Published: 1 June 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Summer 2008

With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military by Michael L. Weinstein and Davin Seay. St. Martin’s Press (http://www.stmartins.com), 175 Fifth Street, New York, New York 10010, 2006, 272 pages, $25.95 (hardcover).

While conservatives dominate talk radio and liberals now make movie documentaries, anyone can write a book on a hot-button issue. For Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, a book must have seemed the next logical step in his continuing campaign to supply ingredients for more nationally reported headlines like those originating from the Air Force Academy over the last several years. Weinstein, of course, is the academy graduate who argues that evangelical Christian values were illegally pushed on cadets, including his two sons, who, like their father, are Jewish. He contends that the events at the academy are symptoms of a “creeping evangelism” in the military that violates both First Amendment rights and the “separation clause” between church and state. For Weinstein, the Academy case serves as evidence for his broader charges of “systemic problems of religious bias and Constitutional neglect that continue to occur within the United States armed forces” (Gordon Lubold, “Religious Bias Complaint Filed with DOD IG,” Air Force Times, 12 December 2006). In just over a year, Weinstein has filed suit against the Air Force as well as organized and headed up a religious watchdog group—the Military Religious Freedom Foundation—because of his perturbations over alleged improper evangelization.

So, if the reader is looking for a dispassionate, balanced investigative report to chronicle, explain, and analyze what occurred at the academy, this semiautobiographical volume is not it. Instead, this is “one man’s war against an evangelical coup” (according to the dust jacket). Weinstein’s campaign is a frontal assault on an institution that is not only his own alma mater but also one he saw fit to have his sons attend. As his coauthor informs us, Weinstein is an angry man: “His anger is never out of reach, foulmouthed explosions of bitterness are launched against the evangelical forces that sometimes seem to feed on the rancor he pours forth” (p. 209).

The release of the book in the fall of 2006 roughly coincides with the hearing of his litigation against the Air Force in federal court. With annexes offering selected official reports and documents to support his claims, it probably could have been filed with the court as the brief for his lawsuit (minus the invective).

Readers will likely find themselves distracted by several literary devices used by Weinstein and his coauthor. The flow of the story is frequently disrupted by a style that abruptly and awkwardly bounces in and out of Weinstein’s first-person narrative and Seay’s third-person narration. Their prose is also prone to bombastic alliteration. The reader encounters far too many sentences such as the following: “The ‘Passion’ [Mel Gibson’s movie] had in short, become a promulgating powerhouse, and within the cloistered confines of the Academy its persuasive potential was given full sway” (p. 37).

More importantly, the largely professional and military audience ultimately interested in reading such a book, including many Air Force personnel with academy connections, may be put off by the author’s self-adulation of personal and professional accomplishments that are routinely and commonly found among his likely audience. Just how many times can one pull off mentioning “He was a lawyer in the Reagan White House” to an already-overachieving group of lawyers, astronauts, engineers, test pilots, general officers, corporate executives, and other professionals?

Overall, the book is raw and biased, reflecting Weinstein’s own angry views as a litigant against the Air Force and, by extension, the entire US military. For the future, his case also represents the opening salvo in a forced debate on the future role of US military chaplains, base chapels, and their programs that is fundamentally at odds with today’s model. Nevertheless, With God on Our Side is essential reading for someone seeking an understanding of the stakes as well as the turbulent events that so closely followed in the wake of the academy’s sexual-assault scandal. Ironically, the antithesis of Weinstein’s case, now before the courts, is also making headlines. A military chaplain is suing the government, charging the military with violating his First Amendment rights by forbidding him to pray “in the name of Jesus” at public ceremonies.

Even though a federal judge dismissed Weinstein’s suit in the fall of 2006, primarily on grounds that the plaintiffs didn’t have “standing with the court” to file it (i.e., they weren’t cadets anymore) and could not prove they were harmed, a sequel will undoubtedly appear. Weinstein may not write it, the setting will probably not be the Air Force Academy, and the case will likely stem from different circumstances.
As long as Americans remain divided over their understanding, let alone interpretation, of the important constitutional principles of First Amendment rights and the separation clause governing church and state relationships in the twenty-first century, divisive cases such as Weinstein’s will unfortunately continue to appear.

Col Chris J. Krisinger, USAF, Retired
Burke, Virginia

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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