Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hosted what he said would be the first of monthly religious sermons in the Pentagon in an announcement that has sparked debate about religious freedom.
Pastor Brooks Potteiger, the leader of Hegseth’s Tennessee church, Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, led the service on Wednesday in the Pentagon auditorium, which was broadcast live on the department’s internal television network.
Before the sermon, Hegseth addressed the crowd, informing those who chose to attend that it would be a monthly service that people could attend voluntarily.
“This is precisely where I need to be, exactly where we need to be as a nation at this moment, in prayer, on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Hegseth said in his opening remarks at the service. He has since defended having the event.
Some organizations criticized the service, arguing that promoting the secretary’s religion was endorsing it over other religions, while other institutions disagreed with that assessment.
“This is an egregious abuse of government power,” Freedom From Religion Foundation legal director Patrick Elliott said in a statement. “If the Pentagon, a command center of global military operations, can be converted into a venue for Christian worship and political messaging, then the wall between church and state is not just being breached, it’s under siege.”
Similarly, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, a law professor at Southwestern Law School, told CNN that Hegseth had put “his weight of the official Office of the Secretary of Defense behind a particular religious event and inviting someone to the Pentagon to conduct it.”
Alternatively, First Liberty, an organization dedicated to “defending religious freedom for all Americans,” said in a statement that Hegseth’s “exercise of his religious faith is protected.”
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon downplayed concerns that the service could have infringed upon.
“The Office of the Secretary of Defense invited DoD personnel to attend a voluntary Christian prayer and worship service this morning. Many different faiths have regular services in the Pentagon Chapel or elsewhere in the Pentagon,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told the Washington Examiner. “This service was an opportunity for Believers to appeal to Heaven on behalf of our great nation and its warfighters. Beseeching the Almighty has been an American tradition since George Washington prayed for our cause at Valley Forge. The United States was then, and remains now, One Nation under God.”
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In light of some criticism, Potteiger posted on social media on Friday, “If you’re a Christian and you’re more scandalized by a pastor preaching Christ at the Pentagon than by the trans flag flying over the White House, you’ve lost the plot.”
Potteiger is a part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which notes in its governing documents that it’s “neither lawful nor honorable for women to be mustered for combat service,” a position Hegseth has said he agrees with.
