FOTF Official Finds Allegations Against Air Force Clergy 'Ridiculous'
by Chad Groening
July 1, 2005
(AgapePress) - A spokesman for a Colorado-based pro-family organization says he is encouraged by the recent report dealing with alleged religious discrimination at the U.S. Air Force Academy.Tom Minnery, vice president of Government and Public Policy at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, says the report by the Air Force Inspector General largely exonerates the Commandant of Cadets. Moreover, Minnery feels further investigation will clear him completely.
The charges were ridiculous, Minnery says, including a complaint from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, alleging that a Christian chaplain had preached that people who failed to turn to Jesus Christ would spend eternity in hell.
Minnery claims that was a huge problem for the Americans United organization and its leader, Barry Lynn. "Our belief is that a chaplain who did not say that would be derelict in his duty," the policy expert points out, "because that's the Christian gospel."
However, the ministry official finds comments about Focus on the Family's relationship with the Air Force Academy amusing. "I think what upsets [Barry Lynn and his crowd] is [their suspicion that] something devious is going on," Minnery says, speculating they may be thinking that "those people at Focus on the Family -- they're infecting the air and blowing it across the valley, and then they're ingesting that at the Air Force Academy and it's turning them into religious automatons."
The FOTF policy spokesman believes these allegations are being driven largely by people like Lynn, who would take issue with "a chaplain, in a chapel, [in a] Christian worship service preaching that if you did not turn to Jesus Christ you would spend eternity in hell. That was a huge problem for Barry Lynn's organization," Minnery contends.
Academy cadets are trained to render the ultimate sacrifice, Minnery notes. For that reason he feels they should be encouraged to grapple with life's ultimate meaning -- not harassed when they do so. And again, he points out, FOTF would consider it a dereliction of duty for an Air Force chaplain not to preach that salvation is only available through Jesus Christ.
"The attack by Americans United for Separation of Church and State cited a number of instances on the campus, which Americans United concluded amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion," Minnery says. However, he notes that the activities on the part of some Air Force chaplains that have been called into question are generally both lawful and biblical.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
