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christian nationalism
While Praying to 'the Lord,' Hegseth Threatens 'Most Intense Day of Strikes' in Iran
“Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person. He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal."
Mar 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's top defense official appeared resolute Tuesday in pushing for continued chaos in the Middle Eastern country—and intensified concerns that the Trump administration is waging a religious "crusade" against Iran by praying at a press briefing.
After telling reporters that Tuesday would "be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bowed his head in prayer and said he was "drawing strength from Psalm 144."
"Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle," said the defense secretary, who has backed Trumps' assertion that the Department of Defense is called the Department of War. "May the Lord grant unyielding strength to our warriors, unbreakable protection to them and our homeland, and total victory over those who seek to harm them."
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recited a prayer for US troops attacking Iran, asking for strength and protection, during a Pentagon briefing.
American and Israeli officials have been criticised for pushing rhetoric suggesting that the campaign against Iran is a religious war. pic.twitter.com/JNZnZZ1yQy
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 10, 2026
Hegseth and Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, made no mention of efforts to return to diplomatic talks, which were reportedly making significant progress toward a deal on Iran's nuclear program late last month when the US and Israel began bombarding Iran—striking civilian infrastructure including schools and healthcare facilities and killing more than 1,300 people so far, according to Iranian officials.
Hegseth said Trump has "maximum options" to conduct the war and said it is up to the president to determine whether “it’s the beginning, the middle, or the end" of the conflict, which has spread to Lebanon and other surrounding countries while the administration's explanation of its objectives in Iran have shifted.
The defense secretary's religious display came a week after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) said it had received more than 100 reports from noncommissioned officers who said commanding military officers have spoken about the war on Iran as though it's a religious conflict.
The Pentagon has long-established rules prohibiting proselytizing within its ranks, but MRFF president Mikey Weinstein said commanders have appeared "especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology.”
Hegseth has prayed at military briefings previously and invited Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson to preach at the Pentagon.
On Monday, MS NOW's Ali Velshi posited that without a clear objective or the support of a majority of the American public, observers are left wondering whether the religious displays of Hegseth and military commanders make clear what the goal of attacking Iran is: a religious battle led by Christian nationalists.
"It wasn’t that long ago that groups in parts of the Middle East invoked extremist interpretations of Islam to justify violence against the West... But that religious extremism did not arise in a vacuum. Crucially, it was sustained by a political bargain," wrote Velshi. "Something eerily similar is now unfolding right here at home, and it has been building for some time."
He continued:
More than two centuries after the framers warned about the dangers of merging faith with political power, we are now seeing a version of that same dynamic take hold at the highest levels of American government. It’s not just creeping in; it is actively shaping how this war is being understood and justified—from those advising the president to military commanders briefing troops before their deployment.
[...]
The US military was never meant to fight for a religious prophecy. In fact, the founding fathers were so concerned about the line between church and state—which includes the military—that they included it in the Bill of Rights.
But today, under Trump, Hegseth, and the Christian nationalist movement that surrounds them, that line is being erased in real time.
The price of that erasure will be paid for with the lives of innocent civilians abroad. It may be paid for with the lives of innocent civilians here at home. And it will surely be paid for by American soldiers, sailors and airmen and women, many of whom are being told they are carrying out God’s command.
At The Guardian on Sunday, David Smith emphasized how Hegseth has combined "bombastic" threats—asserting that Iranian leaders "are toast" and bragging that "we are punching them while they’re down" as evidence emerged that the US was behind a strike on a girls' school—with his displays of Christian nationalist beliefs.
“Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person," Janessa Goldbeck of Vet Voice Foundation told Smith. "He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal and a permission slip from President Trump to deploy carnage wherever he wishes against whomever he wishes.”
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US Commanders Want to Make War With Iran as ‘Bloody’ as Possible to Bring About Biblical End Times, Officers Report
One noncommissioned officer said he was directed to tell his troops that Trump was "anointed by Jesus" and that war with Iran was "all part of God’s divine plan" to bring about Armageddon.
Mar 03, 2026
In less than a week, the US and Israel's war has rendered unfathomable suffering upon the people of Iran. Over 180 schoolgirls and staffers were killed in a massacre this weekend, and several hospitals have reportedly been struck, amid numerous other attacks on civilians.
But some US troops are being told the bloodletting is all a part of God's plan.
At a briefing on Monday, as President Donald Trump unleashed what has been called a "carpet bombing" of Tehran, a combat-unit commander reportedly told noncommissioned officers (NCOs) that the commander-in-chief was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth."
The complaint, sent by one of those noncommissioned officers, was just one of at least 110 similar reports received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) since Trump first launched strikes on Saturday.
In compliance with the First Amendment, the Department of Defense has long adopted rules against proselytizing within the armed forces. But under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian who has said the West must wage a "crusade" against Islam, Christian nationalist invocations in the military have become commonplace.
Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of MRFF and an Air Force veteran who served in the White House of former President Ronald Reagan, told independent journalist Jonathan Larsen that the group has been “inundated” with complaints from NCOs since Saturday, which all have “one damn thing in freaking common.”
"Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new 'biblically-sanctioned' war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian 'End Times' as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation," Weinstein said.
"Many of their commanders," he added, "are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."
According to Larsen, who first reported on the MRFF's findings on Monday, the message has been spread far and wide as US troops rained missiles down upon Iran.
Larsen reported that the "complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations," and have involved commanders in every branch of the US military.
One noncommissioned officer, who did not identify himself out of fear of retaliation, said his commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
The NCO added that his commander "had a big grin on his face when he said all of this, which made his message seem even more crazy."
"Our commander would probably be described as a 'Christian First' supporter," he said. "He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing."
The NCO identified himself as a Christian, but emailed MRFF on behalf of 15 of his troops, which included at least one Muslim and one Jewish person.
He said that their commanders' remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”
Christian nationalism has long simmered just under the surface of US military culture and has been invoked by presidents of the past, including George W. Bush, who referred to his War on Terror as a "crusade."
But Hegseth, who regularly hosts Christian prayer services at the Pentagon during work hours, rails against "secular humanism" and the "godless left," and has hosted the notorious fundamentalist pastor Doug Wilson—who opposes the right of women to vote and calls for the US to be a Christian theocracy—at the Pentagon, has dropped any pretenses of religious pluralism.
"While America’s relationship with Iran is influenced by all the typical geopolitical factors of oil, culture, and nuclear weaponry, there is a part of American foreign policy that is influenced by apocalyptic evangelical theology," wrote Josh Olds, a pastor and theologian, on Monday for Baptist News Global.
Christian fundamentalists, some of whom have the ear of the White House, he said, view an Iranian war with Israel as central to triggering Armageddon, during which God will miraculously strike down Israel's enemies, Jesus will return to Earth, and Christians will be raptured to Heaven, according to Biblical teachings.
He said that while Iran's Muslim leaders are often accused of being dangerously irrational out of blind religious fundamentalism, "it is increasingly clear that American actions are shaped by it as well."
In just over three days, US and Israeli strikes have killed at least 787 people in Iran, according to a Tuesday report from the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including hundreds of civilians. In addition to schools and hospitals, attacks have been reported against crowded residential buildings, a radio and TV broadcast center, and a sports complex.
"Donald Trump partnered with Israel to bomb Iran because of the influence of an eschatology that sees conflict with Iran as setting the stage for fulfilled prophecy," Olds said. "The irony is profound: A faith centered on loving enemies and making peace becomes a framework that welcomes and advocates violence. The result is not the advance of God’s kingdom but its irrevocable damage in the eyes of the world."
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Faith Groups Sue Over Trump's Christian Nationalist 'Religious Liberty Commission'
"The Religious Liberty Commission isn't about protecting religious liberty for all; it's about rejecting our nation's religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative 'Judeo-Christian' beliefs," said one critic.
Feb 09, 2026
"Religious freedom for some is religious freedom for none."
That's what Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, said in a Monday statement as faith groups filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York over President Donald Trump's so-called Religious Liberty Commission.
Since Trump launched the commission last year, critics have warned that its true intent is to advance a Christian nationalist agenda. Brandeis Raushenbush, his alliance, Hindus for Human Rights, Muslims for Progressive Values, and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund renewed that argument in the complaint, which names Trump, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice, the commission, and its leader, Mary Margaret Bush, as defendants.
"The government has no right to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote, and which to marginalize," said Brandeis Raushenbush. "The Trump administration has failed to uphold our country's proud religious freedom tradition, and we will hold them accountable. Today's lawsuit is our recommitment to fight for religious liberty for all with every tool available to us."
The complaint argues that "the composition and operations of the commission violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)," which Congress enacted in 1972 "to curb the executive branch's reliance on superfluous, secretive, and biased 'advisory committees.'" Under the law, "every advisory committee must meet public transparency requirements, be in the public interest, be fairly balanced among competing points of view, and be structured to avoid inappropriate influence by special interests."
"While this body is ostensibly designed to defend 'religious liberty for all Americans' and celebrate 'religious pluralism' it actually represents only a single 'Judeo-Christian' viewpoint," the complaint states. "It held its first three meetings at the Museum of the Bible and has closed its meetings with a Christian prayer 'in Jesus' name.'"
"Only one of its members is not Christian, and the Christian members do not represent the full diversity of the Christian faith," the filing continues. "The commission's meetings have repeatedly referenced the belief that the United States was founded as a 'Judeo-Christian nation' and the membership reflects that viewpoint. All members of the commission advocate for increased religiosity, and specifically their brand of 'Judeo-Christian' religiosity, in public life."
"The commission's members have promoted the primacy of a Judeo-Christian worldview in the public sphere, advocated for discrimination against minority groups under the guise of 'religious liberty,' and otherwise supported policies that threaten religious freedom for all those who do not conform to their particular worldview," the document details.
Ria Chakrabarty, senior policy director of Hindus for Human Rights, said Monday that "by stacking this Religious Liberty Commission with a narrow set of voices and hiding the commission's work from the public eye, the Trump administration is evading the transparency and balance that federal law requires."
"Hindus for Human Rights is proud to stand with our multifaith partners to defend a pluralistic democracy where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and nonreligious people all belong as equals," she added.
A commission that claims “religious liberty” while excluding Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs—and nonreligious Americans—isn’t protecting freedom. It’s narrowing it.We’re challenging this commission in court. democracyforward.org/news/press-r...
[image or embed]
— Hindus For Human Rights (@hfhr.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 10:21 AM
Ani Zonneveld, president and founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, noted that "as a Muslim American organization, we have seen firsthand how elevating a singular religion above others, especially in a country as religiously diverse as the United States, leads to the oppression and possible persecution of minority faiths."
The plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward, which has filed over 150 lawsuits against the Trump administration since the president returned to power last year, and the decades-old Americans United for Separation of Church and State—whose president and CEO, Rachel Laser, stressed that "the Religious Liberty Commission isn't about protecting religious liberty for all; it's about rejecting our nation's religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative 'Judeo-Christian' beliefs."
Blasting the commission's public meetings as "a vivid example of this favoritism," Laser added that its "true purpose and operations can't be squared with America's constitutional promise of church-state separation."
Specifically, Laser's group and other advocates of church-state separation have long pointed to the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which bars government from making any "law respecting an establishment of religion."
"Since the nation's founding, the values of religious liberty and pluralism have been central to the American identity. These values are now under accelerated attack," declared Perryman, who's also on the Interfaith Alliance board. "The fatally flawed way this commission was assembled makes clear that the outcome isn't just un-American, it's against the law."
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