Pete Hegseth’s Unholy War
There is a question Christians have been asking for generations: What would Jesus do? It is a deceptively simple inquiry, printed on bracelets and bumper stickers, taught to children in Sunday schools, and invoked when believers discern how faith should shape public life. Yet that question grows considerably more demanding when the decisions at stake concern war, immigration, poverty, political power, and the lethal application of military force.
As the United States navigates a volatile geopolitical landscape, Pete Hegseth has increasingly leaned into explicit Christian language to frame American power. Hosting monthly Christian worship services at the Pentagon, Hegseth has invoked Scripture to justify military service, emphasized the Christian foundations of the United States, and characterized aggressive border enforcement policies as fundamentally biblical. Speaking at a Christian media convention, he explicitly connected the health and founding of the nation to Christian tenets while tying border restrictions to divine mandate.
People within the Pentagon deride the self-styled war secretary for multiple reasons, ranging from his 2025 dressing down of America’s admirals and generals to his relentless fixation on troops’ testosterone levels. However, a significant share of the internal scorn revolves around these monthly prayer services, where critics argue he peddles an unholy brand of Christianity rooted in rage and bloodlust.
The Rhetoric of Bloodlust in the Pentagon
Hegseth—a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a conservative network co-founded by the self-described Christian nationalist Doug Wilson—frequently regurgitates outrageous religious utterances during his services. At one worship gathering, Hegseth read a fabricated Bible verse lifted straight from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, falsely claiming it was recited by combat search and rescue missions in Iran. The violent rhetoric, an altered version of Ezekiel 25:17, echoes the lines bellowed by Samuel L. Jackson’s character just before executing a man: “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger…”
During another monthly service, Hegseth offered up what he claimed were the words a military chaplain prayed prior to the invasion of Venezuela, an overwhelmingly Christian nation. “Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans and break the teeth of the ungodly,” Hegseth intoned, according to reports. “Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. … Let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse, that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.”
Analyzing this trend for TomDispatch, Liz Theoharis—an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as well as founder and executive director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice—examines the phenomenon closely as a regular contributor. Rather than the merciful, enemy-loving Jesus of the Gospels, Hegseth portrays a violent, aggressive figure who delights in destruction and aims to send American adversaries straight to hell.
Global Fallout and Theological Rebuke
This weaponization of faith has sparked immediate international friction and domestic outrage. Secular Americans and adherents of non-Christian religions have rightly condemned the overt proselytizing within a public defense institution. Meanwhile, the ongoing war with Iran remains deeply unpopular among the American public, particularly as military operations have yielded horrific incidents, including the bombing of an elementary school in Minab that killed at least 175 people, mostly children.
Religious leaders have not remained silent. Pope Leo XIV strongly condemned war during a Palm Sunday Mass, explicitly rejecting the notion that divine backing can be claimed by warring nations. In his homily, the pontiff stated, “Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war, He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”
Pragmatic military analysts point out that sectarian prayers alienate non-Christian service members currently being sent into harm’s way. Furthermore, Hegseth’s holy-war framing acts as an unintended gift to the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose leaders leverage the rhetoric to validate claims that the United States is leading a modern-day crusade against the Muslim world. With Middle Eastern bases under siege and regional allies questioning Washington’s reliability, the defense secretary’s theological crusading actively fractures an already strained coalition.
Christian Nationalism Versus the Gospel
This brand of muscular evangelicalism ties directly into Hegseth’s broader political crusade to purge the military of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which he famously attacked in his 2024 book The War on Warriors. By blending far-right identity politics with a conquering Christ, the leadership at the Pentagon risks reducing a global faith to a tribal nationalist badge.
Christianity has always held competing visions: one that blesses empires and national ambitions, and another that follows an unhoused, migrant Palestinian leader executed by an imperial power. When officials wrap state violence in sacred language, they run up against the disruptive reality of Jesus, who explicitly refused to identify God with Caesar, instructed followers to love their enemies, and directed attention not toward the strength of nations, but toward the vulnerable—the poor, the hungry, the immigrant, and the imprisoned.
As the debate over faith, militarism, and national identity intensifies, the fundamental question remains for believers and secular observers alike: When power is consecrated in the name of war, what would Jesus actually do?
