Pete Hegseth's Holy War
Raining "death and destruction" in the name of Jesus Christ.
I don’t know where Pete Hegseth, the manchild defense secretary, got the idea that Jesus Christ would endorse bombing Iran, killing thousands of Iranians, including schoolchildren, and causing more deaths across the Middle East.
I can’t find that instruction anywhere in scripture.
What I see, instead, are the following Christian quotes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be the Sons of God. . . . Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. . . . Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Those are the dicta Christiana most of us know.
But Hegseth, with born-again Christian fervor and the crusader motto “deus vult” (God wills it) tattooed on his arm, insists that Trump’s unauthorized and unnecessary war with Iran has been fully endorsed by the Prince of Peace.
The defense secretary promises to bring “death and destruction” to Iran and asks us to pray for victory “every day, on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.”
War in the name of Jesus Christ?
That’s perverse.
But then, Christian nationalism is perverse.
It’s the belief that a religion founded on the teachings of Jesus should be the dominant political and cultural force in the United States. It rejects the separation of church and state, a foundational constitutional concept.
Trump, the purveyor of phony piety, brought Christian nationalists to the federal government.
Hegseth is one.
It’s possible he believes the things he says. He wrote a book, titled “American Crusade,” that, according to a Guardian critic, “depicts Islam as a natural, historic enemy of the west; presents distorted versions of Muslim doctrine in great replacement-style racist conspiracy theories; treats leftists and Muslims as bound together in their efforts to subvert the U.S., and idolises medieval crusaders.”
But Hegseth’s rhetoric also has a cynical smell.
It’s equally possible he invokes Christ in an attempt to satisfy Trump’s conflicted MAGA base that military intervention is justified because it’s a fight for righteousness over Islamic evil. In other words, it’s a holy war. While he’s been careful not to put it that way, Hegseth’s Christian nationalism and his documented hatred of Islam suggest he sees it as a 21st Century Crusade.
Hegseth and others in Trump’s base believe in the superiority of Christianity over other religions and see it as foundational to the United States. “There’s a direct through line from the Old and New Testament Christian gospels to the development of Western civilization and the United States of America,” Hegseth said in a speech last month.
I put such Christian zeal right next to the racist impulses of the MAGA movement; those within the Trump base believe “making America great again” means making it mostly Christian and white again.
“We face an essential test,” Hegseth said in a speech to the Americas Counter Cartel Conference earlier this month, “whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people.”
This goes beyond asking God to protect troops.
This is Christian nationalism influencing military decisions — to attack drug-smugglers in the Caribbean or the leadership of a majority-Shiite Muslim nation of 92 million people — and making the United States look like the theocracies we condemn.
We shouldn’t care what Pete Hegseth’s religious beliefs are. But he’s in charge of the world’s most powerful military, and, given his zeal and bigotry, we are left to believe that he has pushed us into a holy war, with consequences that could be tragic and deadly for years to come.
God help us.
Taking the show on the road: I’ll be presenting a one-man play, “Wicked Good: A South Shore Anthology” on April 11 in Massachusetts.
The Capitol Gazette sent me an email this morning with a short summary of an article in today's paper. Here's what it said: "A Laurel man charged in a fatal stabbing has been found not competent to stand trial, according to court filings. Investigators say Kevin Raymond Nichols Green, 35, told police he attacked his roommates because “Jesus” told him to, according to charging documents."
Huh. Isn't that exactly what Hegseth is saying? When the man in this Capitol Gazette article said this, he was judged not competent to stand trial for murder. In other words: he is insane. Yet we have a Secretary of Defense who is saying exactly the same thing. He has already cost members of our military and the people on whom he says he will "rain down death and destruction" their lives based on his own religious beliefs. Our founders said quite clearly that one of our country's founding principles was separation of church and state. So, what Hegseth is doing is both unconstitutional and immoral. Congress has both the power and the responsibility to impeach cabinet members for high crimes and misdemeanors. If this isn't a high crime, what is?
Thank you for this, Dan. I appreciate that many moral and religious leaders are speaking out about this administration's attempts to wrap themselves in both the flag and Christianity. These are not the Christian beliefs I was taught in Sunday School. This is most certainly NOT what Jesus, the Prince of Peace, taught.