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Chief of chaplains speaks out

Deciphering the dos and don’ts of discussing religion within the Air Force is not a job for the meek. Some mobilized evangelicals see airmen as de facto missionaries. Lawsuit-filing watchdogs continue to claim Christianity is often force-fed to subordinates. Even chaplains, the military’s in-house arbiters of faith, don’t always agree on when evangelism is permissible.

Now it’s Maj. Gen. Cecil Richardson’s job to continue sorting out God’s role in the service.

Appointed in May as the service’s chief of chaplains, Richardson began his Air Force career in 1966, interpreting Cold War-era Russian intercepts. He’s a Protestant pastor who borrows his spirited preaching style from black clergymen, he said. And even as deputy chief of chaplains, a position he held for four years before assuming the top slot, Richardson found himself sucked into the sharp debate over evangelism’s boundaries.

In recent years, accusations of evangelical line-crossing have piled up. In 2005, Fisher DeBerry, then the Air Force Academy’s football coach, was ordered to remove a “Team Jesus Christ” banner from the locker room. Senior officers who were filmed in uniform at the Pentagon for a Christian promotional video were reprimanded. Then in February, again at the academy, three professed ex-terrorists and reformed Christians were accused of putting a “Jesus saves” message in a presentation to cadets.

Richardson, quoted three years ago in The New York Times as saying chaplains “reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched,” was cited in a lawsuit against the Air Force that claimed there was widespread proselytizing at the academy. The suit was brought by Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force attorney and longtime critic of alleged coercive Christianity within the military. (As a result of the suit, a private chaplain association’s code of ethics retaining the “right to evangelize those who are not affiliated” is no longer passed out at Air Force Chaplain’s School.)

Both parties in the ongoing skirmishes over evangelism claim they’re fighting for “freedom.” To activists like Weinstein, it’s the freedom from religious persecution. For the evangelicals, it’s the freedom to speak about religion without interference.

The truth, Richardson suggests, is somewhere in between.

In an interview with Air Force Times, Richardson says that evangelism isn’t bad, but “sledgehammer evangelism” is. He explains when airmen eager to talk religion have to back off, and why Air Force chaplains must refocus on airmen afflicted by war.

Q. You’ve publicly made the distinction between proselytizing and evangelism. Explain the difference.

A. Proselytizing is sheep-stealing. Evangelism comes from the Greek word ... which means to announce good news. If I were to call you to say that your wife just won the lottery, that’s evangelism. In the Christian context, it means sharing your faith. A chaplain isn’t an evangelist. A chaplain’s a chaplain.

Proselytizing generally has a negative context. It kind of implies there might be some coercion or pressure. But we tend to talk of evangelism in terms of sharing your faith, practicing your faith, speaking about your faith ... though some people will be offended by anything. It’s a good word.

Q. The Air Force’s latest guidelines on free exercise of religion refer to a “special responsibility” of commanders to make sure they’re not seen as endorsing a certain faith. What does that mean and is it well-understood — and well-enforced — by the leadership?

A. I think it’s well-understood. I’m not sure that it was a few years ago. I think we took the hit on that. We speak of the religious guidelines at each of our briefings for commanders. Every person inducted in the military, whether through basic training, ROTC or [Officer Training School], they’re briefed on the religious guidelines. But I tell leaders, if you’re just introducing yourself to someone and you say I’m married, I have three kids, I’m from Ohio, I’m a Roman Catholic and my faith is an important part of my life, no problem. It’s one of those common-sense things. If you take it one step further and say, “If you want to be a good airman, a good officer and a good student ... you have to be Roman Catholic or Baptist,” then you’ve gone over the line.

It’s true the other way around. I’ve met guys who say, “I’ve got a commander who’s very anti-religious. He’s let it be known that you don’t go bringing the Bible into the work area or bowing in the corner before a meal or you don’t talk about Jesus.” ... That’s over the line.

Q. Since a good portion of the senior leadership belongs to the Christian faith, do you think Christian airmen who are public about their beliefs benefit by rising more quickly in the ranks?

A. I’ve never seen it happen. I’ve been in 35 years. Also, Christian, what’s that mean? We’ve got 83 different denominations of Protestants in the military. Plus, we have Christian Orthodox, Abyssinian Christian, Roman Orthodox. If a person is truly practicing their faith, they would not give preference to somebody because of their faith. I’m not saying it’s never happened, but I’ve never seen it happen. And it’s definitely not commonplace.

Q. Say a Christian chaplain is visited by a troubled airman who isn’t interested in hearing about religion. Do you trust your chaplains to advise that airman without steering him toward Jesus?

A. Well, you know, sometimes Jesus is what they need. They’re asking for it. But that’s not really why [chaplains] become chaplains. They were accepted because they had a great record in their civilian church, but they wanted to reach out beyond their church. What I tell chaplains, when I’m talking to the new ones, is: If you wear a cross, you’re a pastor to the Christians. If you wear the tablets, you’re a pastor to the Jewish people. If you wear the crescent, you’re a pastor, or whatever term you want to use, to the Muslims. But no matter which insignia you wear, you’re a chaplain to all. You want to stretch your arms as wide as you possibly can.

Q. You’ve been scrutinized for condoning “evangelizing the unchurched.”

A. Nobody ever asked me if I ever said that. The young lady who quoted me on that, she didn’t have a pen with her. She’s from The New York Times. We were at Colorado Springs at our “Spiritual Fitness” conference. The person doing the program was ... a Christian Scientist, the music was done by a Roman Catholic and the sound system was [run by] a Baptist guy. The whole front row was Orthodox Jews. She was just blown away. “How do you get along? Aren’t you going after each other’s people?” I said, “Oh no, we never do that. If you want to do that, you wouldn’t be a chaplain. Besides, we have a code of ethics.” Most chaplains have the thing memorized. It’s not an Air Force or [Defense Department] code of ethics. It’s a code of ethics for chaplains, for those who endorse us [the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces, a private association]. One of the parts of the code says we will not proselytize, but we reserve the right to “evangelize the unaffiliated.” I thought nobody would pay attention to that. Well, goodness! Bless her heart, though. She wasn’t being antagonistic.

Q. If one airman wants to talk to another airman about Jesus, when do they have to back off?

A. The same place they back off if it’s someone pressuring you about playing golf. We have rules that are very clear, very good, about harassment and undue pressure and undue influence. If a guy says, “Come play golf with me.” Nah, nah, don’t want to do it. Then he comes back, “Come play golf with me.” I told you, I don’t want to do that. If he comes back again, you say, “Man, you’re harassing me. Back off!” Then, if he doesn’t back off, you go to your supervisors. We’ve got rules about that. We don’t do that stuff. Religion is no different.

Q. A lot of buzz emanates from outside groups who have an interest in the Air Force, such as the Campus Crusade for Christ. How do you feel about some of their statements, in particular those about turning Air Force Academy cadets into “government-paid missionaries”?

A. I’m not comfortable with that. It’s a poor choice of words, and I wish they’d never say anything like that. At the same time, I understand what they mean. I came to Christ when I turned 20. My faith in God has affected my entire life. It affected who I married, where I went to school, my profession. I hope my faith has positively affected every person I’ve met since that day. But I’ve never been into sledgehammer evangelism. It’s against my personality and against my theology.

Q. Do you have any signature changes you plan to bring to the Air Force chaplaincy?

A. Our mission statement has always been “Glorifying God, honoring airman, serving all.” We’re going to change it to “Glorifying God, serving airmen, pursuing excellence.” Glorifying God and serving airmen? We got it nailed. With excellence, we’re hurting. We’ve not failed. But we’re doing too much. We’re fighting a war. I got a lot of people over there doing things no clergyperson ... ever dreamed they’d be doing.

They’re affected — deeply affected. Stateside, we’re preparing marriages so they can endure through this long period of separation: four months, six months, a year. We’re working with parent-child relationships so if mommy or daddy deploys, the family stays together and the kids understand. We’re working with individuals to build a foundation of faith to stand on when they go through the most difficult time in their whole life.

We’ve really got to cut out some of these programs that aren’t directly for warrior care and focus on the few things that will really help take care of our warriors. The Air Force’s number one priority is winning the war. Our number one priority is warrior care.

Q. So what are the programs that aren’t directly administered to “warriors”?

A. Worship services that we’ve been doing 20 to 30 years. Very few people are attending them, and they’re high maintenance. We probably need to set them aside. We have lots of things we’re doing because we’ve always done them. In order to offer more counseling, more pre-deployment retreats and marriage enrichment, I have to ask each chaplain staff to look at what the need is in their community. I don’t want to start listing things because then they’ll take my list. But look at your needs in the community. And look at your staff. What are your gifts, what are your talents, your sense of calling? What can you do that nobody in the local community can do? Then match your gifts and talents to the identified needs. You might identify some great need and figure we’ll send that need off base. Ask the local clergy.

Q. The idea has been floated to do away with the chaplaincy. Chaplains are no longer employed, all the chapels are shut down. How is the Air Force worse off?

A. You can’t find a civilian counterpart to a chaplain. If you did deploy them, they wouldn’t be trained to survive in a combat environment. I can’t go down to the pastor of First Methodist Church and tell him I’m deploying him to Iraq. I could get contractors, but I’d have to get a contractor for every single faith group. I can ask a chaplain to throw his arms around every faith group.

Airmen on religion

In their own words, Air Force Times readers share their views on religion in uniform:

“Christ died on a cross to save everyone from sin. Unfortunately, in our biblical posture of saints and sinners, we continue to make our daily blunders ... like forcing our beliefs on someone else. You can never force someone anywhere.”

— Lt. Col. (Chaplain) Gary Garvey

Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.

— Capt. James Holler

Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

“Religious beliefs practiced by those in the Air Force workplace brought positive character qualities like honesty and outstanding leadership skills in each unit to which I have been assigned. At the same time, I have seen no instances where religion has hindered fair leadership and treatment in any direction. ... I do not feel that political correctness with respect to religion has yet handicapped the Air Force, but I believe we are slowly going in that direction as we mirror society.”

— Capt. Tim Sutton

Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii

“I have never agreed with a ‘blessing’ at official military events or functions. If I’m in my uniform performing my duties, there is no need for religion. If I want to include religion in my day, I can do it on my time — not the military’s time.”

— Master Sgt. Kenneth Bryant

Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.