In an update to an issue I have followed closely (previous posts on this issue here, here, here, and here and here), the Air Force has issued new regulations regarding religious displays:
The Air Force issued new religion guidelines to its commanders yesterday that caution against promoting any particular faith – or even “the idea of religion over nonreligion” – in official communications or functions like meetings, sports events and ceremonies.
The guidelines discourage public prayers at official Air Force events or meetings other than worship services, one of the most contentious issues for many commanders. But they allow for “a brief nonsectarian prayer” at special ceremonies like those honoring promotions, or in “extraordinary circumstances” like “mass casualties, preparation for imminent combat and natural disasters.”
The Air Force developed the guidelines after complaints from cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that evangelical Christians leaders were using their positions to promote their faith.
The guidelines apply not just to the academy, but also to the entire Air Force. They will be made final later this year after Air Force generals meet and consider recommendations from their commanders.
“We support free exercise of religion, but we do not push religion,” said Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, a Navy veteran who was hired this year as a special assistant to the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force, and who helped write the guidelines. “I think many of the people I spoke to maybe should have known this already, but they were operating based on misperceptions.”
Rabbi Resnicoff said some Air Force members he had spoken with “mistakenly assumed” that because the military encouraged “spiritual strength as a pillar of leadership,” they were given license to promote strong belief in Christianity within it.
Again, the idea that a single version of religion could be forced upon cadets at the academy and airmen servicewide was an untenable status quo. This seems to be an appropriate clarification of guidelines. The new guidelines can be found in part here, and include the following:
— We are sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. In taking this oath we pledge our personal compliance with the Constitution’s protections for free exercise of religion and prohibitions against governmental establishment of religion.
— We will accommodate free exercise of religion and other personal beliefs, as well as freedom of expression, except as must be limited by military necessity. We will not officially endorse or establish religion — either one specific religion, or the idea of religion over nonreligion.
— Our core values support and are consistent with our constitutional obligations. Our integrity demands that we respect others and that we live up to our oaths. Service before self demands respect for the Constitution, our Air Force and each other, and an understanding that in the military our service begins with a commitment to our responsibilities, not only our rights. Commitment to a climate in which individuals of diverse beliefs form an effective team is essential to achieving excellence.
— Chaplain service programs are the responsibility of commanders. Chaplains function as staff officers when advising commanders in regard to the free exercise of religion, and they implement programs of religious support and pastoral care to help commanders care for the welfare of all their people.
— Supervisors, commanders and leaders at every level bear a special responsibility to ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed as either official endorsement or disapproval of the decisions of individuals to hold particular religious beliefs or to hold no religious beliefs.
— Abuse or disrespect of our wingmen — our fellow Air Force people — including disrespect based on religious beliefs, or the absence of religious beliefs, is unacceptable.
— We will recognize and value the many heritages, cultures and beliefs represented among us, and build a team by stressing our common Air Force heritage: the oaths we took, the core values that we embrace, and the mission that we undertake to protect our nation.
— At a time when many nations are torn apart by religious strife, we must understand that our ability to stand together as Americans and as Airmen — those who represent many religions, shoulder-to-shoulder with those who claim no religion — is part of our heritage and our strength.
People are free to worship as they choose, and people are free not to worship if they choose. The way it should be.
Mike S
That describes my AF friends to a T and why my friend who is a retired General is someone I trust as much as I trust my own mother.
Matt Holmes
The removal of a strong faith-based foundation has it’s benefits, and certainly good arguments, but I’m always left wondering what replaces that foundation.
A primary reason for there being a strong weaving of relgion in the fundaments of any society is the necessity of faith to confront the inconcievable. War is an excellent example.
I’m not going to quote the old cliche about foxholes and god, but it’s safe to say a lot of soldiers walk away from war with deep convictions about life and death. Questions that no man can answer. No constitution can comfort that person. No amount of talking or medals or training can explain why one man dies and the other doesn’t, or how to cope with the knowledge that you’ve killed another human being.
Religion(s) may not have the -right- answers, but at least they offer one. Pushing it aside, I wonder what is offered in its place?
Matt Holmes
I meant to say “may not have the RIGHT answers..” but putting -‘s next to a word crosses it out here… new to me.
aaronpacy
This is the issue….Live and Let Live…or…Live As I Want You To Live.These same people are crying about “persecution of Christians”. Yet they continue to push things like THEIR decency standards. They wish to take away our choices..”You can’t watch that on TV because my kids might see it.!” Well…not if you’re kids STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE! You’re right about “The way it should be” John. This is why if Hillary runs against McCain or Rudy…I’ll vote for them. But if she runs against Romney or Frist or Brownback…or ANY evangelical or evangelical ass-kisser…I’ll hold my nose and vote Clinton.
Mike S
Exactly where are they pushing it aside? This is simply saying that all religions must be respected and none are to be pushed on those who do not want it pushed on them.
I have no idea if my friend is a religious man. It never comes up. Somehow he made it through Vietnam and rose to the rank of General. I’ve known him since was a kid and he embodies everything that the new rules are about. I’d submit that that makes him a better airman than any who choose to force their religion on others.
Matt Holmes
Nothing in life is static. This, like every change in ideology, is just a step. Just as allowing a multitude of religions to practice in the military (regardless of whether or not they were compatible) was seen as a static shift, so will this be. So now anyone can practice whatever religion they want (good) but no particular religion will be supported (bad). Why bad? Because the next step is no religion.
EL
So now anyone can practice whatever religion they want (good) but no particular religion will be supported (bad). Why bad? Because the next step is no religion.
I’m not sure I get this. Because the Airforce isn’t going to support one particular religion, everyone in that service will cease to hold religious beliefs? Because all religions are acceptable, they will all disappear? I’m missing the logic, here.
Zifnab
Hardly. I’ve never studied a time-period in which the absense of a definative ‘state’ or ‘community’ religion resulted in a sudden vacuum of spirituality. On the contrary, when people are allowed to believe what they want and how they want without some sort of government funded mandate, we encounter the greatest reinoucance of beliefs and idealogies. The early expansion of the Roman Empire, the end of the Dark Ages, the colonization of the New World, and the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s are all examples of explosions of religious practices and followers. These were periods of time in which religion was the least constrictive and the least indoctrinated.
However, the problem at the heart of Evangelicals running the AF wasn’t their prostilization, but their failure to acknowledge people who didn’t convert. When a particular religion is supported (good?) you end up with anyone outside the religious circle being ostrasized and denegrated for their own beliefs (definately bad!). Thus you end up with a military organization structured on the best Evanglical Baptist Christians from Church X and not the best commanding officers. Effectively, you base your military structure on croneism and the ‘good old boys club’ (also bad).
I’d like to think my tax dollars are going towards pilots who give their life for our nation, not preachers who give their life to god and also happen to fly our airplanes.
Mike S
I think you need to visit the Air Force Acadamy. The Chappel, designed to meet the needs of many religions, is one of the most beautiful I have ever visited. Religion isn’t going anywhere.
Zifnab
hehe. Come to think of it, we wouldn’t even have modern day Evangelicals if Martin Luther hadn’t pushed for an end to a particular supported religion.
Matt Holmes
That’s relieving to hear, Mike. Understand I’m coming from a view where I’ve seen small steps taken for decades to remove religion from civic life, wherein more and more it’s not really all religion so much as just Judeo-Christian religion. Additionally, I come from a view where most of my peers are atheists or at best agnostics and I see their torment in trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense and (IMO) require faith. I’m not advocating particulars, just the notion of faith itself. I am terrified of the smiling killer, “diversity” who uses the guise of respecting all things while actually smothering them. This is where I came from in my response.
Thanks for your replies, Zifnab as well.
Mike S
Just so you know, I’m agnostic leaning toward atheist. But I have seen the great things religious beliefs can do for people. About the only bad I see from religion is when people attempt to force their religion on others. Respecting all people of both faith and not allows people to see the good in each other.
That is why I am very pleased to see these new rules, or whatever you want to call them. I hope they are effective.
jobiuspublius
I have never had bad experiences with diversity. It is conformity that I’ve seen as smothering.
Gary Farber
“…small steps taken for decades to remove religion from civic life….”
I think you’re confusing “from government endorsement” with “from civic life.” There’s plenty of religion in American civic life, and no one objects to it. That’s different from asking government, whether it’s in the form of the executive, legislature, schools, courts, or government buildings, to endorse one particular religion, or religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion. But you can engage in whatever religious acts you like in public, and everything (and kids are free to pray in schools; they just can’t ask for school endorsement), and so can as many citizens as wish to gather. “Public” and “governmental” aren’t synonymous — unless you’re some kind of commie.
goonie bird
Here comes the ACLU rearing its ugly head and whinning we will be offending anteists if we display the cross what kind of poppycock BS is this?
Bob Munck
A military person of higher rank who says anything about religion to a person of lower rank is exactly like the higher rank talking about sex to the lower; it’s harassment, pure and simple. It is the using of the military chain of command hierarchy (and the power of government that backs it up) for personal gain. An officer has no more right to say “let us pray” to an enlisted person than he or she has to say “let us screw.”
Jeff
Matt,
You talk about:
But the problem has been that the Jewish cadets in that Judeo-Christian religion have been bearing the brunt of the harassment along with Mormans, Catholics, Budhists, etc. Many Jewish people including myself have issues with combining the Christian and Jewish faiths in the first place as Judaism is much different than Christianity. But we get lumped together when it suits evangelical purposes and trashed for destroying Christmas and persecuting Christians when we complain legitimate issues.
Cyrus
goonie bird,
Do you have any evidence that anyone ever complained about “offending anteists [sic] if we display the cross?” Any? At all?
DougJ and Darrell are articulate, even eloquent sometimes, and seem to have definite positive beliefs, even if they aren’t always consistent. You, on the other hand, have nothing going for you but hate, as far as I can tell. And the charitable explanation of your writing style is that you dash off comments on a whim with about as much thought as a Garfield strip. The uncharitable one is that you are 13. This is why they can set off hundred-post-long flamewars, while you usually get ignored.
Luddite
“but it’s safe to say a lot of soldiers walk away from war with deep convictions about life and death”.
Yes, as well as something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Big E
this part posted with a lil bit of jest..
..makes me feel secure knowing that a lot of folks who are waiting for the ‘rapture’ and the end of the world are in control of ICBMs and the military.
[end of jest part]
Trying to force religion on other members of the military is insane. That pre-destined, ‘I’m always right because I believe in the right version of god’ way of thinking gives me the chills…lets anyone justify just about anything in the name of religion. There is a difference between using religion as a political base to gain and hold onto power, and a real faith based life.The fact that someone is christian, jewish or muslim or whatever does’nt make you ‘right’ just because of that affiliation with religion.
Zifnab nails the issue in his comments.