Hegseth’s Christian Militarism Is Dangerous for America

During a monthly prayer service at the Pentagon last week, the first since the Iran war began, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recited a prayer asking God to give U.S. soldiers the ability to inflict “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” One does not have to be a scholar of Christianity to realize that a prayer calling for such violence runs against many core tenets of the faith, including peace, love and the idea that no one is beyond mercy.

It also contradicts the teachings of historical religious leaders like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who preached a message of Christian nonviolence, and those of contemporary religious leaders like Pope Leo XIV, who in an apparent direct rebuke of Hegseth stated in his Palm Sunday prayer service, “This is our God: Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.” 

But the attitude expressed by Hegseth’s prayer is consistent with the broader embrace by President Donald Trump’s administration of gratuitous violence, underpinned by the folk realism that “might always makes right.” It is also consistent with the understanding of Christianity espoused by some of the Evangelical pastors that Hegseth accepts as authorities, such as Jared Longshore, who equates worship with warfare.