Constantine's Sword

---

The cross located me,

it told me who I was.

My connection to Jesus,

the cross a sign of mercy.

I saw crosses everywhere

when I was a kid.

I saw telephone poles as crosses.

I looked up in the sky and

I saw airplanes as crosses.

The cross was...

central..

to the way I saw the world.

It was like a sighting device

even through which I looked.

And then it changed.

I began to see that this cross...

throws a shadow.

I used to be a Roman

Catholic priest.

That was a long time ago.

Now I am married and

father of two grown kids.

And I make my living

as a writer and journalist.

I cover a lot of stories...

but there is one that haunts me.

Probably because

it hits so close to home.

It's the things people are

doing in the name of God.

I went to Colorado Springs

now a scene of controversy over one

of the biggest religious revivals...

in our country.

It is also the home of the United

States Air Force academy.

A destination I'd once envision

for myself as a young man

Being here makes me remember of how

very much I wanted to be in this world.

This world of the air force.

There were always two

parts of me as a kid.

I mean I was a religious boy...

and I was tapped for the priesthood

as a kid.

There was a way in which that was

powerful but the other thing

the whole other half of me

was the love of the air force.

I once wanted to be in

that dormitory as a kid.

My first ambition for myself.

And I would have become

an air force officer...

and my story with my dad would

have been very different.

Dad started out in the slaughterhouses

in the Chicago stockyards.

He met my mother...

a telephone operator who had quit

school after 8th grade...

to support her family.

He made his way down

to night school in the loop...

and after seven years

he went into the FBI.

As a young FBI agent in Chicago, he

captured a notorious gangland criminal...

named Roger "The Terrible" Touhy.

It was such a triumph

for the bureau...

that my dad was brought

into J. Edgar Hoover's inner circle.

In 1947, when the air force

was established...

Dad was picked to set up

its first counter intelligence agency.

A guy who had done

his traveling by train.

I'm not sure if he had ever been

on an airplane at that point.

Now he is an Air Force general.

I am here now...

because I heard that members

of the faculty and administration

along with some of the Evangelicals

Churches in the area...

are on a mission to convert cadets.

In my dad's air force,

that would have been a non-starter.

Things are different now.

It's a quick ride down the

road from the academy...

to pastor Ted Haggard's

New Life Mega church.

I went to see him

there a year ago.

We started a little over 20 years ago

in the basement of our home.

We started with twenty people...

in a concrete basement...

with buckets stacked up

I'd put my bible on them.

Everybody had to bring

their own folding chairs.

So it was a kind of a cute scene.

Now we have 14,000 people that

call New Life their home church...

and on an average Sunday we have

right around 10.000 people...

that come and worship with us.

# Wonderful?

# Beautiful?

# Glorious?

Evangelicalism is growing

and developing.

There is a new mega church...

a mega church being 2000 people

in attendance or more.

There is a new mega-church

in America every two days...

and they are all Evangelical.

# We bow before you in

all of your wonders?

We believe that the bible is the

word of God, Jesus is the son of God...

and that you must be born again.

The National Association

of Evangelicals...

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