from the holy-shit dept

There’s a certain segment of the American population that likes to really bang on about the importance of the First Amendment to our rights to free speech and the freedom of religion… right up until that includes speech and religion they don’t like. This same segment also tends to make a lot of noise about how America is the freest and bestest country in the world, full of liberty and apple pie and Ford F150s, or whatever the hell else gives them a jingoistic flutter.

The reality is different, of course. Human rights in America in the modern era were never blazing any new trails, and religious liberty specifically has been on the decline for decades, particularly since the 9/11 attacks. Certain populations and sects of Christianity have enjoyed general freedom, no matter the gnashing of teeth you might hear over a fucking wedding cake or website on occasion, while many other faiths have faced all kinds of headwinds. Including, I might add, those with no faith whatsoever, who find their contributions to federal coffers routinely misused for religious purposes of which they want no part.

Such as the faith-based offices that have sprung up within federal government departments ever since George W. Bush decided that faith had a place in the American government after all. It was inevitable that charlatans like Donald Trump would use that sort of thing to his advantage, of course, but the practice was also continued under Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And now we have Pete Hegseth injecting a religious office directly into the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is launching an office of religious affairs, the latest of his faith-related reforms at the Pentagon. He announced in a speech Wednesday that the office will help offer “first-class religious support” and will report directly to him.

“Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God, because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual,” he said.

If a chill didn’t just run down your spine, you’re not paying attention to history. There is nothing more dangerous, as Christopher Hitchens used to say, than a man with a powerful army who believes he has god on his side. To cloak the Pentagon in religiosity is a dangerous mistake so obvious that it barely needs arguing. So much so, in fact, that the Pentagon’s PR department attempted to clean this up and make it all sound more benign.

The Office of Religious Affairs, or ORA, will advocate for military chaplains and religious support “at the highest level of the Department,” according to a Pentagon statement. It will not “compel religious participation, favor one faith, or diminish the rights of personnel of any faith or lack thereof.”

Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one. Go read Hegseth’s remarks again and tell me if that doesn’t sound like someone who is going to compel participation. As for the favoring of one religion over another, or of the faithless, that’s already happened. And this office, bound by the arbitrary determinations made under Hegseth’s DoD, will be compelled to follow suit.

The Defense Department also slashed the number of religious affiliations it officially recognizes, down to 31 from more than 200 previously recognized traditions. The list no longer includes atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans and Wiccans.

And then add to it all that the military is currently in a bit of a crisis over mental health and suicides. Chaplains have been tasked in recent years to help guide soldiers in a therapeutic way for those suffering, but Hegseth is tired of that namby-pamby bullshit.

The memo mentions “faith-based initiatives supporting Department-wide suicide reduction.” In recent years, the military has become increasingly dependent on chaplains to help address the growing numbers of troops in mental health distress. Hegseth has said he wants chaplains to focus more on God and less on therapeutic “self-help and self-care.”

This is what happens when you let religion creep its way into secular organizations. Religion is evangelical and expansionist by its very nature. That isn’t meant to be a criticism; it just is, definitionally. The original sin, as it were, was allowing Bush to open the door just enough to get a more benign version of this established. Perhaps it was even earlier, when the Continental Congress approved the very first military chaplains, even as they fought the Revolutionary War.

The fascistic takeover of that religious infrastructure is, and always was, inevitable.

Filed Under: christian nationalism, dod, office of religious affairs, pete hegseth, religion