As if the Air Force Academy didn't have enough trouble, a husband-and-wife team has been assigned by a missionary group to work full time to train students how to proselytize to fellow cadets. They are even being given a certain amount of official support.

The Washington Post reports:

“Praise God that we have been allowed access by the Academy into the cadet areas to minister among the cadets. We have recently been given an unused classroom to meet with cadets at any time during the day,” the husband-and-wife team of Darren and Gina Lindblom said in the Oct. 11 letter to their donors.

The Lindbloms’ letter was made public by Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, a 1977 Air Force Academy alumnus who was a White House lawyer in the Reagan administration. He has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Air Force of violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause by fostering evangelical Christianity over all faiths. ... “The only group that gets 24/7 unrestricted access to cadets is this fundamentalist, born-again Christian group,” Weinstein charged.

The missionary group is called the Navigators and, according to Lauren Libby, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Navigators, they have had staff members assigned to the Air Force Academy for more than a decade. If it’s true that other groups don’t have this same level of official access, it’s completely unacceptable.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the above letter ended with the statement “We respectfully request that you not share this letter publicly. Due to the lawsuit recently filed, the contents of this letter are confidential.” They didn’t want the rest of the world to learn about the secret dealings they have had which gives a certain brand of Christianity special privileges at a government institution. I say, then, that the letter should be publicized far and wide.

 

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