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.”
If the picture in #22 is actually her, I would agree with you, she certainly looks like one.
My first thought.
Or chaplains in the U.S. Air Force.
Or Airmen.
... with no place to go, but stay home and make certain the Dimocrats win and get every evil they can contemplate turned into law.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Cadets are at the Air Force Academy to learn those things necessary to become officers in the United States Air Force, not to be proseltyzed for one specific flavor of Christianity by obnoxious upperclassmen.
Lets see who wins.
Minister my a__! What are her credentials? A mail order diploma?
When I read the name Captain Melinda Morton I knew the problem.
Bingo.
Go straight to Hell for that. I guess we should all don a Burka and stay barefoot, pregnant and chained to the stove./p>
Actually, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary fought over this issue.
Actually, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary fought over this issue.
Women should do anything they are capable of doing, but they shouldnt be Firefighters ,Preachers or appear in combat.
The idiots think they would have done better in the first place.
Having a penis makes men superior in all those ranks?
It is, and we do.
http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2516
<< ... with no place to go but stay home and make certain the Dimocrats win and get every evil they can contemplate turned into "law."
Sounds like a plan to me. >>
Deal with your plan, then, while contemplating the fact that in order America's mean IQ be around 100, around half of US are of below-average intelligence.
Then contemplate that even after the Dims take as their base the 80 or 90% share of those of US who fall into that category, there are around ten million Republican-leaning folk who unusually for Republicans but just like most "Democrats," are of below-average intellegence.
Now imagine that around fifteen percent of those, as are a similar percentage of the really smart [IE "normal"] Republicans, are really pissed that President Bush and the mobbed-up careerist bastards that call themselves the "Republican Congress" have effectively abrogated American sovereignty and that, as the consequence of their refusal to secure our boarders, our culture and our very survival as a Nation are at least at risk and may have already been lost.
And then run that crap past me again about having "no place to go but to stay home and make certain the Dimocrats win and get every evil they can contemplate turned into law," sounding "like a plan to [You.]"
Yeah it does , Sorry you dont have one.
<< Having a penis makes men superior in all those ranks? >>
Not necessarily.
But believing "having a penis" to constitute a category and/or to be what defines a Man and/or distinguishes him form a woman as sure as Hell diqualifies the one so believing from any damned rank at all past, beyond and/or superior to "bloody idiot!"
Interesting rant. How convienient to toss out around 205 years of American history and blame the current occupier of the Whitehouse.
I got it. It's GWB's fault
Well Captain Courageous, you'll be sure and let me know when we are going to war, won't you.
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