If God Is with Us

Abstract

This article uses the metaphor of the U.S. Air Force as religion to provide a fresh perspective in understanding a technologically-based culture built on matters of life-and-death. The United States Air Force is the youngest military service of the United States, just recently celebrating its 70th anniversary of independent existence. The U.S. Air Force has venerated traditions, hallowed rituals, sacred myths, and holy doctrine. Its culture also has a strong respect for the well-established hierarchy, a deeply instilled reverence for senior members, a bureaucracy famous for resistance to change, and beliefs about salvation from very real, mortal danger. All of these characteristics have counterparts in religions and will be used to describe a model of a “military religion” with particular focus on the U.S. Air Force. Using this model, the Air Force’s organizational resistance to change, approach to technology and technological change, integration with other military services, and systemic cultural issues can be considered in a new light. The religious narrative—with the organizational roles of actors such as priests, prophets, and laity, and the institutional connotations of theological terms such as sacredness—provides a richer understanding of the sublimity of the U.S. Air Force and what it means to be an airman.