President Donald Trump can’t get his story straight on why he launched a war against Iran. But some commanders in the U.S. military are apparently telling service members that they’re on a mission to fulfill biblical prophecy.
The independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more than 110 complaints from service members about their commanders’ religious gloss on the war on Iran. These complaints, according to Larsen’s report, came from every branch of the military, across more than 40 different units, situated in at least 30 military installations. (The Pentagon did not respond to Larsen’s request for comment.)
The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force.
MRFF president Michael Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints from service members shared a common feature: Commanders are describing the war as “biblically sanctioned” and “clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.”
Weinstein added, “Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.”
In the absence of any clear explanation from the White House on the purpose of this war, it appears some military leaders may be filling the vacuum with the idea that the United States is on a providential mission that could help bring about “the end times” as prophesied in the Bible. The reported comments track with a Christian Zionist worldview. As Sarah Posner, a journalist and expert on right-wing Christian extremism, explained for MS NOW:
For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.
That some military commanders are reportedly selling American aggression on Iran as a holy war is deeply alarming. Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints violate the Constitution’s separation of church and state. But regardless of its legality, telling American troops that they’re fighting for a Christian god against a Muslim country is medieval madness. It isn’t the role of the U.S., per the Constitution, to promote any religion over another. Furthermore, the reported remarks from these commanders is likely to prompt U.S. service members to dehumanize Iran’s population, and help set the stage for viciousness in combat and human rights violations. The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth bears responsibility. He has led Christian prayer services at the Pentagon. He has attended a Christian media convention where he has traced the U.S.’s origins to the Bible and railed against “dangerous and godless foreign ideologies that sow doubt, confusion and death.” He has invited a pastor to lead a worship service at the Pentagon who, according to CNN, “supports repealing women’s right to vote and believes homosexuality should be a crime.” He openly affiliates with an ultraconservative church associated with Christian nationalism, the idea that the U.S. should be a Christian nation and that its government should take steps to advance that ideal. If any military officers were looking for excuses to make combat with Iran about politics and religion, then Hegseth has given them license to do so.
All war is hell. But unnecessary war surely constitutes a special ring of hell — who wants to die on a battlefield for no particular reason? Perhaps some will find respite in the idea that the whole thing is secretly ordained by God. But such a belief will not redeem this gratuitous violence. There’s nothing that can make the U.S.’s war on Iran holy.
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