A nonprofit ministry is set to go where no other nonprofit ministry has gone before — by launching the first-ever Christian airline that will fly missionaries around the world.

I’m always dubious about things like this because I’ve seen more than enough photos of missionaries handing out Bibles to impoverished, struggling people but it does sound like the folks behind based Judah 1 have good intentions, The Christian Post reports.

The airline, based at the Shreveport Regional Airport, in Shreveport, Louisiana has already ferried small groups of missionaries to disaster-stricken areas and other mission fields while serving as a private airline.

Starting next year, that’s going to change because Judah 1 will “go from being private, which is what we are now to an actual airline standard,” Judah 1 president and CEO Everett Aaron said during an interview with The Christian Post. After that happens, the airline will have been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, thus aligning it with well-known airlines like Delta and American Airlines.

Right now, the ministry is relying on smaller planes, but plans are in the works to purchase larger ones capable of flying hundreds of people by 2021’s end.

“By the end of next year, we would like to have three or four large planes,” Aaron said. “As of yesterday, we now have being added to our fleet a Boeing 767-200ER. … It seats 238 people and can go anywhere in the world with one-stop. It carries 30 tons of cargo.”

While the airline will be all shiny and new, there will be some distinctions between it and other major airlines, he noted.

“We will be non-scheduled and we do not have to have approved routes,” Aaron said. “So, that means we can go where we want when we want, unlike most airlines … that have to have certain schedules that they fly, have to have certain routes. We don’t have to do that.”

Missionaries will still need to pay for their flights, but Judah 1 won’t charge baggage and cargo fees, “so all of the missionaries’ cargo goes free.”

But the airline’s imminent launch is likely to coincide with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Aaron says precautions have been set in place, however. The nonprofit airline has already been doing this with smaller flights during the pandemic.

“Our airplanes are sanitized,” he said. “We have a machine that literally kills 99.9 percent of the germs in the aircraft. After every flight, we do that.”

That statement causes an alarm to go off in my head, however. More than a few churches have supposedly “sanitized” only to have outbreaks occur. These same churches have decried those who stay at home to avoid being sickened. I’m concerned because the article doesn’t mention whether anyone flying wears masks. Aaron’s sentiments are all well and good but if folks aren’t wearing masks they may be inadvertently spreading the virus.

But even so, there are some apparent positive things about this because the airline can work in a “humanitarian” capacity to help those struggling in the pandemic. Aaron notes this is a “definite” advantage.

“We are allowed to go into countries that are locked down, whereas normal airlines cannot,” he added.

Last year, for instance, the airline transported Operation Blessing, a humanitarian organization associated with the Christian Broadcasting Network, to the Bahamas to bring aid to people victimized by Hurricane Dorian.

And plans are in the works with Operation Blessing once again. This time to provide aid to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras, countries that have been hit hard by hurricanes Eta and Iota in the past month.

Okay, as a devoted atheist, this is the kind of Christianity I can usually get behind. Except… there are a few glaring things here. I’m skeptical because Judah 1 also works with Eagle Mountain Church, home of right-wing pastor Kenneth Copeland, one of President Donald Trump’s so-called “spiritual advisers.” A man who sits atop a multi-million dollar megachurch and someone whom I trust about as far as I can throw him.

Judah 1 also works with Samaritan’s Purse, which was co-founded by Franklin Graham, another one of Trump’s spiritual advisers and a man who’s a noted homophobe who berated the Supreme Court for granting equal rights to LGBTQ+ people.

Even so, Judah 1 has at least one plane, the Westwind, which can “take doctors or small teams to the mission field” and can land on “short runways sometimes found in third-world countries.”

And Aaron sounds earnest, noting in a 2015 YouTube video, noting the story dates all the way back to 1994, saying God gave him a vision of “airline aircrafts lined up as far as you could see.

“They were filled with food, medical supplies, Bibles,” he said. “The engines were fired up and they were ready to go. And there were people … lined up in front of these planes ready to get on them. But they wouldn’t get on the planes.”

He asked God why the people wouldn’t get on the planes and God told him “they can’t go into the mission field until you get the airplanes. This is what I’m calling you to do.”

Okay, whatevs. As long as Judah 1 really is doing actual, real humanitarian works and not burying suffering people under Bibles I’m good with it.