Once again, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has conscripted Scripture to his military cause, making the faith of Jews and Christians synonymous with fighting for the United States military.

On May 23, during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Hegseth declared: “On a day like today, there’s no better way to start than with a word from Scripture. And on a day as special as this for the 998 great Americans of this class, there’s no more fitting verse than from Isaiah 6:8 — ‘Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I am. Send me.”’ Four years ago, you raised your right hand, swore an oath to preserve and defend the Constitution. And in that moment, you said to your country, ‘Send me.’”

Then in June, while in France for the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, Hegseth quoted the Scripture again out of context: “It was men like you, soldiers like all of you who despite the odds and despite the nature of the enemy, said as is written in Isaiah, ‘Send me.’ And you said, ‘Send me’ when you raised your right hand, and you still are today.”

Then the Pentagon later released a video of Hegseth’s participation in D-Day commemorations titled “The Boys of D-Day Said: ‘Send Me.’” It included not only his quotation of Isaiah 6:8 but an anti-immigrant screed.

And now, over the weekend, Hegseth’s Defense Department was back at it, posting social media memes linking the Isaiah 6:8 passage to service in the U.S. military.

Jewish and Christian clergy, scholars and laity quickly pointed out the theological error of Hegseth’s application of words written by the prophet Isaiah.

One of those was Brian Kaylor, author of the “A Public Witness” Substack, who had written about the problem in June.

He explained the misuse began in the Trump administration in June 2025 when the Department of Homeland Security published a social media video that connected the Isaiah passage with images of militarized agents hunting for immigrants.

“With Hegseth now drafting the verse to serve U.S. military interests, such misuse should be examined and condemned,” Kaylor wrote earlier this summer. “The use of Isaiah 6:8 also adds to our understanding of Hegseth’s Crusader ideology, which appears to be closer to a Hollywood version of faith than what the Bible teaches. … To put it simply, Isaiah 6 is not about joining the U.S. military. It’s not even about joining any military.

“The chapter is a mystical call of the prophet Isaiah by God to serve God and proclaim messages from God. And these messages include a rebuke of Isaiah’s own nation and warnings of judgment to come (including military defeat by another nation). It’s also a chapter full of awe for God, which is why it’s inspired many hymns.”

Brian Kaylor

Kaylor called Hegseth’s misuse of Scripture heretical: “When Hegseth invokes this passage to describe U.S. soldiers volunteering to serve the nation, he’s clearly changing the meaning of the text and doing so in a heretical manner. In the new revised Hegseth version, it’s not just that U.S. soldiers replace the prophet Isaiah; the United States of America replaces God as the soldiers say ‘send me’ to Uncle Sam.”

This is classic Christian nationalism, Kaylor says: “Christian nationalism turns the nation into an idol, making it so the call is ultimately not to serve God but to serve (and die) for the nation. Hegseth sees those as the same thing, but they’re not. He argued during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in February that a soldier who dies for the nation ‘finds eternal life.’ With that Crusader theology, Hegseth conflates God and country, making salvation not about the work of Jesus but about a soldier dying for a nation. His co-option of Isaiah 6:8 makes the same fundamental mistake.

“Hegseth might think that a call to serve the nation is synonymous with a call to serve God, but that’s simply because of his Christian nationalist lens.”

 

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