During his briefing on the Iran war last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that Americans take a knee and pray to Jesus for the success of U.S. forces in the Middle East. A few days later, he read out a sermon praying that “wicked souls” be “delivered to the eternal damnation” in the fight against Iran.
The Defense secretary has increasingly used his bully pulpit to promote his combative, controversial brand of Christianity. While the Pentagon says Hegseth is embracing America’s proud history as a Christian nation, some experts and veterans worry that Hegseth’s move to inject the military with more explicitly religious sentiments threatens to divide America’s forces.
“The ideological consolidation of the military is something that we have historically not wanted. We want the military to be diverse. We want the military representative of the American people,” he added.
“I think it’s extremely concerning the way that he is operating. It’s concerning to me as a Christian, and it’s concerning to me as an American,” said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.
Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a Fox News host, has presided over prayer services in the building led by controversial Christian pastors and revamped the military’s Chaplain Corps, and official Defense Department social media posts often amplify ultraconservative Christian views.
Military Glance
Britain was an active participant in some Israeli war crimes in Gaza, a tribunal chaired by Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and two international law specialists has found.
For some U.S. military commanders, the emerging war in Iran is part of a biblical plan to bring about the end of the world as we know it, according to complaints filed by over 100 service members.
A Washington DC grand jury declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers who were denounced by Donald Trump after they made a video urging troops to refuse illegal orders.






























