Five days after the deadly terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush referred to the forthcoming military response as a “crusade” against terrorism. After backlash to the use of the historically charged word to describe his plans to attack a predominantly Muslim nation, Bush shied away from repeating such language.
A quarter century later, the head of the U.S. military —who has Crusader imagery tattooed on his body and the cover of his Bible — spent the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks quoting Scripture and promising divine violence against another predominantly Muslim nation. Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war,” used the official observance ceremony at the Pentagon to justify the ongoing war against Iran. And he repeatedly used biblical passages — from Isaiah to Psalms to Matthew — out of context as he recast the United States as a divine force sending terrorists to hell.
“Over the past six months … our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century,” Hegseth said as he shifted the ceremony’s focus to the Iran war. “We’re still sending terrorists where they belong — to hell — and tankers to the bottom of the ocean where they belong.”
Two of the three scriptural references in Hegseth’s remarks on Friday are the two passages he most invoked — and most misused — this year. As he has done repeatedly since May, Hegseth quoted Isaiah 6:8. In the biblical text, that verse is part of the call of the prophet Isaiah. But Hegseth now turns the passage into a military recruitment moment, and the Pentagon has followed his lead by repeatedly posting the verse on social media with images of soldiers and the phrase “send me.”
“These dastardly and cowardly attacks changed America in ways that even the sound of those planes on this day stirs your soul. But it changed America not as the cowards had hoped,” Hegseth said on Sept. 11. “Their attacks inspired millions to step forward instead and say, ‘Send me.’ In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah said, ‘Here I am, Lord. Send me.’ And in the days that weeks that followed, millions of Americans said, ‘Here we are. Send us.’”
With military members replacing the prophet and the nation replacing God, Hegseth conscripts the verse to be about an imperial military calling people to fight. To put it simply, Isaiah 6 is not about joining the U.S. military. It’s not even about joining any military. But Christian Nationalism heretically turns the nation into an idol, making it so the call is ultimately not to serve God but to serve (and die) for the nation.
Hegseth sees those as the same thing, but they’re not. He argued during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in February that a soldier who dies for the nation “finds eternal life.” With that Crusader theology, Hegseth conflates God and country, making salvation not about the work of Jesus but about a soldier dying for a nation. His co-option of Isaiah 6:8 makes the same fundamental mistake.
Another biblical passage Hegseth used in his speech Friday is Psalm 144:1-2. Like with the Isaiah verse, he has repeatedly used this verse this year. In the text, the psalmist praises God as the one “who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.” And the psalmist calls God “my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge.” With its violent imagery, Psalm 144:1-2 makes an appearance in Saving Private Ryan (while Isaiah 6:8 shows up in another World War II film, Fury).
Hegseth read those two verses and several others from Psalm 144 during the January worship service at the Pentagon after explaining that he had prayed through that passage and shared it with others under his command as part of the planning for the military operation in Venezuela a couple of weeks earlier. In March, he read the first two verses during a press conference, that time employing it to support Operation Epic Fury in Iran. The first verse was also included in a violent prayer he read during the March worship service at the Pentagon that he offered in support of the war in Iran. On Friday, he returned to it as the close to his remarks.
“We have faith in our warriors. But we also have faith that there is one who keeps watch over us. And Scripture tells us that the Lord is our fortress and our shield. The Lord trains our arms for war and our hands for battle,” he said. “Strengthened by faith in Almighty God, we will continue to defeat our enemies and protect this republic just as the heroes and the warriors of 9/11 did. Because in this nation, in God we trust, in this land, in this place, on that day, and still today. And amen.”
While Psalm 144, like many of the poems in the Book of Psalms, contains violent language and metaphors, Hegseth tends to pull the militaristic verses out of context, read them as inherently literal, and apply them to the U.S. military. In reality, the language of the psalms is frequently metaphorical and often comes from someone who is being oppressed and crying out to God to save them from a powerful military. That is, they are not the head of the Pentagon praying for God to bless their military might as they kill less powerful people. Yet, people like Hegseth want to literally apply the poetic language of songs while treating Jesus’s clear teachings about loving our neighbors and our enemies as just poetic suggestions.
Hegseth drafted another verse during his remarks Friday, but this one was not one of his regulars. And he managed to once again change the meaning of the passage to make it somehow justify his military agenda.
Turning to Matthew 24:6, Hegseth referenced the warning of Jesus to his disciples that they would “hear of wars and rumors of wars.” In the Hegseth new revised version, this phrase means the U.S. military must keep fighting wars, like the one in Iran.
“We’re ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The economic pressure tightens every day. We control the Strait,” Hegseth said with apparently as little understanding of the condition of the Strait of Hormuz as with the meaning of Bible verses. “We will finish this fight. But we also know, as the Scripture says, the world will always have war and rumors of war. And so the fight goes on. And so we raise up a new generation of strong, brave warriors who will say, when it matters most, ‘Send me.’”
In Hegseth’s nihilistic interpretation, there will be “wars and rumors of war” so that means we have to fight in those wars (and maybe spread those rumors). But Jesus wasn’t rallying the troops before sending them into battle. He also says in the next verse that there would be “famines and earthquakes,” but I sure hope Hegseth doesn’t think that means were supposed to cause famines and earthquakes (although, maybe that’s what Elon Musk thinks given all cuts to lifesaving aid programs). Saying there will be wars is much different than saying we should fight in or even start wars.
Standing outside the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus was warning his disciples that the Temple would be destroyed someday and also talked about “the end of the age.” Far from telling them to fight wars, he was instead letting them know what to expect. And right before his “wars and rumors of war” remark, he offered a stark warning: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.’” Watch out for deceivers, for people coming in Jesus’s name with a false gospel. You might want to reread that passage, Pete.
Such misuses of the Bible might not be as funny as when Hegseth prayed the Pulp Fiction version of Ezekiel 25:17, but what he offered on Friday is even more heretical. And it’s even more dangerous when our crusading Secretary of (Holy) War is misusing verses and a national remembrance to justify new wars and rumors of war.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor