He spoke of “overwhelming force” and the U.S. military’s unmatched ability to rain “death and destruction from above” on its “apocalyptic” Iranian foes.
Then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing in the Pentagon, issued a call to the American people for a specific kind of wartime prayer. He asked them to pray for victory in battle and the safety of their troops.
“Every day, on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches,” he said, “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
At a time when the U.S. and Israeli militaries are dropping thousands of bombs on a majority-Shiite Muslim nation, the explicitly Christian nature of Mr. Hegseth’s call stood out.
More than any top American military leader in recent history, Mr. Hegseth has framed U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as bigger than politics or foreign policy. Often he has imbued these actions with a Christian moral underpinning that suggests they are divinely sanctioned.
It is this view of a higher power, married to lethal American firepower, that Mr. Hegseth says gives him confidence that the United States will prevail in Iran.
“Our capabilities are better. Our will is better. Our troops are better,” he said in a recent interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes.” “The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops, and we’re committed to this mission.”
At the same time, Mr. Hegseth has largely avoided casting Islam as the enemy. In a news conference on Thursday, he praised America’s Gulf Arab allies for supporting the war after Iran attacked them.
“We’re proud to be defending with them, standing with them,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The conservative branch of American Christianity that Mr. Hegseth represents has long been central to President Trump’s movement, and its ideas are frequently invoked by Mr. Trump and senior members of his administration.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Mr. Trump said at his 2025 inauguration, referencing a sense of divine mission after surviving an assassination attempt. And last month in Munich, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said America and Europe were bonded together as civilizations by “Christian faith.”
Mr. Hegseth speaks often of the important role that his faith plays in his life and, in his view, the life of the United States. He prayed to “King Jesus” in the White House at a February dinner for governors. Last month, speaking to a group of largely evangelical broadcasters, he described the United States as a nation founded on Christian principles. “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,” he told them.
Such sentiments have long been common among Mr. Trump’s evangelical supporters, who at times have described themselves as combatants in a holy war that seeks to advance their values and restore America by reconnecting it to what some of them see as its Christian roots.
Mr. Hegseth stands out as the civilian leader of the world’s most powerful military in his willingness to blur the line between a metaphorical war, waged in a spiritual domain, and actual combat. Following the murder of the Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in September, Mr. Hegseth posted a video that mixed audio of himself reciting the Lord’s Prayer with video of missiles firing, warships steaming and paratroopers falling from the sky.
“A prayer for Charlie, our warriors, and our nation,” he wrote.
Earlier this month, Mr. Hegseth described countercartel operations, including U.S. military strikes that have killed at least 157 people, as part of a broader war to defend Christian nations from the forces of godless “narco communism” and tyranny.
“We face an essential test,” he told defense ministers from across the Western Hemisphere, “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.”
Mr. Hegseth’s calls to prayer in the Pentagon press room and the monthly, voluntary Christian worship services that he has organized in the Pentagon auditorium are a stark departure from the way military chaplains are taught to minister to their flock, which reflects the diversity of the nation. About 70 percent of troops identify as Christian, according a 2019 study by the Congressional Research Service.
“It is one thing to say, ‘We should get on our knees and pray to God,’ but when you say ‘to Jesus Christ our Lord,’ that really narrows the field,” said the Rev. William D. Razz Waff, an Episcopal priest and board-certified chaplain who served in the Army. “Chaplains are there for everyone.”
Mr. Hegseth’s descriptions of U.S. military actions as divinely sanctioned also run counter to the views of many prominent leaders in different Christian traditions. Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington drew a distinction between praying for America and its military men and women, which he said he does regularly, and the moral understanding of the war that Mr. Hegseth appears to be outlining.
“In my own view in the teaching of the church, this is not a moral war, it is an immoral war, and thus I am not praying that this immoral war continues,” Cardinal McElroy said in an interview. “I see a moral imperative to end this war, to have a cease-fire.”
That sentiment is shared by Pope Leo XIV, who also called for an end to the fighting in Iran. “Violence can never lead to the justice, the stability and the peace that peoples are awaiting,” he said.
Mr. Hegseth, for his part, reaches back to an earlier era of the Catholic church to support his view.
Tattooed on Mr. Hegseth’s right bicep is the Latin phrase “Deus vult,” or “God wills it,” which he has described as a “battle cry” of the Crusades, the ruthless medieval wars where Christian warriors fought to take over Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Mr. Hegseth sees those battles as perhaps the most formative moment in the history of the free world.
In his book “American Crusade,” published in 2020, he describes the Crusades as “bloody” and “full of unspeakable tragedy,” but argues that they were justified because they saved a Christian Europe from the onslaught of Islam.
“Do you enjoy Western civilization? Freedom? Equal justice? Thank a crusader,” he writes in the book. “If not for the Crusades, there would have been no Prostestant Reformation or Renaissance. There would be no Europe and no America.”
This is the view of God, Christianity and war that dominates Mr. Hegseth’s Pentagon prayer services.
“We know that God loves. But did you know that God also hates?” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, said at a Pentagon prayer service in December.
“Do you know that God also is a God of war?” he continued, flanked by Christmas trees and a Hanukkah menorah. “Many people don’t want to think about that, or forget that.”
Greg Jaffe covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military for The Times.
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