Dear Friend,
American Atheists doesn’t always weigh in on presidential cabinet nominations, so when we do, you can trust enough evidence has mounted to warrant a response.
For example, we issued a statement last month regarding the selection of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. We received some flak for that, but as an organization that values reason and science, ignoring his long history of spreading dangerous misinformation is not an option.
Similarly, we cannot remain silent about the nomination of former Fox & Friends weekend co-host Pete Hegseth to head the Department of Defense. With an annual operating budget of $900 billion and over two million civilian workers and troops, it is the federal government’s largest agency. If confirmed, Hegseth would be the least experienced defense secretary in American history.
We’re compelled to oppose Hegseth’s nomination not because his résumé is short but because his reputation is long in religious extremism, and we have grave concerns about the consequences of elevating a person who unreservedly romanticizes Christian warfare.
Facing allegations of rape, sexual assault, excessive drinking, and financial mismanagement, Hegseth has been working to rehabilitate his public image. Only a month ago, he said, “I’m straight up saying, we should not have women in combat roles.” On Monday, he said, “Our best warriors out there are women.” (Though he couldn’t help but observe women have inferior bone density.)
In his media appearances and books, Hegseth has long asserted the military is being weakened by “woke” policies as part of a “Marxist agenda.” Besides women, Hegseth also has an issue with racial integration and the inclusion of gay and transgender troops. He has said, “The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is ‘our diversity is our strength.’”
As he attempts to recast some of his most offensive comments about women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community, it’s notable he’s remaining an unabashed and unapologetic religious extremist.
Hegseth has several tattoos that have been flagged by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism for their adoption by far-right extremists, including mass murderers Mauricio Garcia and Anders Breivik. One of them, “Deus Vult,” is associated with militant white supremacist groups who, like Hegseth, revere the myth of a white Christian medieval past and romanticize the Christian slaughter of Jews and Muslims during the Crusades. One expert on religious violence said, “There is no version of ‘Deus Vult’ that means anything other than a call for violence.”
In his books The American Crusade and The War on Warriors, Hegseth wrote openly and at length about his bigotry toward Muslims and his belief that domestic extremism is “fake.” A veteran of the Army National Guard, Hegseth was himself flagged by a fellow service member as a possible “Insider Threat” and was one of a dozen members removed from serving at the Capitol during President Biden’s inauguration for “questionable behavior,” including extremism. He has also supported convicted war criminals and endorsed committing war crimes.
A day after his nomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) confirmed Hegseth is “a member in good standing.” Scholars consider CREC to be an extremist, Christian supremacist movement. Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, said: “Their goal is to reestablish biblical law as the standard for society. So when they say they believe that America should be a Christian nation, they actually believe that all nations should be Christian.”
This Christian Reconstructionist movement dates back to 1950s theologian R.J. Rushdoony, whose goal was to rebuild American society to fit more neatly within a narrow understanding of the Bible, which he believed applied to everyone, Christian or not. For Reconstructionists, the most valuable strategies are to promote a patriarchal family model and to replace public education with an entirely Christian curriculum.
Last year, Hegseth and his family joined a school and church associated with Doug Wilson, a co-founder of CREC and founder of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. Wilson, an accused abuser and town tyrant, has defended slavery and believes women shouldn’t have the right to vote. He has said Christian dominance is a divine conflict in which women and children are legitimate military targets. Likewise, in The American Crusade, Hegseth calls for a “360-degree holy war” to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents.” He goes on to say, in the event of such a civil war, “The military and police… will be forced to make a choice.”
Vice president-elect J.D. Vance has dismissed concerns about Hegseth’s connections to religious extremists as “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry,” echoing his administration’s promise to create a federal anti-Christian bias task force. American Atheists is extremely troubled by this resurgent narrative that critiques of religion or religious extremism are not free and protected speech but instead unlawful.
Repeatedly, when the divisive and bigoted statements they have made about atheists or minority religions face scrutiny, Christian nationalists play the victim, claiming any criticism of their bigotry is an attack on Christianity or some sort of unconstitutional religious test for public office. In this environment, senators could be reluctant to pose questions about Hegseth’s views and associations during confirmation hearings.
But Christian nationalism is not Christianity. It is a political ideology that is fundamentally incompatible with not only American Atheists’ values but the all-American value of religious liberty. When Hegseth calls on Christians to “pick up the sword of unapologetic Americanism and defend ourselves,” it’s non-Christians he fantasizes are at the other end.
Hegseth is entitled to his personal beliefs, but he isn’t entitled to force them onto the rest of us, nor do those beliefs entitle him to immunity from questions. Questions like, “How could we trust a person who disavows the Constitution to defend it?” His militancy about these beliefs ought to preclude him from any position of government power and overreach, not privilege them from examination.
I encourage you to urge your senator to oppose this nomination. If you’re able, I also ask that you include American Atheists in your end-of-year charitable giving, so we can continue standing as a bulwark against religious extremists like Hegseth and a powerful advocate for church-state separation.
In solidarity,
Nick Fish
President
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