Pete Hegseth’s Christian speech has reignited scrutiny after the United States went to war with Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since becoming defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has found no shortage of ways to bring his evangelical conservatism to the Pentagon.

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Hosts monthly Christian worship services for employees. His administration’s promotional videos have featured Bible verses alongside military footage. In his speeches and interviews, he often argues that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and troops must embrace God, potentially risking the military’s secular mission and hard-won pluralism.

Now the Defense Minister’s Christian rhetoric has taken on a new meaning after the United States and Israel entered into a war with Iran, the Islamic religious state.

“The mullahs are desperate and scrambling,” he said at a recent press conference at the Pentagon, referring to Shiite clerics in Iran. He later recited Psalm 144, a passage of scripture shared by Jews and Christians: “Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.”

Hegseth has a history of defending the Crusades, brutal medieval wars that pitted Christians against Muslims. He wrote in his 2020 book, “The American Crusade,” that those who enjoy Western civilization should “thank the crusader.” Two of his tattoos are derived from Crusader imagery: the Cross of Jerusalem and the phrase “Deus Vult” or “The Will of God”, which Hegseth described as “the rallying cry of Christian knights marching to Jerusalem”.

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Matthew D. said: Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University who studies religious extremism and has been a frequent critic of Hegseth, said: “The United States willingly going to war against an Islamic state with the military under Pete Hegseth is exactly the kind of scenario that people like me were warning about before the election and throughout his appointment process.”

Taylor said Hegseth’s rhetoric and leadership “can only fuel and reinforce the deep fears and hostility that the regime in Iran has toward the United States.”

When asked whether Hegseth viewed the war in Iran in religious terms, a Defense Department spokesman pointed to a recent CBS interview in which Hegseth appeared to confirm this.

“We are fighting religious fanatics who seek nuclear capability in order to bring about a religious Armageddon,” Hegseth said of Iranian leaders. “But from my perspective, I’m clearly a man of faith who encourages our troops to rely on their faith and rely on God.”

Claims made by American military leaders of Bible prophecies remain unconfirmed

Generations of evangelicals have been influenced by their own version of Armageddon and the end of the world, circulated in books such as the “Left Behind” series and “The Late Great Planet Earth,” or the horror film “A Thief in the Night.” Some evangelicals espouse prophecies in which war involving Israel is essential to bringing about Jesus’ return.

“Predictively, we’re right,” Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, president of Christians United for Israel, said of the Iran war.

But the co-founder of the Hegseth sect does not teach this theology. Pastor Doug Wilson of the Evangelical Reformed Churches identifies as a postmillennialist, meaning he believes that most of the apocalyptic events in the Bible have already occurred, paving the way for the gradual Christianization of the world before Christ returns.

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Hegseth did not say that the Iran War was part of Christian prophecy. However, days after the conflict began, allegations spread that American military commanders were telling troops that the war had fulfilled biblical prophecies about Armageddon and the return of Christ.

The Associated Press has not been able to verify the allegations, which stem from one source: Mickey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group. Based on the allegations Weinstein said he received from hundreds of soldiers, 30 Democratic members of Congress asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate.

In an interview with the AP, Weinstein declined to provide original documents or emails he received from service members. He added that soldiers fear retaliation, so they will not speak to the media, even if their identities remain protected.

Three major religion watchdog groups — the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations — said they had not received similar complaints. The Pentagon refused to comment on these accusations.

Hegseth wants to reform the military chaplaincy

Hegseth’s church network, CREC, preaches a patriarchal form of Christianity, where women cannot serve in leadership, and pastors argue that homosexuality should be criminalized. Last year, Hegseth reposted a video in which a CREC pastor opposed women’s suffrage. Wilson, its most prominent leader, is known as a Christian nationalist, and he preached at the Pentagon in February at Hegseth’s invitation.

Both Wilson and Hegseth questioned Muslim immigration to the United States. Wilson believes that the country must restrict Muslim immigration in order to remain a Christian majority. In “The American Crusade”, Hegseth lamented that Muslim birth rates were increasing and that Muhammad was a popular name for boys in the United States.

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As head of the armed forces, Hegseth oversaw changes consistent with his conservative Christian worldview, including a ban on transgender troops, scaling back diversity initiatives and a review of women in combat roles.

“It is the interference of Christian nationalist politics, and not just Christian nationalist rhetoric… that is what is worrying,” said Youssef Shohoud, a professor of political science at Christopher Newport University.

Hegseth pledged to reform the Army Chaplaincy Corps, which provides spiritual care to troops of any faith or any religion at all. He has repealed the U.S. Army’s Spiritual Fitness Manual for 2025, and wants to revamp the religious focus of chaplains, which he said in a December video message had been downplayed “in an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism.”

It risks making service members feel like outsiders when the language of military leadership draws exclusively from one religious tradition, said Rabbi Lawrence Bazer, a retired U.S. Army colonel and chaplain.

“The U.S. Army reflects the full diversity of this country, with people of all faiths coming forward to serve,” Bazer said in a statement. “This diversity is a strength worth protecting.”

AP correspondent Konstantin Torobin contributed to this report. AP reporter Peter Smith contributed from Pittsburgh.