An Air Force chaplain has posted a blog saying Christian service members who support religious liberty serve the Constitution “and not Christ.“
Capt. Sonny Hernandez, an Air Force Reserve chaplain for the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, ministers to thousands of men and women serving in the Air Force. He contends that Christians serving in the military “serve Satan” if they support other service member’s rights to practice their own faiths.
In a blog published on BarbWire.com, Hernandez wrote: “Counterfeit Christians in the armed forces will appeal to the Constitution, and not Christ, and they have no local church home — which means they have no accountability for their souls.
“Christian service members who openly profess and support the rights of Muslims, Buddhists, and all other anti-Christian worldviews to practice their religions — because the language in the Constitution permits — are grossly in error, and deceived,” he wrote.
Hernandez asserts that “Christian service members must share the Gospel with unbelievers so they can be saved, not support unbelievers to worship their false gods that will lead them to hell.”
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said in a statement it’s received multiple complaints regarding Hernandez over the past few years and that they’ve filed complaints with the DoD regarding his conduct.
The foundation said Hernandez’s article “blatantly and indisputably advocates the subordinating of the U.S. Constitution to his personal Christian ideology and violated his oath of office as a commissioned officer.”
In a blog for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, author Don Byrd writes that the idea that only counterfeit Christians wou whld support the rights of all Americans to practice their faith is “outrageous.”
“Personal theological beliefs do not disqualify an individual from public service,” Byrd writes. “However, Hernandez’s post goes well beyond questions of theology. He encourages Christian service members to refuse support for the “rights of all Americans.”
”Denying the rights of non-Christians is an offense to American liberty,” Byrd writes. “But it also undermines the strength of the Christian faith by suggesting it is threatened by a truly free conscience. The success of a religion should not depend on the extent to which the rights of others are restricted.”
Mackenzie Wolf is an editorial intern for Military Times.
