Cadets Faking Fundamentalist Christian Faith at Air Force Academy

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates demanding that results of a recent survey at the Air Force Academy be released to the public and asking the Defense Department conduct an investigation of cult-like religious activities at the Academy.

The letter contends that the religio-political atmosphere at the Academy has prompted more than 100 cadets to pretend to be fundamentalist Christians:

There now exists, according to a United States Air Force Academy cadet who recently wrote to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF; www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org), an “underground” group of over one hundred Academy cadets who, in order to maintain good standing among their USAF Academy peers and superiors, are actually pretending to be fundamentalist Christians. They leave Bibles, Christian literature, and Christian music CDs lying around their rooms; they attend fundamentalist Christian Bible studies; they feign devoutness at the Academy’s weekly “Special Programs in Religious Education” (SPIRE) programs. They do whatever they have to do to play the role of the “right kind” of Christian cadets, in constant fear of being “outed.”

In the long run, the activities of the aggressively evangelistic Christians who have been in charge of the Airforce Academy will do nothing but undermine genuine faith.   Real faith is not the product of a coercive and oppressive atmosphere.