For those Americans unsure of why President Trump broke his pledge to avoid the endless wars of his recent predecessors—and the polls show a growing number are unhappy with the war he plunged into against Iran, in partnership with rabid Greater Israel fanatic Bibi Netanyahu—spokesmen for Secretary of War Pete Hegseth provided an answer. No it’s not to defend the world from a non-existent nuclear weapon, nor to defend the region against terrorism allegedly launched by Tehran, nor to defend the Iranian people from their government, among the mix of justifications offered by the President.
The war is “all part of God’s plan,” soldiers are being told, to fulfill the mandate for “Christians” to hasten the arrival of the “End Times,” according to an interpretation preached in pep talks to soldiers heading into battle. This was reported by the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) Mikey Weinstein, who reported on more than 100 complaints he has received from non-commissioned officers. Weinstein is a veteran who worked in the Reagan White House.
He said, “Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new ‘Biblically-sanctioned’ war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation...Many of their commanders,” he added, “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.”
Weinstein’s comments were filed in a report by independent journalist Jonathan Larsen, who wrote that complaints have been made by members of the armed forces who expressed concern that they are being told by senior officers that the war on Iran is part of “God’s divine plan,” with claims made that US President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to spark Armageddon.
Larsen says Weinstein cited more than 110 complaints filed in the first forty-eight hours after the attack on Iran began. One email sent to Larsen argued that such rhetoric “destroy[s] morale and unit cohesion and [is] in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”
Hegseth and Biblical Prophecy
Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of War and a self-proclaimed devout Christian, is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, commonly known as the CREC.
The CREC was co-founded in 1998 by Doug Wilson, then a pastor in Moscow, Idaho. It now has more than 150 affiliated churches in the United States, Canada, Australia, and reportedly some other countries. Wilson is a leading exponent of theocratic libertarianism, which is a system in which America and other nations will be run by Biblical laws, based on Old Testament interpretations of severe punishment and banishment. It is part of a broader prophetic movement, Christian Reconstructionism, which promotes the belief in the idea of a coming battle of Armageddon, which will be followed by the return of Jesus Christ.
Wilson was invited by Hegseth to deliver a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium on February 20, which was broadcast on the Department of Defense’s internal network.
