Hegseth’s unprecedented embrace of Christian nationalism sparks backlash

Toward the end of Monday’s briefing, a reporter reminded White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt that Pope Leo XIVin remarks delivered on Palm Sunday, said God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.” Citing a Bible passage, the pontiff added, “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.”

Asked for her reaction, Leavitt replied“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our military leaders or with the president calling on the American people to pray for our service members and those who are serving our country overseas.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that no prominent political figures have argued there is something wrong with praying for service members. But the other element to this is some are going far further than simply calling on the public to pray for U.S. troops.

Take Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for example. The Washington Post reported earlier this week:

[L]ongtime norms are being upended by the proselytizing Christian campaign of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, say multiple former high-ranking military officials and experts on religion and law. Rather than boosting cohesion through a more universal spiritual uplift, they say, the new approach violates the Constitution and undermines the bonds of mutual respect between troops that are essential, especially in wartime.

The scope of the beleaguered Pentagon chief’s embrace of Christian nationalism is quite broad. In recent months, Hegseth has:

• led Christian prayer services in the Pentagon’s auditorium;
• invited radical Christian nationalist figures to speak at official prayer services;
• used social media to promote messages that suggest his faith should dominate over other religious traditions; and
• argued during an official press briefing that Americans should take a knee and pray “in the name of Jesus Christ,” at the same briefing in which he quoted Scripture.

At an event last week, Hegseth took matters to a new level when he prayed for U.S. troops to inflict “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.”

In case this isn’t obvious, Hegseth is as free as every other American to worship, or not, as he pleases. His religiosity is his own business.

But as has become clear in recent weeks, the defense secretary isn’t just exercising his faith in line with his conscience, he’s also erasing the First Amendment’s church-state line and incorporating Christian nationalism into his wartime message in ways without precedent in the American tradition.

Retired Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Colin Powell during Powell’s tenures as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, told the Post, “The American military has had a remarkable ride of equanimity and fairness and justice and all manner of good adjectives with regard to religion. It’s done this in a way that’s really remarkable — until now.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sargent had a related report this week:

If Hegseth truly believes his war on Iran is unfolding in accordance with his conception of biblical law — the highest authority of all — then that explains why he treats all those niggling secular constraints as unbinding on him. Maximum violence and killing of the enemy — who cry out to God but, unlike Hegseth, don’t get an answer back from Him — are affirmatively good.

‘It’s not the way somebody who claims to be a person of God — a religious person — should think,’ [Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona]who has flown many combat missions himself, told me. War, he added, ‘is a morally and ethically complicated thing for any person. Any serious warfighter struggles with it.’ If we don’t wrestle with this, Kelly said, we’ll ‘start to lose ourselves.’

Looking ahead, there are limited options to curtail the defense secretary’s public advocacy of Christian nationalism — Donald Trump could intervene, though that seems exceedingly unlikely — but Hegseth’s critics are not powerless. On the contrary, some of the Pentagon chief’s policies related to religious promotion have already sparked litigationwhich opens the door to possible court-imposed limits. Watch this space.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”