The Right Reverend Derek LS Jones
The Right Reverend Derek LS Jones serves as the third Executive Director of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.
Bishop Jones is the first Bishop of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy serving with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). He is a retired USAF combat veteran Fighter Pilot having flown the F-16, CF-18, and F-111 fighter aircraft. Beyond his awards, such as the Combat Air Medal and many other citations, he has the unique distinction of having been a "Top Gun" award winner in every aircraft, at every assignment, throughout his nearly 29 year career. His last assignment was as the Reserve Advisor to the Commander and Director of Staff for the Air Force Doctrine Center, collocated at Maxwell AFB and the Pentagon. In this role, he directed the activities of over 100 geographically separated military personnel in the writing of Air Force and Joint Military Doctrine. He retired in 2009 after 28 years of distinguish military service.
Bishop Jones trains, educates, ordains, and directs the activities of all Anglican Chaplains within the ACNA, and other Anglican Communion partners, who require formal ecclesiastical endorsement. These professional chaplains serve in the United States Armed Forces, Veteran's Administration, Department of Justice, and other Federal and State agencies; as well as serving with and through a variety of professional organizations such as the International Conference of Police Chaplains, the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education, and the Professional Chaplains Association. He has served as an endorsing official since January 2007 and is the founding bishop of the Chaplain ministry for the ACNA. Bishop Jones is a trained and experienced Law Enforcement Chaplain currently supporting his local Sheriff’s Department and the United States Secret Service.
Bishop Jones served on the Executive Committee for the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (NCMAF) from 2009 to 2021, serving as its chairman from 2019 to 2021. Credited with significant and fundamental changes during his tenure, NCMAF voted unanimously on a proclamation for Bishop Jones to be a permanent “Chair Emeritus” of NCMAF. Upon completion of his tenure as the NCMAF Chair, he was immediately unanimously elected to serve as the Executive Director of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty; an organization he helped found in 2011, and with whom he served as its first secretary.
Bishop Jones is a recognized Subject Matter Expert (SME) on Religious Liberty and Religious Liberty matters. He serves as an invited member to the House and Senate Value Actions Team (VAT), is a newly invited member to the Religion and Foreign Relations Community of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and serves on several Religious Liberty committees. He has been involved through Amici Curiae in several high visibility court cases. His argument of Conscientious Objection in his amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in 2016 in defense of the “Little Sisters of the Poor” helped “substantially move the court,” (Becket Fund) to a unanimous favorable decision in the days following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Bishop Jones co-authored language adopted into law through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2014 protecting the Right of Conscience for military members that proved critical in protecting Religious Liberty in the military during the Obama administration. In 2020, Bishop Jones’ amicus in Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru is cited on page 18 as being the compelling argument to the decision. And, most recently (May 2021), he championed and co-authored bi-partisan legislation to update the Chaplain Memorials in Arlington National Cemetery after nearly eight years of anti-religion objections by the bureaucrats running the cemetery.
Bishop Jones has provided amicus to the courts in several other cases as well. The United States v. Monifa J. Sterling, Lance Corporal (E-3) USMC (Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, 2016), Brian Fields, et al., v. Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (3rd Circuit, 2019), and Daniel Barker v. Chaplain Patrick Conroy (DC Court of Appeals, 2018). Recently, he has provided Amici Curiae for Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Linda Lacewell, Superintendent, New York State Department of Financial Services, both decided favorably in the United States Supreme Court. In the 2020 Fulton vs. the City of Philadelphia case, presented through Becket Fund attorneys, his arguments are favorably cited on page 18 of the SCOTUS decision in favor of Fulton.
Bishop Jones, in his role as the Executive Director of CALL, is currently providing a requested amicus in the Coach Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District. Partnering with First Liberty’s premier military Religious Liberty attorney, Mike Berry, they successfully forced US Army leadership in October of 2021 to reverse their unlawful actions in punishing a military chaplain for exercising his Religious Freedom and ecclesiastical rights to speak against social injustice and adverse decisions to military readiness.
Beyond his time in the military and his current work as a Bishop in the Anglican Church, he continues to advocate for Air Power and served as the President of the Birmingham, AL Chapter of the Air Force Association in 2012-2013 and currently serves as the Commander of his local American Legion post. In other civic areas, Bishop Jones has served as an adjudicator for the United States Pony Club (USPC) and has served on the National Quiz Committee from 2004-2011 for that organization. In 2012, he was named a Distinguished Honorary Alumni of Nashotah House Seminary in Wisconsin. He serves on several Boards to include Anglicans for Life, Nashotah House Seminary, and on the Chaplain Committee for Beeson Divinity School. He recently founded “Anglicans in Action,” a non-profit to engage in religious matters nationally and internationally, and will be launching a Political Action Committee in July.
Bishop Jones’ wife, Connie, is a Family Nurse Practitioner in full-time practice in Alabama. In their off-time, they enjoy working with their horses and other outdoor activities (kayaking and hiking). An accomplished musician and a member of Phi Mu Alpha, Bishop Jones enjoys vocal performance and little theater. Bishop Derek and Connie have 2 daughters and five living granddaughters.