Religion, Proselytism, and the Air Force Academy

By Elmer J. Thiessen on 21 October 2005

Inappropriate proselytism by evangelical Christians at the U.S. Air Force Academy is "systemic and pervasive." Or so it seems to Captain MeLinda Morton, whose accusations led to a widely reported task force investigation at the Academy.¹

Morton, a Lutheran who had been chaplain at the academy for two and a half years, also complained that a religious tolerance program she helped create to deal with this issue was watered down after it was shown to officers, including the major general who is the Air Forces' chief chaplain.

The 16-member investigative task force saw things a bit differently, however. In its June 22 report it cleared the U.S. Air Force Academy of "overt religious discrimination." For her part, Morton was reassigned to Japan, and then she retired.

Still, the report did say that the Academy had failed to provide full accommodation for the religious needs of non-Christian and non-evangelical cadets, and that there were some cases where faculty members and officers were too aggressive in sharing their evangelical faith.

The report thus begs the question: where exactly does one draw the line between permissible and impermissible expression of religious beliefs? In this article I want to further define that line in light of the charges and countercharges that have been made concerning proselytism at the Air Force Academy.

Although the critics of the Academy never explicitly say so, I would suggest that underlying all their concerns is a fundamental opposition to any and all proselytizing. Morton said she was alarmed by the "systemic and pervasive" problem of religious proselytizing. Her solution: a tolerance program called "Respecting the Spiritual Values of all People," or RSVP. Although Morton objects to the generalization that the program always portrayed Christians as being in error, military officials screening the RSVP film clearly got the impression that it was often Christians who had to apologize and say, "I'm sorry, I wasn't sensitive to your needs." Presumably these apologies were necessitated by "excessive efforts at evangelizing."

But is evangelism or proselytism a "problem," as assumed by Morton and other critics? Is proselytizing wrong per se? Morton would have some difficulty condemning all proselytizing because she herself engages in it. She spoke publicly about her concerns, and doing so obviously involved an attempt to persuade others to adopt her position. Indeed, the tolerance program that she helped create clearly had a religious message — in her words, "it was about helping our folks at the Air Force Academy understand the wonders of the whole range of religious experiences." One can assume that if the program had been approved in its original form, all cadets would have been "forced" to participate, and thus would have been subject to Morton's proselytizing efforts.

Indeed, I would suggest that much human interaction involves proselytizing. Human beings are proselytizing animals. We try to persuade others of our positions on a wide variety of subjects, including religion. To condemn all proselytizing is unrealistic and plain silly. To be sure, not all forms of proselytizing are acceptable. However, rather than engaging in a wholesale condemnation of proselytizing, we need to distinguish between its acceptable and unacceptable forms.

Morton and others critics have expressed concern about a "systemic and pervasive" problem of religious proselytizing at a state-run institution. But, if proselytizing in itself is not a bad thing, then why should widespread proselytizing be bad? To say that proselytizing should be banned is akin to saying that arguing should be banned. (I am a philosopher, so it perhaps goes without saying that I like to argue.) Surely we all agree that arguing is not a bad thing, as long as it is done properly. The same can be said about proselytizing.

Therefore the real question is this: Was the proselytizing that occurred at the Air Force Academy done properly? Morton maintained that "officers, staff members and senior cadets inappropriately used their positions to push their evangelical Christian beliefs on Air Force cadets." I believe that here we are on to something important, because an inappropriate use of power due to position involves coercion, and coercive proselytizing is immoral because it leads to “conversions” of opinion and belief that are not genuine and freely chosen.

I believe that extra caution is in order whenever individuals in power are influencing others. For example, I am a professor of philosophy and I also am a Christian. As a professor, have to be careful not to abuse my power in the classroom when expressing my Christian convictions as I teach. I do at times voice my personal convictions in class, but I stress that students don’t have to agree with me in their papers, and they can object to my arguments in the classroom.

What would need to be investigated in the Academy case is whether the senior personnel did abuse their power. Some of the examples that have been reported incline me to believe that they did go too far. For example, when the head football coach, Fisher DeBerry hung a "Team Jesus" banner in the locker room, he was abusing his position as coach. When Johnny Weida, commandant of cadets, encouraged attendance at National Day of Prayer activities, he was abusing his power.

That said, we must be careful not to let the possibility of the abuse of power make us suspicious of all legitimate uses of power. I use my "position of power" as a philosopher to correct my students’ errors in logic, and so I should be able to use that same "power" to correct unwarranted prejudice and false conceptions of the Christian faith. Can an officer ever talk to a cadet about his or her religious faith? I would answer "yes," though the officer needs to be very careful to ensure that he shares his faith in such a way that the cadet feels that he or she can disagree without any recriminations whatsoever.

In addition to the issue of individual’s use of power, the debate over proselytism at the Air Force Academy raises questions regarding institutional abuse of power. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy/watchdog organization that argues for strict separation of church and state and opposes the Christian Right, concluded that "academy officers and staff members opened mandatory events at the academy with prayer, sent academy-wide email with religious taglines, and published advertisements in the academy newspaper asking cadets to contact them to 'discuss Jesus'."²

Americans United also reported that "Fliers advertising a showing of the movie 'The Passion of the Christ' were placed at every seat in the dining hall, with the tagline, 'This is an officially sponsored USAFA event'."

I must confess that I find some of this troubling, if indeed the report is accurate. But, we must be careful not to jump to hasty conclusions. Many institutions have a policy that posters and flyers must first be stamped by the administration as approved before they are posted or circulated. Of course, there is still a difference between a flyer being "officially approved," and an event being "officially sponsored." I would want to know which is the accurate rendering of what happened before I passed judgment on this specific example. Sending emails with religious tag-lines might be better seen as a matter of individual privilege. I receive emails with all kinds of tag-lines. And, I wonder whether a humanist tag-line, or a quote from a Buddhist monk would have been similarly isolated as problematic. Finally, advertisements are just that — advertisements. You can take it or leave it.

Christian love requires that we take into account the feelings of others. Respect for the dignity of others means that we give them the right to say no to our efforts to evangelize. The other person needs to be encouraged to say that he or she is feeling uncomfortable when efforts of evangelism are offending them. My worry is that all too often Christians don't do this sort of encouraging. We don't do to others what we want others to do to us.

There is also much confusion about the boundary between church and state, another concern raised by the AU and other critics. Here I am sure I will be revealing a Canadian bias, but Americans seem to be obsessed with the separation of church and state. I would suggest that there never has been, never will be, and never should be a complete separation of church and state. There needs to be fairness to all churches or religions, but not complete separation. The principle of the separation of church and state will sometimes conflict with another sacred American principle — the freedom of speech. A balance will have to be found between these two principles.

My hunch is that there is also a problem of sheer numbers, given the location of the Academy. Colorado Springs is a hub for evangelical ministries and churches. One should thus expect that a significant percentage of the employees and students at the Academy will be Christian. Further, these large numbers will no doubt affect the general culture and climate of any institution in the area. We need realism here. Still, this makes it incumbent on Academy Christians to be courteous to others who are not Christians, and very sensitive to the possible abuse of power.

This brings us to the issue of respect and tolerance. As previously stated, it appears that Morton views proselytizing as inherently disrespectful and intolerant of other faiths. Her notion of tolerance is deeply problematic. She assumes that in order to be religiously tolerant one needs to accept the equal validity of all religions.

Clearly, religious tolerance requires there be some understanding and appreciation of the variety of religious beliefs as called for in the RSVP program. But to demand the acceptance of the equal validity of all religious beliefs is to go too far. Indeed a relativistic mind-set can be seen as itself intolerant of particularistic beliefs. To disagree with someone is not to be intolerant. A normal response to persons who disagree with us is to try and persuade them of the validity of our beliefs.

Genuine tolerance is centrally concerned with a certain attitude to persons, not their beliefs. We need to respect people even if we disagree with the beliefs they hold. We need to accept them as persons, and such acceptance and respect of persons does not preclude proselytizing. Indeed, proselytizing can and should be an expression of a genuine respect and care for the other person.

I conclude with the suggestion that respect and tolerance is a two-edged sword. Both those engaging in proselytizing, and those who are critical of the same, need to respect one another as persons. To demand of evangelicals and other proselytizing religions that they stop proselytizing is in fact the height of intolerance, a common error of secular fundamentalism. And while there might be a need for both sides to cultivate some "sensitivity," we would do well to heed Jonathan Rauch's reminder that in a free society, everyone has a positive responsibility to be a little thick-skinned.³

Last updated 12 January 2009