Christian Nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who has argued that wives should submit to their husbands, women should be denied the vote and Christian slaveowners were on “firm scriptural ground,” led a worship service at the Pentagon this week at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
An image of Hegseth praying with the self-described “paleo-Confederate,” posted by the Defense Department on social media, drew rebukes from critics.
“Doug Wilson routinely mocks the pope and the Catholic Church,” the Catholic writer and Democratic operative Christopher Hale wrote on X. “It’s beyond shameful that [Hegseth] allowed him to lead taxpayer-funded anti-Catholic worship services.”
The Pentagon defended Wilson’s appearance.
“Secretary Hegseth, along with millions of Americans, is a proud Christian and was glad to welcome Pastor Wilson to the Pentagon yesterday,” spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said in a statement.
In a 15-minute sermon Tuesday, Wilson said Hegseth had invited him to speak. Wilson said they were praying for “a black swan revival,” or another great awakening of Christianity in the United States.
“God can do what he likes — and as we should know by now, what He likes to do is to take the most unlikely materials and do something glorious with it,” Wilson told an auditorium of military personnel. “Take a prayer meeting at the Pentagon for a possible example. Many stranger things have happened.”
Wilson co-founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, Hegseth’s denomination, and leads its flagship Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Women in CREC are barred from leadership positions.
Hegseth has previously praised and amplified Wilson. Last year, he reposted a video in which Wilson said he would “like to see the world be a Christian world” with the comment “All of Christ for All of Life.”
Wilson has described his politics as “slightly to the right” of the Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart. He has said Muslim and Hindu immigrants are coming into the United States “in a parasitic way”; ideally, he has said, they would be “assimilated” into a Christian society.
When he opened a church in Washington last year, he told CNNit was part of his plan to make the U.S. a Christian nation.
Critics have questioned Hegseth’s elevation of Christianity within the Defense Department. The secretary instituted monthly prayer meetings at the Pentagon last May.
Fred Wellman, a West Point graduate and 20-year Army veteran running for Congress from Missouri, called Wilson’s appearance this week an “unconstitutional and extreme attack” on the First Amendment.
“Hegseth is using his official position to make his religion the official one of the Department of Defense using official facilities, communications channels and personnel,” he wrote on X. “This must end and must be investigated.”
Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said “the Christian faith is woven deeply into the fabric of our nation.”
Gen. George Washington prayed for his troops at Valley Forge, she said, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Bibles to U.S. troops in World War II and encouraged them to read it.
“Despite the Left’s efforts to remove our Christian heritage from our great nation,” she said, “Secretary Hegseth is among those who embrace it.”
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