Ten Things I Learned From the Pentagon's Prayer Team

Little while ago I received a phone call from Mikey Weinstein, the prime mover behind the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, created in the wake of 2005's revelations of widespread evangelical proselytizing at the Air Force Academy. Weinstein told me that he'd spent Thanksgiving morning reading my December 2006 Harper's feature "Through a Glass Darkly" (online in January), which included a brief discussion of the now infamous Christian Embassy video [watch here] featuring high-ranking military officers testifying in uniform on behalf of the behind-the-scenes fundamentalist organization, an apparent violation of military regulations. Weinstein has since launched a secular crusade of his own in response to the video, with the backing of a group of generals determined to maintain separation of church and state in the military.

The first public notice of the video came at the end of a longer discussion on the surprising importance of confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson to American fundamentalist historiography:

To put it in political terms, the contradictory legend of Stonewall Jackson -- rebellion and reverence, rage and order -- results in the synthesis of self-destructive patriotism embraced by contemporary fundamentalism. The most striking example is a short video on faith and diplomacy made in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, by Christian Embassy, a behind-the-scenes ministry for government and military elites. It almost seems to endorse deliberate negligence of duty. Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans' affairs, announces that his weekly prayer sessions are "more important than doing the job." Maj. Gen. Jack Catton says that he sees his position as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a "wonderful opportunity" to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. "My first priority is my faith," he says. "I think it's a huge impact. ... You have many men and women who are seeking God's counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the secretary of defense." Brig. Gen. Bob Caslen puts it in sensual terms: "We're the aroma of Jesus Christ." There's a joyous disregard for democracy in these sentiments, for its demands and its compromises, that in its darkest manifestation becomes the overlooked piety at the heart of the old logic of Vietnam, lately applied to Iraq: In order to save the village, we must destroy it.

Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer and Reagan White House counsel, saw not just some disturbing theology, but a potential violation of military regulations regarding separation of church and state. Moreover, with his son -- a recent graduate of the Air Force Academy -- headed for Iraq, Weinstein saw the video as almost made-to-order Al Qaeda propaganda. After all, how hard would it be to persuade a potential Al Qaeda recruit that the United States is fighting a Christian crusade when U.S. generals and Department of Defense officials say so in so many words? Weinstein's organization is pushing the Pentagon for a full investigation.

In the meantime, I promised Weinstein I'd review my notes from an interview I conducted with Christian Embassy's chief of staff Sam McCullough on Nov. 2, 2005, in the process of researching a profile of Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, the Christian Right's favorite candidate for '08, for Rolling Stone. McCullough and I met in his corner office at 2000 14th Street in Arlington, Virginia, a sterile cul de sac of computer-cut brick and glass down a hill from the Arlington courthouse. Christian Embassy occupies a low suite of offices on the third floor, decorated so generically that it looks like it must be a front -- there are two ferns and some colonial lamps and a tacky painting of the Grand Tetons. McCullough is an ordained minister, but he prefers not to use the title of "reverend" because he believes he can more effectively spread the Gospel if he can "blend in as a layman." He's a tall man with broad shoulders that are slightly sloped. There's a golf hat that says "The Hill" on top of his lamp, his sole concession to frivolity.