The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is asking Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to look into allegations that the US Air Force Academy in Colorado is once again engaging in improper Christian proselytizing, placing increasing religious pressure on cadets. New reports coming out of the Academy, their letter to Gates claims, casts a shadow on earlier improvements.
There now exists, according to a United States Air Force Academy cadet who recently wrote to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation… 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."
The group also points to emails distributed by the Academy that promote Christian viewpoints, and the presence on campus of a group called "Cadets for Christ" which they allege is engaging in "cult-like" recruitment tactics.
