Doug Wilson Preaches at Pentagon, Compares Services to Day of Pentecost
Controversial Christian Nationalist preacher Doug Wilson stood at a podium inside the Pentagon on Tuesday (Feb. 17) as the guest preacher for the latest monthly Christian worship service held there for leaders of the U.S. military. The Idaho pastor and self-described “paleo-Confederate” preached about the importance of trusting God for protection in battle and praised the monthly worship services as perhaps a sign of a new revival like the Great Awakening or the biblical Day of Pentecost.
Once considered a fringe far-right Christian figure, Wilson in recent years has found himself increasingly embraced by the broader evangelical world and the conservative political movement in the age of Donald Trump. The biggest evidence of his rise is that Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself the “Secretary of War,” is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a denomination founded by Wilson. Brooks Potteiger, Hegseth’s CREC pastor in Tennessee from before joining the Trump administration, preached at the first Pentagon worship service in May and again last month. Wilson recently announced he’s sending Potteiger to Washington, D.C., to lead the new CREC church plant there, which Hegseth has been attending.
Wilson, an outspoken proponent of Christian Nationalism, has sparked numerous controversies over the years for what he preaches and teaches. He has downplayed the horrors of slavery and defended enslavers. He also pushes a hardline version of patriarchy, not just insisting only men can serve as pastors or in other church leadership roles but also that they should rule in families. That latter belief bleeds into civic life as Wilson argues the United States should adopt household voting, where the male head of the household casts the votes for everyone in the family. Wilson also pushes for codifying in U.S. law other theological beliefs he holds, including bans on abortion, same-sex marriage, and Pride parades. Additionally, he garnered headlines for leading his church members in Moscow, Idaho, to disobey public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hegseth sparked controversy last year when he affirmingly shared on social media a CNN interview in which Wilson argued women shouldn’t be allowed to vote and said that “women are the kind of people that people come out of.” Hegseth shared the clip on Elon Musk’s X platform along with his own caption that is a CREC slogan: “All of Christ for All of Life.” After questions arose about it, a Pentagon spokesperson insisted that Hegseth is not against women voting.
During his sermon on Tuesday, Wilson said it’s important to realize that it is God who offers protection, with several of his examples being biblical characters winning in battle.
“Noah was protected from the flood by the ark, but it was an ark that God had had him build. The ark was not his idea. It was the gift of God, and he remained secure in it. David went out to confront Goliath and he was not protected by anything so inadequate as Saul’s armor. What was David’s breastplate? What was his helmet? ‘I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts.’ First Samuel 17:45. He stood firm in the name of Jehovah. He conquered the giant Goliath in the name of someone else. If you bear the name of Jesus Christ, there is no armor greater than that. Not only so, but all the devil’s R&D teams have not come up, been able to come up with an armor-piercing anything.”
“We should not want God simply to win. We want God to get great glory in winning, getting great glory in and through winning. And getting great glory means that Gideon goes into battle with 300 instead of with 10,000. Getting great glory means Jehoshaphat goes into battle with the choir out in the vanguard,” Wilson added. “When you learn how to stand firm in the Lord and in the strength of his might, you are going to start sounding to your wife like a spiritual version of Chesty Puller after the Chinese came into the Korean War: ‘We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.’ And he also said, of course, ‘All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us, they can’t get away from us now.’ And your wife is going to stare at you and say, ‘What have you been reading?’ Your Bible.”
Quoting God’s covenant with Abraham and teachings in Deuteronomy of what God did for God’s “holy people,” Wilson consistently treated those in the Pentagon as fighting for God. He also pointed to the monthly worship services as perhaps a sign of an unexpected “black swan revival, a black swan reformation.” As examples of such movements in the past, he pointed to George Whitefield’s preaching ahead of the Great Awakening in colonial America, John Knox’s Scottish reformation preaching, and the Spirit moving in the Book of Acts on the Day of Pentecost.
“We should know by now, what [God] likes to do is to take the most unlikely materials and do something glorious with it. Take a prayer meeting at the Pentagon for a possible example. Many stranger things have happened. God is great. ‘And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they assembled together. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness.’ That’s Acts 4:31,” Wilson said. “One of the central characteristics of spirit-filled Christians is boldness.”
Hegseth later joined Wilson on stage to praise the preacher and defend the holding of monthly Christian worship services. Hegseth also evangelistically urged those under his command to repent and follow Jesus.
“Thank you for your leadership, for your mentorship, for the things you’ve started, the truth you’ve told, your willingness to be bold,” Hegseth said to Wilson. “It’s the type of thing that we’re trying to exercise here too with the monthly worship service, is to pause and recognize who is at the wheel, who is sovereign in all of these things. The scale and scope of which we can’t possibly imagine sometimes and outcomes we cannot foresee, but there is no plan B, only God’s plan of plan A.”
“We are all fallen, we are all sinful, we are all in need of the grace of God, and all in need of redemption. And I certainly stand chief among them,” Hegseth added. “Ultimately, in that pursuit, when we humbly come before God and work with others in that, he creates amazing opportunities, to include this service here in this place where many different things were worshiped for a very long time. And here we get a chance to worship Jesus Christ openly and in public.”
Other parts of the service fit with Wilson and Hegseth pushing Christianity. A uniformed military official gave the opening prayer, saying, “Lord, we are your people and you have called us to worship you.” He then quoted from Psalm 122 to christen the Pentagon: “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.’ Now, Lord, we recognize that this building, magnificent as it is, is not your house. But we are here worshiping the true temple, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it’s in his name that we gather to worship him in this building.”
Later, Christian musician Matt Hammitt led the gathered congregation in singing a medley of Christian songs, including “How Great Thou Art,” “How Great Is Our God,” “Worthy of It All,” “Amazing Grace,” and the “Doxology.” Additionally, Wilson led those present in saying the Lord’s Prayer and offered a benediction before Hegseth gave a closing prayer.
Controversial Trend
In May, Hegseth held his first Christian worship service in the Pentagon, during which he pledged to make it a monthly event. While the service garnered significant media coverage, the events have been virtually ignored since, other than the Christmas service that also received some coverage. In December, an investigation by A Public Witness documented the preachers at the other services, and A Public Witness broke the news about Franklin Graham’s “God of war” comments at the Christmas service and was the only outlet to report on the January service where Hegseth shared a Psalm he prayed as the U.S. attacked Venezuela.
Wilson fits the pattern of Hegseth inviting rightwing preachers with records of pushing conservative political positions or even Republican candidates. The eight other previous preachers include Graham and one of his sons, four Southern Baptist ministers, a pastor in Wilson’s denomination, and a former NFL player accused of insider trading. Two have been former pastors of Hegseth, and another one leads a D.C. church Hegseth attended some last year. The son of another plays basketball with one of Hegseth’s sons on a homeschool team, and the former football player also has past ties to Hegseth (even sitting behind Hegseth during the Senate confirmation hearing last year).
The services have sparked criticism from military personnel and defense contractors, some of whom feel pressure to attend in order to remain in good graces with superiors or those who make decisions on contracts.
“I did find today’s email stark, depressing, almost threatening. Horror movie vibes,” a defense contractor who received an invite to today’s service anonymously told Military.com. “You don’t actually need evidence of retribution to find fault with the leader of a government agency inviting his employees for a prayer service. It’s inherently discriminatory. It provides an opportunity for Christians to get face time and be in the room with higher-ups, perhaps interacting on a social level. Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians are not provided this opportunity.”
The organizing and hosting of worship services at the Pentagon fits with broader efforts by Hegseth to push his version of Christianity in controversial ways. Under his leadership, the Pentagon has created multiple promotional videos featuring Bible verses overlayed on clips of fighter jets, tanks, missiles, and soldiers. Hegseth also frequently led soldiers under his command in prayer and talked about Jesus and prayer in military speeches. At the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, Hegseth pushed Christian Nationalism, including with a shout-out to his monthly worship services.
“America was founded as a Christian nation. It remains a Christian nation in our DNA, if we can keep it. And as public officials, we have a sacred duty 250 years on to glorify him,” Hegseth said as he pointed upward. “That’s precisely why we instituted a monthly prayer service at the Pentagon, an act of what we see it as, spiritual readiness.”
During that speech, the man with crusader tattoos also quoted Jesus talking about dying for the gospel to argue that a soldier who dies for the United States “finds eternal life.”
Yet, even while Hegseth often pushes Christianity, he’s now leading the military in targeting some Christian universities that do not align with his philosophy. Earlier this month, Hegseth announced the Pentagon would end its relationship with Harvard University, where military personnel could receive tuition assistance for graduate programs and certificates. He also ordered a review of all such university relationships as part of his war on “wokeness” and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The Army then created a preliminary list of schools it deemed at “risk” of seeing their Pentagon relationship eliminated, which would not only hurt those schools but also military personnel currently enrolled in such programs. Several Christian universities are on the list of potentially targeted elite schools, including Catholic schools (Boston College, Fordham University, and Georgetown University), schools affiliated with the United Methodist Church (Boston University, Duke University, and Emory University), a Church of Christ school (Pepperdine University), and a nonsectarian school that was historically Baptist (Wake Forest University).
From worship services to various policies, Hegseth is implementing his version of Christian Nationalism. And he’s doing it under the mentorship of Doug Wilson and others in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Hegseth made this theocratic vision clear last year while echoing Wilson: “All of Christ for All of Life.”
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Learn more about the worship services at the Pentagon and the Department of Labor on our “Government Worship Watch” page.
Brian, you're frightening me. I guess I'll have to ask God to protect me from the Pentagon and Christian Nationalism. Ted
Thank you for keeping us informed. This is terrifying. They worship a small God that reflects them.