclaims, "I am a Christian first and last. . . . I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."
The complaints (and the news articles) prompted an investigation, and today a preliminary report has issued from the Pentagon:
The U.S. Air Force Academy failed to accommodate the diverse religious needs of cadets and staff, although there has been no overt discrimination, a military investigative panel concluded Wednesday.
"The (Air Force) team found a religious climate that does not involve overt religious discrimination, but a failure to fully accommodate all members' needs and a lack of awareness where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs," the report says.
Brady said he found seven specific incidents that he referred to the military's chain of command for possible investigation. He did not provide details.
The Air Force report cites some incidents but does not go into details: religious slurs and disparaging remarks between cadets and statements from faculty and staff with strong religious beliefs that some cadets found offensive.
"There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," said Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for personnel, in a press conference at the Pentagon.
Careful, Lt. Gen. Brady: people are already upset at how Christians are being hounded and discriminated against. I mean, after all, how can we expect our military to operate honorably if they are constantly under attack by heathens, Jews, and such like.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
posted by Diane at 4:57 PM
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