onward christian soldiers

Here is an old story (with audio clip) about Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Boykin, the high-ranking military man (an unapolegetic evangelical crusader who "has led or been part of almost every recent U.S. military operation, from the ill-fated attempt to rescue hostages in Iran to Grenada, Panama, Colombia, Somalia" who is recently famous for making statements like "my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” in regard to Somali Muslims.

Here is a new story which uncovers a little more of the iceberg. Apparently there such a strong evangelical tone in the Air Force Academy and there was so much pressure to convert the cadets (even the ones who were already Christian) that it reached the point of intolerance. In fact, an outside group was going to publish a report which was going to candidly describe the religious climate, but recently MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran chaplain at the academy was basically fired for agreeing with the contents of the report.

How did this climate come into existence?

Morton said the cadet wing at the Air Force Academy is about 90 percent Christian. She said that group is roughly one-third Catholic, one-third mainstream Protestant and one-third evangelical. But the evangelicals have a much bigger voice among the chaplains, she said.

"The predominance of evangelical Christians reflects the chaplain corps of the Air Force overall," Morton said. "The major mainstream Protestant divinity schools are no longer sending many graduates into the armed forces. And so the concentration of evangelicals among chaplains is strong through the whole service."

I know there are other voices in the US military and I wouldn't want to generalize just based on a couple of news stories, but the above accounts aren't encouraging.