The anonymous complaint was provided to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation by one of the NCOs in attendance at the Monday briefing on behalf of 15 troops – 11 of whom were Christians, one Muslim, one Jewish, and two atheists – and was first reported by freelance journalist Jonathan Larsen on his Substack.
The NCO said of the commander: “He urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
He added that the superior “had a big grin on his face when he said all of this, which made his message seem even more crazy.”
MRFF said the complaint was one of more than 200 it has received since the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran began in the early hours of Saturday morning.
“Anytime Israel or the U.S. is involved in the Middle East, we get this stuff about Christian nationalists who’ve taken over our government, and certainly our U.S. military,” Mikey Weinstein, MRFF’s president and a U.S. Air Force veteran, told The Guardian.
“Military members are not really able to stand up for themselves, because your military superior is not your shift manager at Starbucks.”
Weinstein told Military.com that his organization had already had “ well in excess of 200” complaints from “well in excess of 50 installations,” adding: “They are continuing to come in everywhere.”
“What we’ve been saying forever, if you look back in history whenever you’ve merged any sort of religious fanaticism with the machinery of the state that conducts war, we do not end up with little babbling brooks, creeks, streams, ponds or lakes. We end up with one thing: oceans and oceans of blood.”
Weinstein noted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s hard-line Christianity, which has included holding monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and reportedly attending a church in Washington, D.C., associated with Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson.
“Why is anybody surprised? Hegseth makes it clear, ‘Here’s the template that we want,’” he said. “That fully encourages one of those Christian nationalists, commanders and members of the chain of command – whether they believe it or not. They know it’s a way to get ahead, to try to rationalize [the mission].”
Last summer, the Pentagon was forced to clarify that Hegseth does believe women have the right to vote after the secretary posted a video on social media in which another pastor, Jared Longshoreman, expressed his support for scrapping the 19th Amendment.
Trump himself has often cut an unconvincing figure on matters of faith.
He famously struggled to name a favorite passage from scripture in an August 2019 interview with Bloomberg and has sold “God Bless the U.S.A.”-branded copies of the Bible, which takes its name from a patriotic country song by Lee Greenwood and includes the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance thrown in for good measure.
Trump’s edition of the Good Book is printed in China, retails for $59.99, or $1,000 for a signed copy, and is available in pink-and-gold and camouflage editions.
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