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A Christian military chaplain says chaplains are being evaluated for promotions based on whether or not they align with the secretary of defense’s hardline Christian ideologies.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for service members’ constitutional right to religious freedom, announced Tuesday that it had received several complaints from active-duty personnel who fear repercussions for not aligning with Pete Hegseth’s religious views.
One such complaint, shared by the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated organization, came from an active-duty U.S. military Christian chaplain. The chaplain, whose name was withheld for fear of repercussions, raised concerns about changes being made to the Department of Defense’s “Spiritual Fitness” initiative.
“Spiritual Fitness is now being presented as inherently religious,” the chaplain wrote.
“Chaplains are increasingly expected to promote it, and the pressure to support its current direction is becoming difficult to ignore.”
Originally, the program was designed to help service members identify core values to ground them. In turn, the DOD believed those values—whether they stemmed from religion, philosophy, or a broader sense of purpose—would better prepare them for conflict.
That changed after Hegseth, a member of a church affiliated with controversial Pastor Doug Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, scrapped the initiative. The 46-year-old defense secretary threw out the “Army Spiritual Fitness Guide” and fired the head of the Army’s chaplain corps during Holy Week, pledging reform.
More alarming, the chaplain described an “ongoing effort” to evaluate whether their peers ideologically align with Hegseth—an infringement on the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.
“The messaging is consistent enough that many of us understand what is being rewarded and what is not,” the chaplain wrote.
“If those determining what constitutes ‘effective ministry’ also expect alignment with a particular religious or ideological perspective, the evaluation system becomes more than a measure of ministry performance—it becomes a mechanism for shaping the future composition of the Chaplain Corps.”
The chaplain said they “fear[ed]” that minority and female chaplains will eventually be pushed out of the Chaplain Corps.
“I sincerely hope I’m wrong,” they added.
Additionally, the MRFF shared an inquiry from an active-duty enlisted service member writing on behalf of themselves and another service member. The pair, who identified as Christians, alleged they were pressured by administrative staffers to join what they described as their “commander’s crisis prayer phone tree.”
“This might sound like it would be nice but both myself and my fellow [redacted] were pissed and insulted as this was clearly an attempt just as we joined this unit to make sure we were Christians in synch with I guess our commander’s obvious Christian religious views,” the service member wrote.
A Department of Defense spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
This is the latest instance of Hegseth’s Defense Department facing accusations of eroding the separation of Church and State.
In May, the MRFF said it had received more than 200 calls from active-duty personnel across 50 military installations after the U.S. struck Iran in coordination with Israel overnight Saturday. Callers said their commanders had likened Trump’s war on Iran to a holy war.
“[Our commander] urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ,” one active-duty military member who identified as a Christian said, according to the MRFF. “He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’.”
Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor, has also launched a monthly Christian worship series at the Pentagon. Earlier this year, he invited his self-described Christian nationalist pastor, Wilson—who has supported repealing women’s right to vote and criminalizing homosexuality—to deliver a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium.
Hegseth, who has been married three times, has made no secret of his support for Wilson and his views. Last August, he shared a CNN profile of Wilson in which the pastor advocated reinstating laws against homosexuality and claimed women’s priorities should be starting families and raising children.
