AP News, by Tiffany Stanley: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, prayed Wednesday to have “every round find its mark.”
“Every month it is fitting to be right here,” he told the gathered civilian employees and uniformed military personnel. “All the more fitting this month, at this moment, given what tens of thousands of Americans are doing right now.”
He read a prayer he said was first given by a military chaplain to the troops who captured then-President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” Hegseth prayed during the livestreamed service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Hegseth frequently invokes his evangelical faith as head of the armed forces, depicting a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes with military might.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from the Psalms on Wednesday.
During the expanding Iran war and global conflicts, Hegseth’s Christian rhetoric has drawn renewed scrutiny, including his past defense of the Crusades, the brutal medieval wars that pitted Christians against Muslims.
Statements of faith are common in American public life, across political parties and religious traditions. Pentagon aides and Hegseth’s defenders pull examples from history, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s support of giving Bibles to troops. Hegseth regularly cites George Washington, who pushed to establish the military chaplain corps.
Hegseth often goes beyond standard calls for God to bless the country or its troops. Last week, he asked Americans to pray for service members “in the name of Jesus Christ.” On Wednesday, he again prayed in Jesus’ name.
Ronit Stahl, author of “Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America,” said referring to God in broad language is not unusual in this context. “But the shift towards the specificity of Jesus Christ and therefore Christianity and in Hegseth’s case, a particular form of Protestant Christianity, is new, especially coming from the defense secretary.”
Stahl, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley, said, “In a nation with no establishment of religion per the Constitution, what does it mean to have a leader being not just broadly religious or religious in a pluralistic sense, but religious in a very particular sense?”
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Hegseth belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a conservative network co-founded by the self-described Christian nationalist Doug Wilson. CREC pastors have appeared at Hegseth’s Pentagon services at least three times, including Wilson who preached there in February.
A lawsuit was filed Monday over the services by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The advocacy group filed a similar suit against the Labor Department, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer hosts monthly prayer gatherings inspired by Hegseth.
The suit seeks to enforce a public records request from December, asking the Pentagon for internal communications about the worship services, their cost, guests and any complaints received from employees.
“Secretaries Hegseth and Chavez-DeRemer are abusing the power of their government positions and taxpayer-funded resources to impose their preferred religion on federal workers,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, alleged in a statement. “Even if these prayer services are presented as voluntary, there is pressure on federal employees to attend in order to appease their bosses.”
Our Comment:
Does Hegseth’s public prayer and overt Christianity prepare for more mixing of government and religion?
Prophetic Link:
“The state of corruption and apostasy that in the last days would exist in the religious world, was presented to the prophet John in the vision of Babylon, “that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Revelation 17:18. Before its destruction the call is to be given from heaven, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Revelation 18:4. As in the days of Noah and Lot, there must be a marked separation from sin and sinners. There can be no compromise between God and the world, no turning back to secure earthly treasures. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24. Patriarchs and Prophets, 167.1
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