DemocracyNow! reports that some United States military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about a biblical “end of times”, selling the US-Israeli war against Iran to US troops as a “holy war”.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation — a watchdog that aims to protect the separation of Church and State in the US military — has reportedly been inundated with hundreds of complaints regarding such comments.
“One combat unit commander reportedly said the war ‘is part of God’s divine plan’ and that ‘President [Donald] Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, said DN! host, Amy Goodman.
Goodman interviewed MRFF president, Mikey Weinstein, who said that the organisation started getting calls from members of the military in the US and overseas as soon as the war began, about military supervisors and commanders being “joyful” and saying the war “was great news” and that, in accordance with the end times in the Book of Revelations, was serving to bring back “their version of a weaponised Jesus”.
“We were getting 15, 20, 25 calls a day the first several days,” Weinstein said. “We [now] have over 200 complaints from 50 different installations.”
“I’m reminded of the second inaugural speech by Abraham Lincoln when he chastised both sides in the [US] Civil War for trying to say that God was on their side — which exacerbated the violence, the bloodshed, the injuries and the death.”
Trump’s Secretary of War and former Fox and Friends host, Pete Hegseth, even invited controversial Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson to lead the Pentagon’s prayer service last month, said Goodman. Wilson opposes Muslims holding public office and does not believe women should be allowed to vote.
Weinstein told DN! Hegseth is “viewed by senior leadership as a bully and a poser … [and] is nothing but a Christian nationalist lackey”.
“Hegseth has created a template that the only approved member of the US military is to be straight, white, Christian nationalist and male. “So why is anybody surprised” that there are commanders down the chain of hierarchy, “all of whom are trying to get promoted, that are following the exact same thing?”.
Ironically, while Trump makes noises about how the US should have “Christian values”, he doesn’t attend church, or attend religious ceremonies like presidents did before him — even if pro forma.