A Denomination of One

Hegseth’s critics aren’t all atheists or secular humanists. Many are Christians themselves, alarmed at what they see as the imposition of one narrow theological perspective on an institution that includes roughly 70 percent Christians among its active-duty personnel alongside substantial numbers of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, and followers of Eastern religions.

“Hegseth is overstepping his boundaries, trying to become the denominational policeman for members of the military,” Reverend Justin Cohen, a Baptist chaplain, told The Daily Mail. One chaplain endorser, speaking anonymously, characterized the current environment as “the weirdest era we’ve ever seen when it comes to the chaplain system.”

Mikey Weinstein, the former Air Force JAG officer who founded MRFF in 2006, didn’t mince words. He called Hegseth’s moves “multi-generational damage to the US military” and “a tidal wave of unconstitutional destruction fueled by his fundamentalist Christian nationalistic arrogance and hubris.” MRFF represents over 88,000 military personnel, with 95 percent identifying as Christians.

Weinstein has been warning about Christian nationalism in the military for two decades. “When we first started in the early 2000s, I remember people would look at me and go, ‘Mikey and his family and his foundation, they’re like wearing little tinfoil hats. Oh, the bad Christians are going to take over’” he told GPAHE. “Well, they have.”

Deus Vult

Hegseth’s Christian nationalist credentials predate his Pentagon appointment. In the week following the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol, a D.C. National Guard security officer flagged a National Guard member who worked as a Fox News host. Pete Hegseth sported tattoos, including the Latin words “Deus vult,” meaning “God wills it,” a Christian battle cry from the First Crusade that has become popular among white supremacist groups, including the Proud Boys and Three Percenters. The phrase appeared in the racist manifestos of the Allen, Texas, shooter and Anders Breivik, an anti-Muslim bigot who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.

Hegseth’s superiors pulled him from Guard duty during President Biden’s inauguration. Perceiving himself as being targeted for his views, Hegseth resigned from the National Guard.

His 2020 book American Crusade depicts America in a struggle fought by conservative white Christians and “freedom-loving people everywhere” protecting their God-ordained superiority and dominance. In it, Hegseth wrote that Islam “is not a religion of peace, and it never has been” and likened the current era to the medieval Crusades: “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.” The book concludes: “See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!”

Weinstein sees a direct line from Hegseth’s crusader rhetoric to real-world consequences. “We don’t just look like the latest iteration of the crusaders. We are the 21st-century Christian crusaders,” he told GPAHE. “And the price for this kind of shit is not paid in anything less than blood. And by blood, I don’t mean little creeks, or ponds, or streams, but oceans and oceans of blood.”

The Idaho Network

Understanding Hegseth’s vision requires understanding his religious community. The defense secretary attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a member church of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), an archconservative, Christian nationalist network co-founded by Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed Hegseth’s affiliation and noted that the defense secretary “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”

Those writings include a 1996 book that depicted antebellum slavery as a “beneficent American institution” that cultivated “affection among the races.” The CREC network practices complementarianism, the patriarchal belief that men and women have distinct God-given roles, and forbids women from holding church leadership positions. Pastors within the network have argued that women should not have the right to vote; Hegseth recently shared a CNN video featuring those arguments on his social media, adding the CREC slogan: “All of Christ for All of Life.”

When CNN asked Wilson whether establishing CREC’s new Washington, D.C., church was part of a mission to turn America into a Christian nation, his answer was unequivocal: “Yes.” Wilson added: “This is the first time we’ve had connections with as many people in national government as we do now.”

Hegseth is devoted to the ideology of the late Dominionist founder R.J. Rushdoony, an extremist educator opposed to equal rights and human rights who was determined to eradicate secular public schools. On a Christian Nationalist podcast, Hegseth called for classical Christian schools to serve as “boot camps for winning back America” and an “educational insurgency” to “build” an “army” of young people who will rise up and obliterate liberalism, secularism, and intellectualism.

Women Under Review

The religious ideology is translating directly into Pentagon policy.

NPR obtained a memo showing the Pentagon has launched a six-month review to determine the “operational effectiveness of ground combat units 10 years after the Department lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles.” Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Anthony Tata requested that Army and Marine Corps leaders submit data on the readiness, training, performance, casualties, and command climate of ground combat units by January 15.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson stated that “Under Secretary Hegseth, the Department of Defense will not compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda.”

Hegseth’s opinion of women in the military is nothing new. As far back as 2013, he was denigrating their presence. “If they’re not physically capable of doing that which a man would do, if you’ve got a wounded soldier or marine on the battlefield who needs to be dragged off, who needs to be medevaced, who needs to be pulled, can I count on that female soldier to do the same thing?” he asked on Fox News. “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units,” he wrote in his 2024 book The War on Warriors. “I’m straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. It has made fighting more complicated,” he told podcast host Shawn Ryan on November 7, 2024.

An Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in combat, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, warned that the review “is clearly intended to shrink the number of women who bravely serve in combat roles, which would be devastating to our military readiness.”

Ellen Haring, a retired Army colonel and West Point graduate who serves as a senior research fellow at Women in International Security, was more direct: “It’s exactly what he said all along. He’s against women in combat, and he’s going to get them out.”

Currently, about 3,800 women serve in Army infantry, armor, and artillery units. More than 150 completed the arduous Ranger training. Around ten passed Green Beret training. The Marines have about 700 women in ground combat jobs. All of them meet the same standards as their male counterparts.

The God of War

The December service offered a window into the theology being promoted. Evangelist Franklin Graham stood before uniformed military personnel at the Pentagon on December 17, 2025, and delivered a sermon about a God who hates. “We know that God loves, but did you know that God also hates? That God is also a god of war?” Graham asked, then read from the Book of Samuel, recounting the divine command to slaughter the Amalekites, women, children, and animals included.

The Graham service was one of many. Since May 2025, Hegseth has held regular monthly worship services during working hours at the Pentagon. The first featured dominionist pastor Brooks Potteiger, the pastor of Hegseth’s Tennessee church, who prayed about “President Trump, thank you for the way that you have used him to bring stability and moral clarity to our land.”

Weinstein’s organization has received complaints from more than 150 service members who reported that names of those attending religious services were being recorded and that personnel felt coerced to attend. “When you’re told that he’s going to have a Christian praise service, and that is quote ‘optional,’ you’re being voluntold,” Weinstein said.

The January 21 service marks the ninth monthly “optional” Christian worship event since Hegseth took office. MRFF’s client load has tripled since the Trump inauguration. Chaplains who resist the Christian nationalist tide face marginalization. “If you’re not a hardline Christian nationalist as a chaplain, you are in serious trouble,” Weinstein said. “Your leadership will move you and say, basically, go to the corner, pick up the crayons, and just color.”

The practice is metastasizing. On January 14, MRFF announced 32 new clients at a military installation where two commanders have been holding biweekly Christian-only prayer services during duty hours in “All Hands” auditoriums. The commanders claim the services are “non-mandatory” while their staffs record attendance. Twenty-five of the 32 objecting service members are Christians.

Dividing the Ranks

The Pentagon’s embrace of Christian nationalism is dividing the military’s ranks. Kristofer Goldsmith, CEO of the nonprofit Task Force Butler, which investigates extremism in the military, reported an increase in messages from active duty troops reaching out about the growing influence of religious nationalism. “Every time Hegseth does one of these things, I’m getting messages from active duty troops, reaching out to me more and more, saying, ‘How do I get involved?’” Goldsmith said. “We’ve got active-duty troops who recognize that the military they’re serving in has become a threat to democracy.”

Goldsmith warned that “We’re gonna see a lot of Christian nationalists join the military… and our national security will suffer for a generation for it, because those that don’t wash out will be toxic leaders.”

The Pentagon, rebranded by executive order as the Department of War in September 2025, has infused recruitment campaigns with biblical themes. A video posted to the department’s X account, titled “We Are One Nation Under God,” showed paratroopers jumping out of a plane and soldiers wielding assault rifles as Psalm 18:37 flashed on screen: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.”