US Navy chaplain not allowed to pray "in the name of Jesus"

"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that all citizens have a fundamental right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, and that includes military servicepeople."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Chaplain Klingenschmitt has been through much in this fight. Besides losing his job as a U.S. Naval Chaplain, he will lose any benefits he once had through the Navy—all for praying "in Jesus' name." We can all be in prayer for Chaplain Klingenschmitt and his family, and also for all of our armed forces in this country, that the name of Jesus would be honored or at least allowed, instead of criminalized. — Aimee Herd, BCN.

News Staff/AH (Mar 1st, 2007)

According to a WND press release, officials in the U.S. Navy have ordered Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who "earned the ire of his commanders with his prayers 'in Jesus' name,'" to prepare for immediate dismissal from the service—slated to take effect at midnight tonight.

Chaplain Klingenschmitt's case had gone to a federal appeals court in Washington, where he had

hoped to gain an injunction to the order, but the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that he had not met the "stringent standards required" for that action.

John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, commented, "The Constitution is clear about the fact that the government is prohibited from establishing a religion. Furthermore, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that all citizens have a fundamental right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, and that includes military servicepeople."

The WND Press Release added that Klingenschmitt's lawsuit stemmed from a 1998 memo issued by the Navy Chief of Chaplains that discouraged them from invoking the name of Jesus in their prayers.

"This instruction was later embodied in an instruction from the secretary of the Navy, which provided that religious elements for a command function, absent extraordinary circumstances, should be non-sectarian in nature," the law firm said.

"Chaplain Klingenschmitt resisted these directives on the basis of a federal statute providing that chaplains may conduct public worship according to the manner and forms of the church of which he is a member," the firm said.

Source: World News Daily, Persuade.tv