Top US military officers openly conducted evangelism within their command structures.

Evidence

Wickham wasn’t the only military leader to promote evangelical teachings. In 1985 the Officers’ Christian Fellowship magazine Command published a special issue, “The Christian Commander,” urging officers to use their positions of influence for evangelistic purposes. None other than marine colonel John Grinalds—Oliver North’s supervising officer in 1978—wrote an article detailing his longstanding practice of “evangelism in command.” Grinalds thought commanders ought “to present Christ” to those in their command, and he believed this to be mandated both by the Bible and by military regulations. Commanders, after all, were supposed to look after the spiritual welfare of their troops. Grinalds openly shared his faith, inviting marines to attend worship services on Sunday and encouraging the Navigators—an evangelical Christian ministry—to witness to marines in his command. He kept New Testaments in his desk drawer for distribution and regularly sought to turn one-on-one conversations to “a discussion about Christ.” The results of his evangelistic efforts could be quantified; during his twelve-month command he “saw the S-3, S-4, Communications Officer, Motor Transport Officer, two Company Commanders and the Assault Amphibian Platoon Commander commit their lives to Christ,” in addition to many others who recommitted and were baptized. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 309

Categorization

• XREF: This is a concrete instance of the militant masculinity apparatus being transmitted through institutions, complementing the book’s consumer-culture mechanism argument and connecting to later analysis of the military-church fusion.