On May 5, 2025, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, hosted a Christian prayer service at the Pentagon. The event was not the first to welcome Jesus into the echelons of power in Washington, D.C. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have chaplains who are paid  $160,787.00 annually to open sessions with prayers and to offer pastoral counseling to members and their families.

The idea of having prayers in the American temple of military might, is intriguing. On one hand, they could help officials apply restraint and rebuke the use of force to impose America’s will on the world; on the other hand it could embolden the idea that God wills America to impose its will across the globe. Given America’s record of regime changes, covert coups, support for dictatorships, indifference to genocide against Gaza, termination of US Aid to needy nations, ICE agents use of terrorism, and attacks of Venezuelan ships in violation of the rules of war, one may wonder how well Pentagon piety is aligned with the Jesus of Christian Gospels.

Hegseth invited his pastor, Brooks Pottinger, to lead the inaugural service. Pottinger held that Trump had been “sovereignly appointed,” and he thanked God for using Trump and other leaders to “bring stability and moral clarity to our lands” (Bertrand and Britzky, 2025). Brochures distributed at the services feature the seal of the Department of Defense (given the subtitle of Department of War in Trump’s executive order 14347), which is a government endorsement of a particular religion, and thus an affront to the separation of church and state.

The particular religion Hegseth endorses is blatantly violent, as Pottinger’s sermon reveals:

“Our Lord, Jesus said in Matthew 10, not a sparrow will fall to the ground apart from my heavenly Father. If our Lord is sovereign, even over the sparrows’ fallings, you can be assured that he is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles, including strategy meetings and war room debriefings. Jesus has the final say over all of it.” (Bertrand and Britzky, 2025).

The idea of God’s sovereignty over the world is central to Christianity, yes, but whether or not  a rain of Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles represent God’s will and “moral clarity” is debatable. These weapons are instruments of war, hegemony, and man’s will to take what is not his and kill what he cannot control. To regard them as sacred tools is to say that God wants all nations submit to America’s agenda, which bears a whiff of blasphemy.

When the Pharisees asked Jesus about the kingdom of God, Jesus told them that it would not appear as people expected it, but instead, it was something already in their midst — something within (Lk. 17: 20–21). When Peter drew his sword against the Roman soldiers who came for Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebuked him, told him to put away his sword and said that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword (Mt. 26:52-54). Prior to that event, Jesus told his followers that in order to see the kingdom of God, their righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, that killing is a sin, and that who ever is angry with others and harbors malice against others has already sinned even before he lifts a hand against others (Mt. 5: 21–22).

Jesus also warned against false prophets and said that they can be known by their fruits (Mt. 7: 15–16). Those whose love of God bears the fruits of hope, charity, peace, mercy, humility, comfort, healing, compassion for the poor, the sick, despised, and vulnerable are different from those whose love of God bears the fruits of oppression, deprivation, destruction, despair, death, fear, arrogance, greed, and indifference to suffering.

Christian nationalism might square with the ancient covenant between God and the Israelites, but it is doubtful that it squares with Jesus. Property and tribal sovereignty were cardinal elements of God’s covenant with Abraham and the Jews of antiquity. These things were signs of God’s favor and of God’s special regard for his chosen people. Jesus’s new covenant announces that God offers salivation and life everlasting to all people, not just the chosen few, and that his kingdom has nothing to do with earthly real estate and material majesty.

The glorification of nation and the nation’s claim to have preeminence over all others conjures the image of Satan tempting Jesus. The evil one told Jesus that he would give him all the kingdoms of the world if he would bow down and worship him, at which point Jesus rebuked him and declared that there is only one Lord God (Mt. 4: 8–10). The subtle, but vital lesson in the account reminds readers that Jesus did not predicate salvation on the existence of a world-wide empire, but on the individual’s willingness to subordinate one’s ego to the love of God.

Metaphorically, Americans are in the wilderness where Jesus was tempted. We hear Franklin Graham, son the famous evangelical preacher Billy Graham, say to those in the Pentagon’s prayer service that God is “a god of war” (Mays-Osterman, 2025). Graham draws from what Christians call the Old Testament. The passages reflect the bloody history of Israelites smiting tribes that lived in the promised land centuries before they showed up. In Jesus’ New Covenant, there is a distinct lack of smiting. Hegseth’s circle of clerics includes Dough Wilson, a self-professed Christian nationalist, who believes that women should not have the right to vote, homosexuality should be criminalized, slave owners were vindicated by scripture, and that true patriots must fight for a theocratic America  (Mitchell, 2026). Ironically, the U.S. has told the world that its fight against Muslim terrorism was waged to secure democracy and uphold the rights of women. Never underestimate America’s capacity for hypocrisy.

Whereas Jesus praised those who sacrificed what little they had to care for those in need, Americans use about half of their federal budget —$850 billion in 2024 — for discretionary spending on defense, which was nine times the budget request for education and six times that of Health and Human Services’ budget (Budget of the U.S. Government, 2024). And Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Mt. 6:21).

References

Bertrand, Natasha and Haily Britzky. Hegseth hosts first meeting of what he says will be a monthly Christian prayer service at Pentagon. CNN, May 21, 2025. Hegseth hosts first meeting of what he says will be a monthly Christian prayer service at Pentagon | CNN Politics.

Budget of the U.S. Government. Fiscal year 2024. Washington, D.C. (pp. 67, 75). BUDGET-2024-BUD.pdf.

Mayes-Osterman, Cybele. Pete Hegseth pushes his Christian faith in Pentagon prayer services. USA Today, Dec. 18.2025. Pete Hegseth pushes his Christian faith in Pentagon prayer services.

Mitchell, Ellen. Hegseth invited controversial Christian nationalist to preach at Pentagon. The Hill, February 19, 2026. Hegseth invited controversial Christian nationalist to preach at Pentagon.