A Maryland county and a Christian prison ministry have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by an imam barred from serving as a jail chaplain because he is Muslim. The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced the $195,000 settlement for Edrees Bridges, who sued Prince George’s County and Prison Ministry of America in 2021 after learning chaplain supervisors were required to be Christian. The settlement agreement includes Bridges’ appointment as a volunteer jail chaplain by the county and the ministry’s agreement to stop using religious tests for paid chaplains moving forward, CAIR said. “Prison Ministries of America, the contractor who advertised the position, claims the Statement of Applicant’s Christian Faith is optional. Nor was there a need for a specifically Christian chaplain, as the chaplaincy supervisor would supervise religious programming at the jail for all religions.”Bridges’ service as a chaplain was inspired by an encounter with a chaplain while serving with the U.S. Capitol Police, according to the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies.