Nine months and six days before a Tomahawk missile destroyed the ornate classrooms of Shajara Tayebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, tearing apart the bodies of students, teachers, and parents, the personal pastor of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett delivered a sermon at the Pentagon.
“There’s a temptation to think that you’re the one in control and responsible for the final outcomes, especially for those who give the orders, aim and shoot,” Brooks Pottiger, Hegseth’s closest spiritual advisor, preached at the first of a series of monthly Christian services at the Department of Defense. “But you don’t ultimately run the world.”
Referring to a verse from the Gospel of Matthew (10), Pottiger told the assembled US military leaders: “If our Lord is sovereign even over the fall of a sparrow, you can be sure that He is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles…
"Jesus has the final say on all of this."
Available evidence and a preliminary investigation by the US military indicate that the US is responsible for the February 28 bombing of the school, which killed more than 175 people, most of them children, but neither Donald Trump nor Hegseth have claimed responsibility or expressed regret.
Instead, Hegseth continues to portray the war in Iran, which reached a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday after six weeks of fighting, as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking “the omnipotent providence of God” and expressing his belief that God is on the side of the American military. While boasting about the superior firepower of the United States and theatrically dismissing “stupid rules of engagement,” the defense secretary vowed to show “no mercy” to the “barbaric savages” of the Iranian regime and called on the American people to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
A rebuke from the Pope
Hegseth’s peculiar combination of piety and bloodlust was on full display at a Pentagon service on March 25, the first since the Iran war began, when he prayed for “a violent, overwhelming use of violence against those who deserve no mercy.” The prayer was so shocking that it appeared to draw a direct rebuke from Pope Leo, who said on Palm Sunday that God does not hear the prayers of those whose “hands are bloody” from war.
Still, Hegseth is unlikely to take much notice of the Catholic Church leader's harsh words. The 45-year-old U.S. Army veteran and former Fox News anchor belongs to an obscure, strongly Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity - John Calvin broke away from the Catholic Church in the 16th century during the Protestant Reformation - which rejects the authority of the pope and is based on a belief in predestination.
“They believe that nothing happens outside of God’s will,” said Julie Ingerson, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida who researches this branch of Reformed Christianity. “They believe that God is in control of everything that happens.”
Even with a bomb falling on an elementary school full of children?
"If God were to order genocide in Deuteronomy 20," Ingerson said, referring to the passage in which God instructs the Israelites to "destroy every living thing" in certain cities, "why do you think he wouldn't provoke an attack on a girls' school?"
The hawks in the American foreign policy establishment have never lacked for material and geopolitical justifications for war with Iran, but the sheer recklessness of the conduct of this conflict raises the question of what other factors are at play. The United States has long managed to advance its interests in the Middle East without bombing Tehran, and the entirely predictable consequences - deadly attacks on American bases and allies, global economic turmoil due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the consolidation of the Iranian regime's rule - serve as a sobering lesson in why restraint has prevailed for 47 years.
Why take such a risk now? Could the belligerent, aggressive, and boisterous Hegseth—with his Crusader tattoos, disdain for diplomacy, and apparent affinity for violent domination—have convinced Trump to start a war to complete the “unfinished business” of the Crusades?
Earlier this month, at a press conference discussing the rescue of a crew member of a downed F-15 fighter jet in southern Iran, Hegseth again invoked his religious beliefs to justify the events. “Shot down on Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice, all Saturday, and rescued on Sunday,” he said. “Brought out of Iran as the sun rose on Easter Sunday — a born-again pilot.”
It may not be the son of God dying for the sins of humanity, but it at least put a positive spin on some inconvenient facts: a fighter jet shot down weeks after Hegseth claimed the US had achieved “complete air dominance”; a rescue mission that resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military equipment; and all this in the context of a war in which the US appears to be heading for a clear strategic defeat.
Crusader tattoo
“Deus vult,” reads the tattoo across Hegseth’s right bicep. It’s a Latin phrase that means “God wills it,” and is believed to have been shouted by Christian warriors who responded to Pope Urban II’s call in 1095 to march toward the Holy Land and reconquer it. As the American and Iranian people remain locked in this deeply unpopular war, it’s crucial to understand what “God wills it” means to Hegseth—and what it could mean for all of us.
Hegseth described his early youth as “Christian on the outside but secular on the inside.” Born and raised in Minnesota, he trained as an officer while studying at Princeton and then served multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. (A longtime reservist, he left the service in 2021 after being reported by fellow soldiers for his Crusader tattoos, which have been linked to white supremacist and extremist groups.)
He was promoted to leadership positions at two different veterans’ advocacy organizations, only to be forced to leave them amid what The New Yorker called “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and misconduct.” Twice divorced for infidelity, he now has seven children with his third wife, whom he married in 2019. He paid $50.000 to one woman who accused him of rape in 2017, although he denies the allegations.
In 2016, Hegseth landed a job as an anchor at Fox News. With his striking haircut, square jaw, and slightly too-tight suits, he caught Trump's attention with an aggressive and successful campaign for presidential pardons for convicted war criminals.
Hegseth’s turn toward religion began in 2018, when he and his now-wife joined an evangelical church in New Jersey, and as he told a Christian newspaper in 2023, “faith became real.” Already an ardent advocate of the right-wing culture wars against secular public education, he later co-authored a 2022 book arguing that the survival of “Western civilization” depends on reintroducing Christianity into American schooling. Hegseth’s co-author, David Goodwin, was a leader in the “classical Christian education” (CCE) movement, and Hegseth became an enthusiastic supporter of it, describing the writing process as “the red pill.”
On Goodwin’s advice, Hegseth moved his family to Nashville, Tennessee, to enroll his children in a school that followed the CCE model. “We thought we were moving for the school, but we were actually moving to a church, a community, and a whole worldview that changed the way we think,” he said.
That church was Pilgrim Hill Reformed Congregational Church, led by Pastor Pottiger—the same one who would later speak at the Pentagon about Tomahawk missiles—and Hegseth's involvement was by no means incidental.
“It’s not the kind of church where you can just come on Sunday, attend a service, sing songs and then go home,” Ingerson said. She is part of a denomination known as the Community of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which has a “strong hierarchy,” and church elders have significant power over believers, including running a kind of court system that can issue excommunications and social ostracism.
Extremist as "spiritual father"
The “whole worldview” that Hegseth adopted after joining Pilgrim Hill was shaped by Douglas Wilson, a 72-year-old pastor who has spent the past 50 years trying to establish a “theocracy” in the small college town of Moscou, Idaho.
Wilson's views are extreme, even for the Christian right. A staunch advocate of "biblical patriarchy," he advocates that women be subservient to their husbands, that parents discipline their children "painfully," and that boys be taught "theology of fistfighting."
Wilson opposes women's suffrage. He does not oppose the death penalty for homosexuality. He describes himself as a Christian nationalist and wants to "win the world for Christ," Ingerson said. "The whole world is supposed to become Christian, and that version of civilization is full of all kinds of very harsh and strong punishments for people who disagree or don't agree with that."
However, although Wilson's ideas were once on the fringes of right-wing evangelicalism in the US, there has been a change in recent decades.
According to historian Kristin Koubs Di Mez, after World War II, a culture of militant masculinity developed among white evangelicals in the United States.
While in the 19th century the ideal of “Christian manhood” would have focused on virtues like honor, dignity, and lordliness, by the early 21st century the ideal of the evangelical man had morphed into something much more Hegset-like.
"You could hardly find a better embodiment of that ideology, that particularly militaristic understanding of Christianity and the mentality in which the end justifies the means, and violence and cruelty are blessed in the name of justice," than Hegseth, said Di Mez.
The perverse moral consequences of merging militant masculinity and religious certainty can be seen in the way this movement has consistently supported the most controversial uses of American military power.
During the Vietnam War, they sided with the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre. And during the global “war on terror,” they were the Americans most likely to support the torture of prisoners.
As the culture of evangelicalism shifted in his direction, Wilson became less of an outcast. He established connections with more prominent leaders and demonstrated a remarkable gift for attracting attention and publicity.
Wilson's greatest success was winning over Hegsett, through Pottiger. That attention expanded Wilson's access to major media platforms like the New York Times, and he seems intent on maintaining his influence: since Hegsett was appointed Secretary of Defense, Wilson announced that Pottiger would move to Washington to start a new CREC church that Hegsett would attend.
For his part, Hegseth has shown an unprecedented willingness to bring his personal beliefs into the official functioning of the Department of Defense.
For Di Mez, Hegseth's role at the head of the Pentagon - and his apparent penchant for starting conflicts - seems alarming.
“For a long time, it all seemed like empty bravado,” said De Mez, noting that leading figures in the militant masculinity movement, such as Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, had not actually served in the U.S. military. But with Hegseth, “you have the bravado, you have the rhetoric, you have this ideology behind it — and he’s been handed the levers of power,” said De Mez. “What we’re seeing now is a glimpse of what happens when that ideology becomes state policy.”
With Hegseth, that doesn't just mean fighting wars abroad, much as he seems to enjoy it. It means trying to realize Wilson's vision of a world governed by biblical law - global Christianity. And the first step to that is establishing a Christian order at home.
The fake story about Washington
When trying to prove that the US is a Christian nation - which he does often - Hegseth likes to tell the story of the country's first president, George Washington.
“As George Washington knelt in the snow at Valley Forge, praying to heaven for guidance and protection, so do our warriors today,” he said at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5.
“The problem with that story is that it never happened,” said Brian Keillor, editor-in-chief of the Baptist publication Word & Way, who has closely followed (and criticized) Hegseth’s promotion of Christian theology in government institutions. “It was invented decades after Washington’s death, by the same man who invented the story of Washington cutting down the cherry tree.”
However, the Trump administration has embraced this story as some kind of absurd alternative myth about the origins of the United States, according to which the country was founded not by deists who enshrined the separation of church and state in the constitution, but by Christian patriarchs who established a Christian nation.
There have been times in American history when ideas of Christian nationalism were widely embraced. One of these was the Confederate States of America, which was conceived as a Christian nation, with an "invocation of the favor and guidance of Almighty God" in its constitution.
Another example was in justifying the genocide of Native Americans; early settlers often portrayed violence against indigenous peoples as a mission to bring salvation to “savages.” However, the real strength of the Christian nationalist movement in the United States today stems from its approach to government. The second Trump administration is filled with Christian nationalists in leadership positions.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, after telling his apocryphal story about the alleged Washington Prayer, Hegseth appeared to invoke Urban II, the pope who launched the Crusades in 1095 by promising that those who fought would be forgiven of all sins—a promise that later became moot due to the brutal massacres and wanton destruction during the Crusades.
“The willingness to sacrifice for one’s country is born of one thing: a deep and abiding belief in God’s love for us and his promise of eternal life,” Hegseth said. “The warrior who is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his Creator — that warrior finds eternal life.”
For Keillor, who is also a Baptist minister in addition to his journalism, the statement was more than shocking. “This is not just Crusader theology, but something that would be considered heresy in most of Christianity today,” he said. “It is truly dangerous and frightening. His remarks about the religious fanaticism of the Iranian regime seem ironic, if not downright hypocritical.”
The Crusades, like the Confederacy, ended in inglorious defeat. But, like other “lost causes,” they still have a powerful appeal for reactionary minds that revel in a sense of injustice and find solace in grandiose hypothetical scenarios. Trump’s return to the White House in 2025 was largely driven by the cult of resentment he built around his 2020 election defeat. He quickly authorized Hegseth to restore the names and monuments of Confederate generals to military installations.
As the war with Iran seems to be moving towards a resolution in which Iran will be in a much better position than before, and the geopolitical position and moral standing of the United States will be seriously damaged, it is possible that another right-wing “lost cause” will emerge. Already, some MAGA actors are blaming Israel for the strategic failures of the United States. Trump himself is aggressively promoting the idea that NATO is responsible. Hegseth has continued to replace military leaders, and he could assign blame to his usual targets (“wok” generals and rules of engagement).
Christian Nationalist leaders are thinking in terms of hundreds of years, Ingerson said, and they are seeing real success. The campaign to abolish the Department of Education has been going on since its inception in 1979, and now appears to be moving toward realization. The movement did not give up even after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, leading a 50-year fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, and now they have turned their attention to overturning Obergefell.
Such long-term strategy and patience are part of the reason Ingerson believes Christian nationalism is “on the rise, historically speaking.” “I’m not optimistic,” she said.
What seems almost unthinkable at this point, at least for now, is any honest confrontation with the religious thought patterns that may have fueled the war in the first place. If you're waiting for Hegseth to admit that maybe God wasn't on our side this time - don't.
Lincoln's message
Yet there was one American leader who faced the question. In 1865, after four years of bloody civil war, the Confederacy was on its last legs, and victory seemed within reach. When Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, he did not tell the nation of the Union’s superior military strength, nor did he draw conclusions about God’s support for the victorious side. Instead, he acknowledged that both sides believed they were acting in accordance with God’s will and that he, as a man, was in no position to know who was right.
“Both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His help against the other,” he said of the warring parties. “We do not judge, lest we be judged. The prayers of both sides could not be answered. Neither was fully answered. The Almighty has His own purposes.”
Looking to the future, Lincoln envisioned neither triumph nor domination, but a slow and difficult process of relearning how to live with one another: “Let us continue to finish the work before us, to heal the wounds of the nation, to care for him who has borne the burden of war, for his widow and orphan, to do all that may bring about and preserve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
In a year that will be marked by the invocation of American history for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let us pause and remember that moment: the second founding of the nation. After the division, bloodshed, and liberation that the Civil War brought, there was a leader ready to say that we cannot know whose side God is on - but that we still owe it to ourselves and to each other to try to build peace.
Text taken from "The Guardian"
Prepared by: NB
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