The punchline to my story title? - Unless the Air Force considers the Military Religious Freedom Fundation's objections and reconsiders the invitation, one of that pilot's colleagues will be the keynote speaker at the US Air Force's February 10th National Prayer Luncheon at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The USAFA suggests the event is modeled after the National Prayer Breakfast, a yearly event run by the Washington neo-fundamentalist group The Fellowship. First, a bit on The Fellowship, then I'll get to the B-2 "Stealth" bomber pilot.
Longtime Fellowship head Douglas Coe has likened his group to "the mafia" and encouraged Christians to follow Jesus with the same level of zeal as young Chinese Red Guard cadres who, during Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution, were willing to chop off the heads of their own mothers and fathers, for the communist cause (here's the footage of Mr. Coe saying that, during a 1989 speech in Colorado Springs.) Another charming aspect of the Fellowship concerns journalist Jeff Sharlet's identification of Fellowship Uganda member David Bahati as principle author and legislative backer of Uganda's so-called "Kill the gays bill" which Sharlet has characterized as "possibly genocidal."
But back to the B-2 Stealth Bomber pilot. Here's the background:
Three years ago, on a beautiful sunny late Saturday morning on May 27th, 2007, at a Baptist gathering co-hosted by Task Force Patriot, in an amphitheater in the Georgia woods, amidst a group of little more than a hundred people, I heard (and recorded) one of the United States Air Force's elite B-2 bomber pilots state,
"I'm going to have to separate myself from the service of this nation if it's required in order to propagate the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to disregard my responsibilities. But if there ever comes a time when there is a priority to be made, a decision to be made, it must always rest in the work of the Lord and the Lord's army. Because that commission is greater than the one I received from the United States Air Force Academy."
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/1/28/133111/141We can't have "end days" American Taliban zealots flying around with bombs on their fighter jets!
The Air Force better get this under control before we have to RUN the fundies out of the airplanes ourselves!