With God on Our Side

Book excerpt: One of the most elite educational institutions in the world, the Air Force Academy has, from its inception, attracted the best and the brightest, producing leaders not only in the military but throughout American society. In recent years, however, the Academy has also been producing a cadre of zealous evangelical Christians intent on creating a fundamentalist power base at the highest levels of our country. With God on Our Side is shocking exposé of life inside the United States Air Force Academy and the systematic program of indoctrination sanctioned, coordinated, and carried out by fundamentalist Christians within the U.S. military. It is also the story of Michael L. Weinstein, a proud Academy graduate and the father of two graduates and a current cadet, who single-handedly brought to light the evangelicals' utter disregard of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state that is so essential to the nation's military mission. Weinstein's war would pit him and his small band of fellow graduates, cadets, and concerned citizens against a program of Christian fundamentalist indoctrination that could transform our fighting men and women into "right-thinking" warriors more befitting a theocracy. In the process, he would come face to face with religious bigotry and at its most extreme and fight an unrelenting battle to save his beloved Academy, the ideals it stood for, and the very future of the country. An important book at a critical time in our nation's history, With God on Our Side is the story of one man's courageous struggle to thwart a creeping evangelism permeating America's military and to prevent a taxpayer-funded theocracy in which only the true believers have power.