#ChristianNationalists #Hegseth
"Hegseth Invokes Divine Purpose to Justify Military Might
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has imbued U.S. military actions with a Christian moral underpinning that suggests they are divinely sanctioned.
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.
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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.'
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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.
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Tattooed on Mr. Hegseth’s right biceps 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."
https://archive.ph/1MEzt