Shortly after the terrorist attack on USS Cole In 2000, naval leadership began telling us about religious fanatics living in the mountains, men who belonged to no country or national cause, whose only allegiance was to their interpretation of religion. Al Qaeda.
Those briefings usually ended with an important lesson: The U.S. military is governed by the Constitution, not any religion. The nation’s founders understood the danger that religious extremism represents to a democracy. donald trumpThe Iranian administration does not seem to see it that way as it launches a new war against Iran with no clear objectives or end date.
The nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation said this week that it has received more than 200 complaints From more than 50 military installations, commanders have been invoking Christian rhetoric when describing the war against Iran, much of it related to end-times prophecy. A commander told officials at a briefing Monday, for example, that Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to bring about Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint. Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen was the first to report about the religious messages of the military.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee talks about how Israel has a biblical right take control of most of the Middle East, and Republican politicians are publicly pushing the idea that the United States is now in a holy war with Iran. “This is a religious war,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.S.C.) told reporters this week. “We will determine the course of the Middle East for a thousand years.”
The U.S. military has long been governed by the constitutional separation of church and state, and service members take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not a religion, prophecy or a particular interpretation of Scripture. The norm has been in danger since Pete Hegseth He was elected Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth’s rise within conservative politics has long been shrouded in the language of christian nationalism – literally, as he has a Jerusalem cross, a symbol closely associated with the medieval Crusades, tattooed on his chest, along with other religious images. For many historians and observers, these symbols reflect a romantic view of Christian warriors fighting holy wars in the Middle East. When someone who publicly embraces that image rises to lead the Defense Department, it raises serious concerns about whether the line between constitutional duty and religious crusade is blurring at the highest levels of the military.
Hegseth has yet to describe the war against Iran in explicitly religious terms, but he has invoked Christianity repeatedly since taking command of the nation’s military, from reciting “The Lord’s Prayer” in front of troops to using the Pentagon auditorium to organizes Christian prayer services. His scandal-plagued tenure has largely focused on eliminating what he calls “DEI” and “woke” ideology from the military, opposing women in combat roles, and rolling back the recognition of people of color in military history. In February, he invited a Christian nationalist pastor who supports repeal a woman’s right to vote to lead one of his prayer services at the Pentagon.
Hegseth’s rhetoric surrounding military action has been equally disturbing. He said this week that the United States has been winning the new war against Iran “decisively, devastatingly and ruthlessly” and seems to be upset who has to answer questions about service members who have died as a result of the war. He has also complained about what he called the “stupid rules of engagement” the kind of rules that prevent things like the United States or its allies shooting down their own planes. Hegseth’s disdain for them is even more troubling considering that once sung “Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims!” in a “drunk and violent” manner while leading a group of veterans, according to a complaint from one of the group’s employees.
In response to a request for comment on complaints the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received since the start of the war against Iran, the Department of Defense ordered rolling stone to videos of Hegseth talking about the war, including a address to the military in which he mocks America’s previous “arrogance wars” before defending the current war against Iran while soaring music plays behind him.
It should surprise no one that Trump’s war with Iran is going so badly. Start from the top. Everything members of the military have been told and trained for the last 250 years is being turned upside down by Trump and Hegseth.
The military is a hierarchical organization where careers depend on evaluation reports and the command climate. Religious messages from a superior are not casual speech. It carries weight. It carries pressure. Pressure causes errors. In the military, mistakes cost lives.
The follies and collapses of great militaries of the past can often be attributed to the kind of environment Trump and Hegseth seem to be creating in our military: political expediency over proven strategy and planning, political loyalty over knowledge and experience. American lives should never be put at risk unless absolutely necessary, and never in the service of something as dangerous and subjective as the supposed “will of God.”
If the military ever becomes identified with a sect, a creed, or an apocalyptic vision, it will fracture from within and isolate itself from the nation it serves. We are stronger when we remain neutral in faith and firm in the law. The uniform represents a sacred commitment: to defend the Constitution. It is not a prophecy. It is not a political movement. The Constitution.
That line should never be erased.
