Spiritual Fitness

"Spiritual fitness" is the military's new code phrase for promoting religion, and the religion being promoted is Christianity. There are spiritual fitness centers, spiritual fitness programs, spiritual fitness concerts, spiritual fitness runs and walks, and so forth.

This year, for example, Fort Eustis, Virginia, and Fort Lee, Virginia, have been holding a spiritual fitness concert series. At Fort Eustis, it's actually called the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert Series." This is a Christian concert series. All of the performers are Christian recording artists. Photos from one of the Fort Lee concerts show crosses everywhere, and one photo's caption even says that the performer "took a moment to read a Bible passage" during her set. In some cases, attendance at Christian concerts held at basic training installations has been mandatory for the Soldiers in training.

In March 2008, a program was presented at a commander's call at RAF Lakenheath, England. This commander's call was mandatory for an estimated 1,000 service members, and the PowerPoint version of the presentation was e-mailed to an additional 4,000-5,000 members. The "spiritual fitness" segment of this presentation was titled "A New Approach to Suicide Prevention: Developing Purpose-Driven Airmen," a takeoff on Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. The presentation also incorporated creationism into suicide prevention. One slide, titled "Contrasting Theories of Hope, 2 Ultimate Theories Explaining Our Existence," has two columns, the first titled "Chance," and the second "Design," comparing Charles Darwin and "Random/Chaos" to God and "Purpose/Design." Darwin, creationism and religion are also part of a chart comparing the former Soviet Union to the United States, which concludes that "Naturalism/Evolution/Atheism" lead to people being "in bondage" and having "no hope," while theism leads to "People of Freedom" and "People of Hope/Destiny."