Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Sarah Posner, a scholar and host of the excellent Reign of Error podcast, has been making the point that Hegseth’s extreme theology explains much of what we’re seeing here. So we’re talking about all this today with her. Sarah, nice to have you on.
Sargent: So let’s start here. Pete Hegseth has been doing monthly prayer services at the Pentagon, which itself would be a violation of church-and-state separation. He recently said a prayer that was expressly directed to American troops in Iran. I just want to highlight two parts. First, here’s Hegseth quoting King David:
And here’s Hegseth calling for God’s assistance against the enemy:
Sargent: Sarah, two things here. First, note how Hegseth says God didn’t answer the enemy, whereas he apparently does answer Hegseth. Second, note the express claim that God sanctions overwhelming violence. Your thoughts on all that?
But I think the important thing to remember with Hegseth, in contrast to other versions of Christian nationalism that we see more commonly in the Republican Party, is that his is a very extreme version of Christian supremacy where we Christians are entitled to go out and take dominion over the world, to vanquish enemies, and to do so violently—and even when they do so violently, with the express mandate from God.
Posner: Christian Reconstructionism holds that biblical law is superior to civil law and that the Bible—that biblical law—should govern every aspect of life: your personal life for sure, but also political life, military life.
Sargent: Well, I want to try to connect Hegseth’s conduct of the war to all this right now. Hegseth has been positively oozing with bloodlust and sadism in his public discussions of the war. He openly enthuses about raining, quote-unquote, “death and destruction” from the sky, about liberating the military from stupid rules of engagement, about unleashing maximum lethality, and even about killing, quote-unquote, “without hesitation”—which I translate as with no moral qualms whatsoever.
Posner: That is more or less the situation. He sees in the biblical mandates that he reads in his Bible that violence against one’s enemies is not just necessary in the field of battle, but actually desired. Before he became defense secretary, he wrote in a book that he thought the Geneva Conventions were woke bullshit—that was not the exact phrase he used, but that was the intent.
Sargent: And I just want to really bear down on this idea that the enemy does not hear back from God. This is something that Hegseth quoted from King David in his prayer at the Pentagon.
Posner: Well, this is what I’m talking about when I say this is a Christian supremacist ideology—and it’s not just Christianity writ large, it’s their version of Christianity. And so if there’s a Christian who doesn’t agree with this theology, they don’t even really consider them to be a real Christian.
He has said nothing about the 165 schoolgirls who were killed in that bombing in southern Iran. And to him, it seems almost like it’s not even collateral damage—because if it was collateral damage, he would be sort of sorry about it. But it seems almost worse than that. He feels like the enemy deserves no mercy from God or from us.
Pope Leo continued that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.”
Posner: I don’t think it would. Should it give him pause? Well, Hegseth is not a Catholic. And obviously, many people who aren’t Catholic find things to admire in many of the statements that Pope Leo makes on many topics. But certainly, Hegseth isn’t bound in any way to follow the Pope’s teachings. Undoubtedly, there are many people in the military—and many, probably, civilians who work at the Pentagon—who are Catholic.
And we really have to start thinking about this as not just a violation of separation of church and state—which it is—but also, would it be recognized by the Supreme Court? This Supreme Court? I don’t know. But also, something that the Supreme Court has upheld repeatedly is religious freedom for Christians—for the wedding photographer who doesn’t want to photograph a same-sex wedding, right? Well, what about the other Christians at the Pentagon who disagree with Hegseth’s interpretation of the Bible? What about the non-Christians in the military—atheists, Muslims, Jews, you name it, other minority religions—even if they’re not attending these prayer sessions, exactly what Pete Hegseth is saying? And the implication is this is the official religion of the Defense Department, of the U.S. military. And that is pretty scary.
Posner: That’s right. And it’s really the most extreme expression of this kind of Christian supremacy that we’ve seen in either Trump term. I’m trying to think of an example from George W. Bush’s term—I mean, his administration was filled with evangelicals and people who adhered to far-right Christian theologies and ideologies.
Sargent: He sure is. Well, let’s talk about where we are in the war, because this too is linked to all that. The New York Times reports that a weapon that really looks like a U.S.-made missile demolished a sports hall on an elementary school in Iran, and it appears that this and other strikes may have killed up to 21 people. That’s on top of the bombing of a school that killed well over 100 people, mostly children, in southern Iran, as you mentioned earlier.
Posner: Well, I think it’s Hegseth and Trump. I mean, Trump isn’t coming from the same religious place as Hegseth, but he certainly has expressed that same similar bloodlust and lack of concern for human rights and the rights of civilians in wartime. And so when you layer on that this is an illegal war and they’re killing civilians in an illegal war—I mean, it’s just nauseating. I don’t even have the words for it.
Sargent: I think very plainly that’s right. And to close out—Trump erupted on Truth Social with some more unhinged threats. He said that talks are going well with an allegedly new regime in Iran—I guess he does want regime change. But then Trump also said this: “If the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island and possibly all desalination plants, which we have purposefully not yet touched.”
Posner: It really is, because Hegseth is giving an additional layer of permission to Trump. Although Trump himself does not very frequently use biblical language, he’s very tuned in to the way that his base uses biblical language and to the way his base places importance on providing biblical justifications for things.
Sargent: It really is. We are in such a goddamn fix. My God, it’s really bad. Folks, make sure to check out Sarah Posner’s podcast, Reign of Error—it’s highly illuminating on these types of questions. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us.
Posner: Thanks for having me, Greg.
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