“When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own soul.” So writes Harper’s contributing editor, Jeff Sharlet, in a deeply-reported, equally troubling essay (not yet available online) chronicling the rise of the evangelical right in the U.S. Military since the Vietnam War. At the end of the piece, titled “Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military,” the reader is left with the strong impression that if tens-of-thousands of recruits, along with certain high-ranking officers—including General David Patraeus—get their way, evangelical Christians will bring the “Lord of all” to the entire armed forces. The U.S. Constitution be damned.

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