[QUOTE=Zoe]
The Religious Tolerance website has a good “detailed but concise” explanation of the charges and complaints at the Air Force Academy beginning in about 2004. There were at least fifty complaints which resulted in a rewritten policy for the entire Air Force.
There was only one complaint at the Naval Academy and none at West Point. I am left to wonder why this happened at just the Air Force Academy. I’m young enought to still think of it as “the new academy.” This is certainly a different place from the one where friends of mine graduated in the mid 1960s.
What is scarey to me is that the rewritten policy – which seems beautifully in line with our Constitution – was criticized by a well known leader of the religious right. That left me puzzled. What the hell does he want?
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If you stand at the gates of the U.S. Air Force Academy and turn 180 degrees, about a half mile away across I25 you’ll see two large buildings - one is the New Life Church, a 10,000 member evangelical church formerly run by Ted Haggard. The other is Focus on the Family, a religious organization that runs a radio and publishing empire. The two of them combined tried to make the Air Force Academy their personal petri dish.
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
That’s true to an extent - but if a servicemember expresses a desire on his own to convert, the chaplain should facilitate this to the maximum degree possible.
I started to explore becoming a Catholic while I was still in the Navy, and chaplains of various stripes - Protestant and Catholic both - were very helpful in getting me any information I requested.
Chaplains are there to provide for the religious needs of servicemembers, and if that need includes conversion in an individual case, they have to provide for that as well. I don’t know of too many people who would find a problem with this.
[/QUOTE]
And where does this contradict my post above? The Chaplains are not there to try to convert people from one faith (or lack thereof) to another (or some) faith. They are there to provide the services (sorry about the pun) you mentioned.
[QUOTE=Monty]
And where does this contradict my post above?
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Not a contradiction at all, just a clarification. Certainly there are times where chaplains will be involved in converting people, and that is entirely proper if it is not initiated by the chaplain.
I felt that there was no clarification needed. After all, try seems to me to indicate active pursuit. My point was that such pursuit is not permitted. Assisting those who approach the Chaplain asking to convert is, of course, not pursuing the potential convert.