By Johnny Zokovitch
Early on in my study of scripture, one of my teachers asked if we were familiar with the adage, “History is written by the winners.” The exception, he pointed out, is the Bible. He then went on to make the case that the scriptural stories were written by, for and about people on the underside of history. They were the stories of a people who were continually conquered, marginalized, decimated, exiled, enslaved and oppressed. They were not the stories of the empire. Even those stories associated with the reigns of David and Solomon were not those of the geopolitically powerful, but rather the stories of a small, vulnerable nation-state, insignificant to the great powers of the age.
This is an insight most often lost to the religious sensibilities of Christians living in one of the most powerful empires the world has ever seen, the United States of America. The incongruity between the experiences of the freed Hebrew slaves of the Exodus narrative or the early discipleship communities in the Acts of the Apostles or Paul’s letters with the majority of the US Christian community today is rarely, if ever, acknowledged by those churchgoers whose religious commitment is virtually indistinguishable from the privileges of US citizenship.
Which brings us to Pete Hegseth.
Since taking over the Department of Defense, Secretary Hegseth has sought out every opportunity to infuse both US foreign policy and the operations of the DOD with his own brand of “Christianity.” His brand literally includes “branding,” like his bible adorned with the Jerusalem Cross and the Latin phrase “Deus Vult” (“God wills it”) – upon which he swore when he took his oath of office – to similar Crusader tattoos on his body. And that brand is, unequivocally, Christian nationalism.
“The Jerusalem Cross … often carries a political message and in recent years has been popular among far-right extremist groups — especially as White supremacists have appropriated Crusader imagery to cast themselves as Christian warriors fighting to drive out Muslims and others in the name of God,” writes Brian Kaylor for A Public Witness. “The phrase ‘Deus Vult’ … has been seen on flags, along with a Crusader cross, at the 2017 White supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol; and elsewhere.”
Since taking over the Pentagon, Hegseth’s commitment to Christian nationalism has influenced everything from recent changes to the military’s chaplaincy corps (reducing recognized religious affiliations and putting religious symbols on uniforms) to the institution of official religious services of a content and tenor that supports his worldview.
For anyone paying attention, the prayer that Secretary Hegseth delivered at the March 25 Pentagon prayer service – the first service since the US and Israel attacked Iran – came as no surprise:
“Almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly. … Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind. … Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. … Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. … Give them … overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings and amen.”
Secretary Hegseth seems defiantly ignorant of the Jesus of the gospels and of the God who intervenes in salvation history again and again on behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed and against the powerful, against empire. My guess is that Secretary Hegseth has ripped out the pages of his Bible that express, for instance, an understanding of God as proclaimed by Luke and attributed to Mary:
“God has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry God has filled with good things;
the rich God has sent away empty.”
Hegseth’s mistaken characterization of God was addressed a few days later by Pope Leo.
“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” the pope said in his address on Palm Sunday. “(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.’”
The danger for Secretary Hegseth is that he should be careful what he prays for. He seems blithely unaware that the God he so utterly misunderstands has a pretty good track record of siding with those very ones made to suffer because of the greed and bloodlust of the powerful.
Johnny Zokovitch is the former executive director of Pax Christi USA. He currently serves on the board of thePax Christi International Fund for Peace and is in pastoral leadership atSt. Cronan Catholic Church in St. Louis. Read more from Johnny at https://johnnyzokovitch.substack.com/and sign up there to receive his articles directly to your email inbox.
My cynicism tells me that he doesn’t believe what he is saying. He is appropriating various thoughts and beliefs to meet his own goals and use the misguided believers for his own goals.
Thank you for these words. That entire federal administration is a false prophet; it includes nothing but whitened sepulchers. There is nothing Christian about it.