Pete Hegseth’s Holy War

Sources

Armstrong, Payton. “Christian Media Figures Have Claimed That the Iran War Could Signal ‘the Second Coming’ or the ‘End Times’ and Said ‘We Are Watching Incredible Prophecy in This Time Come to Pass.’” Media Matters for America, March 4, 2026. https://www.mediamatters.org/us-iran-relations/christian-media-figures-have-claimed-iran-war-could-signal-second-coming-or-end.

Braun, Sara. “US Troops Were Told War on Iran Was ‘All Part of God’s Divine Plan’, Watchdog Alleges.” World News. The Guardian, March 3, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric.

Davis, Logan M. “DAVIS: Pete Hegseth & I Know the Same Christian Nationalists.” Colorado Times Recorder, n.d. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2024/11/davis-pete-hegseth-i-know-the-same-christian-nationalists/66012/.

Demirjian, Karoun. “Senate Pushes Hegseth Toward Approval as G.O.P. Discounts New Allegations.” U.S. The New York Times, January 23, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/us/politics/hegseth-defense-secretary.html.

Ferguson, Malcolm. “Another Trump Cabinet Pick Is in Trouble.” The New Republic, n.d. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://newrepublic.com/post/188535/another-trump-cabinet-pick-trouble.

Ingersoll, Julie. “The Christian Reconstruction Movement in U.S. Politics.” In Oxford Handbook Topics in Religion, edited by Oxford Handbooks Editorial Board. Oxford University Press, n.d. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.25.

Jipson, Art. “What Is Christian Reconstructionism − and Why It Matters in US Politics.” The Conversation, January 12, 2026. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.rw63ysad5.

Ladner, Keri. “The Quiet Rise of Christian Dominionism.” The Christian Century, November 2022. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/quiet-rise-christian-dominionism.

Mordowanec, Nick. “Commanders Accused of Framing Iran War as Biblical Mandate, Jesus’ ‘Return.’” Military.Com, March 11, 2026. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/03/03/military-officers-accused-of-framing-iran-war-biblical-mandate.html.

Wang, Amy B. “Hegseth Invited Christian Nationalist Doug Wilson to Preach at Pentagon.” The Washington Post, February 18, 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/18/doug-wilson-pentagon-hegseth-christian-nationalist/.

Wilson, Jason. “‘Make It a Christian Town’: The Ultra-Conservative Church on the Rise in Idaho.” World News. The Guardian, November 2, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/02/christ-church-idaho-theocracy-us-america.

Wilson, Jason. “Revealed: Trump Pentagon Nominee Endorsed Extremist Christian Doctrine on Podcast.” US News. The Guardian, January 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/trump-pete-hegseth-extremism.

Zeitz. “How the Rapture Explains the Rupture Over Israel on the Right.” POLITICO, March 8, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/08/gop-maga-israel-evangelicals-theology-premillennialism-00818312.

Zickgraf, Ryan. “America’s Holy War in Iran.” Accessed March 11, 2026. https://jacobin.com/2026/03/evangelical-christian-zionism-end-times-iran.

Transcript

Hi it’s Wednesday, March 11th, 2026, you’re tuned into Why, America? I’m your lawyer friend Leeja Miller. Since the US and Israel’s initial strike on Iran on February 28th that started the raging conflict unfolding in the Middle East, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more 200 complaints from members of the US military, across all services, claiming that high-ranking officers have been drawing explicit connections between extremist Christian nationalist beliefs, the “end times” and the ongoing war with Iran. One complaint indicated that a commander had urged officers to tell their troops that Operation Epic Fury was all part of God’s divine plan and that, quote “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” The president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, in a statement, said that the complaints quote “report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders” at what they perceive to be the coming rapture. Before these over 200 complaints began pouring in, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation had been fielding numerous, repeated complaints due to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order that Christian prayer services be held monthly in the Pentagon and even communicated via email to military personnel and also defense contractors. Last month, Christian nationalist preacher Doug Wilson, head of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, was personally invited by Hegseth to preach at the Pentagon. The story of how Pete Hegseth got to the head of the most powerful military on the planet, and the ideology underpinning his beliefs, which was once a laughably batty fringe theory but now has access to the nuclear codes, provides us with a really clear picture of the worldview animating not only Pete Hegseth and the Christian nationalists apparently running our military but also Project 2025 and the entire far right that now has a chokehold on the federal government.

AD

I know we talk about politics and serious things around here but I want to just say right now for the record that this is also a sex positive space and engaging in sexual wellness, whatever that looks like for you, IS a worthy and worthwhile task in These Trying Times. The fascists hate to see you enjoying yourself despite The Horrors. To help you get there, I’m partnering with Bellesa for today’s video. And I’m thrilled to say My friends at Bellesa and I are literally giving out free vibrators–everyone who signs up at my link in the description wins a free rose suction toy with your order! The rose is the viral tiktok sensation that has TEN different modes packaged in one cute discreet little rose that fits right in the palm of your hand.

Bellesa’s mission is to empower everyone to embrace, explore, and celebrate their sexuality, and I love that for me AND for you. You may already know and love the pebble, the little ergonomic powerhouse that has independently controlled suction and vibration. But I’d also like you to meet the newest addition to the Bellesa line, the Pebble Pro. It’s stronger and more powerful, and with an extended battery life you don’t have to worry about unexpected disappointment. And it comes with three interchangeable heads plus 5 different vibration speeds so it’s about as customizable as it gets. Next checkout the Airvibe – it has dual capabilities and is quiet, discreet, and comes in a very cute little case. And finally the Thump, a little gadget that does it all, it vibrates, suctions, thumps. Waterproof, USB chargeable, they are INNOVATING over at Bellesa and I’d like you all to experience it for yourselves.

And you better bet I’m hooking you up. EVERYONE who signs up, using my link in the description, wins a free rose suction toy with your order. Click the link in my description and grab your new vibe now. Have a little fun, despite The Horrors. Thanks so much to Bellesa for partnering with me on today’s video!

Peter Brian Hegseth was born right here in beautiful Minneapolis, Minnesota. He got a bachelors degree in political science from Princeton where he was the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Princeton Tory, the school’s conservative student newspaper. He served on the Minnesota Army National Guard at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan until 2014 when he was assigned to the Individual Ready Reserve through the District of Columbia Army National Guard, though he was barred from serving on duty at Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 because he had been flagged as an “insider threat” in part because of the tattoo he has that says “Deus vult” Latin for God Wills It, a Christian nationalist motto that has ties to far right groups and is a popular slogan among perpetrators of right-wing terrorism, including the Charlottesville Virginia riots in 2017. It was this incident that Pete blames for his decision to leave the military. Starting in 2006, Hegseth worked with Vets for Freedom, eventually becoming the organization's president in 2008, though he was removed from leadership by 2011 due to mismanagement of hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds. He then went on to be president of Concerned Veterans of America, which he left in 2016 after a whistleblower reported he fostered a sexist and hostile work environment, used the organization’s funds for his own personal expenses, and exhibited out of control alcoholism, one time allegedly getting drunk and chanting “Kill all Muslims.” And so, naturally, by 2017 Hegseth was an official co-host of Fox & Friends. Hegseth, being the holy man that he is, is on his third marriage. His first one, to his high school sweetheart, ended in divorce in 2008 after Hegseth admitted to having five affairs. I could have sworn I read something about that last time I perused the Bible. His third wife is named Jennifer, she was a producer on Fox & Friends and they got married at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey in 2019. He’s been accused of numerous instances of sexual assault and his own mother, in an email obtained by the New York Times, accused Pete of mistreating women for years. And in January last year, Hegseth was confirmed by the senate, in a vote of 51 to 50 with JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, as the most unqualified secretary of defense to ever serve in the position, having served zero time in government and led no major organization.

Pete seems to have always been a Christian, but sometime around 2021, he and his family moved to middle Tennessee, to a town called Goodlettsville, where he purchased an 8800 square foot house on 76 acres of land for $3.4 million dollars, so that his children could attend Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a classical Christian academy, and the family joined the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship. That church is a member of the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC, which is an organization co-founded by Douglas Wilson, that Christian nationalist preacher Hegseth recently invited to preach at the Pentagon. Some of Doug Wilson’s more inflammatory beliefs include that women shouldn’t vote and that slavery was a benevolent institution and enslaved people were actually happier then. But I think it’s important to delve into the ideology espoused by Douglas Wilson, Pete Hegseth, and other Christian Nationalists, because it can be really easy to hear the more inflammatory stuff and write it off as absolutely batshit and detached from reality. But understanding the ideology is helpful for understanding the entire Project 2025 endeavor, the project that is being executed via our government and headed by Trump, a man who has never shown any proclivity for religion and yet has been positioned as the mouthpiece of this christian nationalist movement. So let’s dig in, shall we?

First, let me be really clear–even within white Christian nationalism there is disagreement as to interpretations of the bible, as to the “correct” worldview, and more. So I’m going to lay out for you my understanding of it, but please know it’s an ideological mess if you start to get into the weeds of it. I’m sure many of you will happily “well, actually” me in the comments so go right ahead it helps the algorithm. There are a few key terms we have to identify and try to define in order to understand what the fuck is going on in our military and in our government right now.

First is the idea of Christian reconstructionism. I’m going to be relying on a great journal article by Julie Ingersoll called The Christian Reconstruction Movement in US Politics for a lot of this, my sources as always are linked in the description. Douglas Wilson adheres pretty closely to reconstructionism, though the original “thinker” on this type of Christian worldview was named Rousas John Rushdoony. The basic idea underlying reconstructionist ideology is that the word of God is the only foundation for knowledge and that the world can only be interpreted through the word of God. Any attempt by humans to untether themselves from the authority of God is an evil rejection of God. Rushdoony wrote quote “nothing has a valid interpretation apart from God and his creative and redemptive purpose.” And this extends to all aspects of life and society. According to Rushdoony, quote “Law is in every culture religious in origin. Because law governs man and society, because it establishes and declares the meaning of justice and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in that it established in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture. Accordingly, a fundamental and necessary premise in any and every study of law must be, first, a recognition of this religious nature of law. Second, it must be recognized that in any culture the source of law is the god of that society.” I must have missed that day of law school. The guy wrote a whole legal treatise called The Institutes of Biblical law in which he tried to take the 10 commandments and create “case law” drawn from incidents in the bible as a means of creating god-made law that creates “biblical standards” for governing life and society.

And what stems from this underpinning ideology is an idea called “sphere sovereignty,” something Pete Hegseth in podcast interviews has explicitly voiced support for. Sphere sovereignty is like Christian nationalism on steroids–basically, it is humans’ duty to submit completely to God, to bring every aspect of life quote “under the lordship” of Christ. Rushdoony’s legal treatise was not just a fun academic exercise, it was a model code of laws that should be used to control the human race. In the reconstructionist worldview under “sphere sovereignty”, there are three spheres of influence with their own clearly delineated authority. First and foremost is the family which has two central components: economic and educational. All property and business ventures are expressions of the family’s exercise of dominion, and dominion is the family’s duty, because God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over the earth. As autonomous economic units ordained by God, families are led by of course the men, and any attempt to regulate families through regulation of property or businesses or taxes is an affront to God's law, is seen as religious persecution and tyranny. Second, the family in its sole sovereign sphere is meant to control the education of children. Thus, again, any government education, any attempt to regulate education, any attempt to remove control of education from the family sphere is religious persecution and tyranny. Reconstructionists have played an outsized role for decades in the proliferation of anti-public education, of school voucher systems, and of “parents’ rights” crusades. Even groups and institutions that do not formally identify as reconstructionist are often influenced, sometimes unknowingly, by this reconstructionist worldview.

The second sovereign sphere, after the family, is the church. The church is responsible for preaching the gospel of course and also providing a social safety net for needy families. So the government should not be in charge of that either, it actually goes against the will of god, you see. It is the church’s duty to train Christians to properly align all aspects of their life with complete submission to biblical law. And the third and final sovereign sphere, after family and after the church, is what they call “civil government.” Under this worldview, “civil government” has the strictly limited role of protecting private property and punishing evildoers, usually through the death penalty. Reconstructionists aren’t big fans of the carceral state not because they believe in criminal justice reform but because they believe the only role the state should play is in murdering those who go against biblical law like, for example, the gays. This is also why reconstructionists can claim they believe in the separation of church and state. Not because they think people should be able to practice whatever religion they want free from government persecution but because it is god’s divine will that the family and the church come before the government, and anything the government does that impedes on the sovereign spheres of the family and the church is nothing short of tyranny, and any taxes collected to do those things is nothing short of theft. And hopefully you can see how reconstructionism can find some convenient bedfellows who may not espouse explicitly reconstructionist dogma but who fit nicely enough into the worldview because they want the same end results–like libertarians, for example.

Another important idea to understand is called “dominionism.” This is the idea, embedded within reconstructionism but shared among many varying Christian nationalist belief systems, that God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the world, and therefore it is the fundamental Christian duty to practice that dominion over every aspect of society and all the people on earth. It is the mandate that Christians control the world. Reconstructionists believe it, as do adherents to the New Apostolic Reformation or the NAR, which is different from reconstructionism in many ways but also believes in dominionism. The NAR believes that the word of God continues to come to us through apostles and prophets who have revelations and don’t necessarily have any formal religious training. A lot of them have found great success sharing their revelations right here on YouTube. A central revelation to the NAR is the Seven Mountain Mandate, basically the NAR’s form of dominionism. Under the Seven Mountain Mandate, Christians must take control not just of religion and church, but also of family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business and economics. You could imagine this would dovetail nicely with the conservative business movement that gained traction in the 1970s in adherence to the Powell Memo which encouraged big business to take over educational institutions and the media in order to encourage lower taxation and less regulation. Again, not all adherents to the same strict ideologies, but all finding enough cohesion that they can kind of work together for similar end results. Ted Cruz’s dad was a major figure in the New Apostolic Reformation, which named Ted as a king meant to enact this NAR dominion in government. They also believe that the accumulation of wealth into the hands of the few is perfectly fine because in order to take over the earth the Christians are going to need a lot of cash. It’s also why it’s perfectly fine for Ted Cruz to jet off to Mexico while people in Texas are dying because of the failed infrastructure he played a part in weakening. It’s okay he’s a king here to do god’s bidding, don’t worry about it.

Reconstructionism also played a role in the Tea Party movement. Gary North is an economist and a tea party favorite. He is also Rushdoony’s son in law. His preaching of slashing government programs and cutting taxes played right to the tea party base, whether they were adherents to reconstructionism or not. Ted Cruz was elected to the Senate in 2012 as part of that Tea Party movement. And Doug Wilson is seen as someone who has taken Rushdoony’s reconstructionist ideas and brought them into the 21st century, especially through the founding of the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC, of which Pete Hegseth’s church is a member, and his work with pushing for homeschooling and the creation of classical Christian schools that weave in the reconstructionist worldview into every aspect of teaching and of which Pete Hegseth’s children are students. If God wills humans to submit every aspect of their lives to God, then what better way but to ensure that every aspect of schooling has the indoctrination woven into it? And you better bet that COVID helped spur on his popularity even further. Wilson’s church in Moscow, Idaho, called Christ Church, advocated for resistance to COVID mandates in the town, of which at least 10% are members of Christ Church. In 2021, Wilson wrote a blog post called “A Biblical Defense of Fake Vaccine IDs.” Claiming “we are not yet in a hot civil war, with shooting and all, but we ARE in a cold war/civil war.” He urged readers to “resist openly, in concert with any others in your same position.” This will not be a “rebellion against lawful authority” but instead “an example of a free people refusing to go along with their own enslavement.” Again, you can see easy cohesion here with anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers, and any combo of conspiracy theory touting wackos. They are not perfectly ideologically aligned, but they want the same end state. COVID also played into a central theme in both NAR and Reconstrionism and that is the persecution complex.

As Julie Ingersoll notes in her journal article quote “one’s opponents are not just people with whom one disagrees but proponents of the forces of evil: power-hungry liars and deceivers, bound for eternal damnation but capable of wreaking havoc in the meantime. … In some substantial measure the evidence that one is on the side of righteousness is that he or she is faced with persecution. This accounts for some of the highly charged rhetoric and emotionally charged anger of some contemporary conservatives. The claim of persecution becomes not just a description of an experience but a theological necessity. If it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.” Being persecuted is in and of itself proof of the righteousness of your ideas. Therefore, adherents to these worldviews feel vindicated in their perceived persecution, in their “enslavement” as they call it, under COVID mandates or other tyrannical forces that overstep the boundaries of sphere sovereignty. They have to be persecuted because otherwise how would they have proof of the righteousness of their convictions? Therefore any condemnation of their beliefs by the media or government or judges or you or me doesn’t make them stop and reconsider their worldview. It actively reinforces it. I’m telling you this is like the most ingenious, self-reinforcing cult ever invented. Because if every aspect of life should be dominated by the will of god, then ANY interference by the government into ANY aspect of your life can be considered an infringement on your right to practice your religion.

And so part of this worldview includes this really violent rhetoric wherein the Crusades are glorified as this godly holy war. As is the confederacy in the US Civil War. You can see this in the violent “warrior” rhetoric touted by Pete Hegseth not only at the Pentagon but also in his various books and podcast appearances where he uses violent rhetoric to discuss everything, down to the schooling of children. In one podcast, he says children are being quote “accosted and assaulted on a daily basis with evil ideologies that are corrupting their mind that are corrupting their affections and leaving them incapable of seeking the kind of wisdom that’s required.” And the response to this is “insurgency” or “guerilla war.” Again, he’s talking about children in classrooms. Or in his book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free when he said quote “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must. … Arm yourself—metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

So of course when we start bombing Iran, Hegseth has helped create a culture where this type of extreme violence is not only justified but in fact ordained by God. But there’s one more piece of the puzzle I want to lay out for you that’s important to understand, and that is how the end times fit into these various ideologies. To understand that you have to understand premillennialism vs postmillennialism. Premillennialism is the “rapture” style end times you hear about and that the high ranking officials in the military seem to be adhering to when they cheer on the war in Iran. Politico sums it up well, writing quote “God, believers were taught, worked through distinct historical eras, or “dispensations.” The current era — the “church age” — would close suddenly. True Christians would be taken up from the earth in the rapture, lifted directly to heaven.

What followed would be a seven-year period of tribulation marked by war, chaos and persecution under a global ruler known as the Antichrist. During this period, prophetic passages from Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation would unfold on the world stage: Nations would align, a climactic battle would center on the Middle East and forces often identified with “Gog,” the apocalyptic enemy described in the Book of Ezekiel, would move against Israel from the north.

At the end of this catastrophe, Christ would return in glory, defeat the Antichrist at Armageddon and inaugurate a 1,000-year reign of peace before a final judgment.” That 1000-year reign of peace is the millennium in “premillennialism.” We haven’t reached it yet, in their interpretation of Revelation. As the Jacobin reports, quote “Central to the modern interpretation of this worldview is the Old Testament book of Ezekiel 38, which describes a coalition of nations — traditionally identified by prophecy “experts” as Russia, Turkey, and Persia (modern-day Iran) — descending upon Israel in the “War of Gog and Magog.”” The article goes on to say quote “Much of the current strain of Christian Zionism seen in contemporary evangelical churches comes from a similar belief in the United States’ and Israel’s dual role in jump-starting the Biblical End Times, usually involving a battle against Iran.”

Postmillennialism is the belief that Jesus created his “kingdom on Earth” the first time around and that the church, via its gospel, has the duty of aligning the world as closely as possible with the word of God and once all of society is finally aligned with God’s will, and after many years of that, Jesus will finally return to bring the glorious end times. In America, Protestants in the 19th and 20th centuries were generally postmillennialist which is why they were really concerned with things like helping poor children and prohibition–they were trying to get society aligned with God so that Jesus could come back. Christian reconstructionists like Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth also align with postmillennialism–it's their job to get society to submit to biblical laws by exercising dominion over the world so that Jesus can come back. But, again, even with these differing viewpoints, their overarching end goals tend to make those who believe in premillennialism and those who believe in postmillennialism fall into largely the same camp when it comes to how society should run. And some denominations see no issue in believing in contradictory things at all. For example, the New Apostolic Reformation or NAR of which Ted Cruz and his father are a part, strongly espouses dominionism, often merges and conflates the doomerism of premillennial beliefs with the postmillennial goal of attaining dominion over society.

And I think that’s why I wanted to talk about all of this today because when you start to understand the various worldviews that make up white Christian Nationalism, what at first appears as a thorny nest of contradictions and strange bedfellows starts to actually make it all make sense. From the cultural fights against trans kids and public schools and book bans to the righteous glee pervading our armed forces while attacking Iran, to support for DOGE and the slashing of government programs, to claiming to be Christian while bombing children in Gaza, it’s all part of this plan ordained by God. Questioning their adherence to whatever their flavor of white Christian nationalism might be only helps to reinforce their belief in their own righteous suffering and persecution. And now that worldview has infected our armed forces, and its infected our supreme court, which has increasingly found in favor of Christians’ ability to practice their religion freely at the expense of all our rights to be free from religion, its infected our Congress, not just through Ted Cruz but many others, Congress is exceptionally more religious than the average American, and its infected the entire executive branch with Trump as, once again, a strange bedfellow considering how little he espouses Christian beliefs, but whose end goal aligns with the White Christian Nationalist worldview of complete world domination. It’s on display in Project 2025, a playbook that is now, by some accounts, over 50% complete, and one that is obsessed with pushing the narrative that white, Christian, families are under attack by DEI and “civil rights” and other evil forces from within the federal government, which should shrink back down to its god-ordained role of protecting private property and inflicting the death penalty. It all starts making sense when you dive into the Christian nationalist worldview, which in and of itself isn’t even coherent–for a group of people that claim to be really sure about the word of God they have a fuck of a lot of disagreements amongst themselves. And yet they’re able to overcome those disagreements in order to work together towards shared goals in a way that leftists really struggle to do because we require ideological purity from our membership. So maybe we should take a page from the book of the gospel of White Christian Nationalism and try to figure out some end goals we can all rally behind instead of bickering on reddit about who’s a true leftist and who’s really just the petit bourgeosie or whatever the fuck you armchair philosophers like to go off on in the comments of all my videos. If you want to delve more into all the intricacies of the worldview animating the federal government, I’ve linked all my sources in the description, there are some interesting reads in there. Knowledge is power, know thy enemy, etc.

If you’d like to support my work consider joining on YouTube, Substack, or Patreon to get access to all these episodes completely ad free. Also if you like my Reagan Ruined Everything tshirt you can get one for yourself at leeja miller merch dot com. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Christopher Cowan, Evan Friedley, Marc, Sarah Shelby, Dennis Smith, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like my episode from last week about what’s going on with the strait of Hormuz.