MOST OF THE 30 new staff members gathered at the United States Air Force Academy for orientation are in their 20s and 30s. Some are air force personnel and some are academy graduates. Some are veterans of the Gulf War, while others served in Iraq. A speaker is talking to them about leadership and character. Suddenly he says, "The academy has been isolated and has drifted away from standard air force practice. If you see anything that doesn't jibe with standard air force practice, please question it."

He is no doubt referring to a recent series of scandals at the academy--from indecent behavior by drunken cadets to poor handling of incidents of sexual assault. Apparently his comment is the new party line: the academy has been isolated too long; the time has come for integration into broader military standards and for a significant change in culture.

The most recent controversy, however, has nothing to do with violence or drunkenness among the cadets. The academy has been accused of tacitly and sometimes explicitly promoting evangelical Christianity, of allowing inappropriate proselytizing by faculty, instructors and cadets, and of creating an atmosphere hostile to those of non-Christian faiths or no religious faith at all.
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Kristen Leslie, an assistant professor in pastoral care at Yale Divinity School, visited the academy in the summer of 2004 to observe basic training and help the chaplains respond to cases of sexual violence. A report by Leslie and academy chaplain Melinda Morton questioned the evangelizing that is occurring at the academy. In one instance, says Leslie, a Protestant chaplain at a worship service told cadets that if their bunkmates were not born again, they "would burn in the fires of hell."

At the same time, Mikey Weinstein, a 1977 academy graduate, was collecting evidence of more than 50 incidents of religious intolerance and inappropriate behavior by staff, faculty or cadets during his son's time at the academy. Some of these incidents have been reported in the media. Mr Force Academy football coach Fisher DeBerry once hung a sign in the locker room that said, "Team Jesus Christ." Another instructor handed out tracts to cadets who came to see him. A high-ranking officer taught his cadets a hand signal meaning "Jesus Christ" and called upon them to display it at various assemblies.

The last straw for Weinstein was the air force chaplain code of ethics, developed by the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces, a private organization that supplies and accredits military chaplains. Although Weinstein agreed with one statement in the code, "I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies," he objected to another, "However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are unaffiliated." In October 2005, following Weinstein's complaints, the code was withdrawn for "further review."

Discouraged by this move, and by what he saw as paltry efforts at responding to an aggressive evangelical atmosphere, Weinstein filed a lawsuit citing the academy for "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination.

There's no doubting the evangelical atmosphere at and around the Air Force Academy. Looking out from the academy's upper campus in Colorado Springs, one can see the 14,000-member New Life Church, pastored by Ted Haggerty. Evangelical groups meet regularly at the academy, and evangelical chaplains, who see the military as both a mission field and a stronghold of Christian values, outnumber their nonevangelieal counterparts 12-1. As controversy about religion at the academy became more and more public, Focus on the Family jumped into the fray and created a video, shown at its headquarters, that attempts to frame the debate.

Colorado Springs is home to dozens of evangelical organizations whose members believe that they have a religious duty to shape and influence government and society. They see the military as a place where God, patriotism and a God-ordained social structure come together. The Air Force Academy seems to be that place: it actively recruits evangelical young people, and more than 85 percent of the cadets claim to be Christian.

In this atmosphere, the academy's response to the accusations has been slow and tentative. The strategy of the academy and of the Department of Defense, revealed in an investigation led by Lieutenant General Roger Brady, himself an evangelical Christian, has been to respond to instances of alleged intolerance rather than to any systemic problem. Their reluctance is understandable. After all, previous attempts at reform have led to vigorous backlash from politicians and church leaders. And if the academy acknowledged that religious intolerance is systemic and involves abuse of power, then its leaders would also have to acknowledge their tenuous position in relationship to the First Amendment, which says that the government will not use its power to "establish religion."