Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/washington/01church.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Terry Bradshaw stared intently into the camera, his eyes moist, as the interviewer asked him if his faith in God had helped him through his bouts with depression.
“Oh, yeah,” answered Mr. Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame quarterback. “Well, I’m a Christian for one thing so, yeah, I’d been praying.”
The viewers of this video were military personnel who were watching an official military production dealing with depression, suicide and “the importance of faith.”
The screening of the suicide-prevention video and other recent incidents are reviving questions that the Pentagon had hoped to put behind it years ago: what the proper role of religion should be in the military and whether a pro-Christian culture permeates the armed forces.
Military officials have worked to enforce tougher restrictions on proselytizing and religious bias since a flare-up over religious discrimination in 2005 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where the football coach posted a locker room banner for “Team Jesus.” Officials said they had made great strides in the last few years, with training for officers and a concerted effort at the inclusion of all faiths.
“I’d be wrong to state that every chaplain does it right 100 percent of the time, but we work very hard at it,” said Carleton Birch of the Army’s Chief of Chaplains Office. “Chaplains ascribe to pluralism. We represent our own faith while respecting other faith groups.”
Signs of continued friction over the issue still abound, however. In a memorandum distributed last month at the Air Force Academy in response to several recent complaints about religious bias, base leaders reminded faculty members that “the Air Force is ‘officially neutral’ when it comes to belief systems.” The memorandum said cadets should not be made to feel that they would get better jobs by going to optional Bible study sessions.