Hegseth Prays for 'Overwhelming Violence' at Pentagon Worship Service as Separation of Church and State Lawsuit Filed

What Hegseth Said at the Service

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted a monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday, his first since the Iran war began, with civilian employees and uniformed military personnel in attendance. The service was livestreamed.

"Every month it is fitting to be right here," Hegseth told those gathered. "All the more fitting this month, at this moment, given what tens of thousands of Americans are doing right now."

Hegseth said the prayer he read was originally given by a military chaplain to the troops who captured then-President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The text of the prayer as he read it: "Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy."

He also read from Psalm 18: "I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed."

The previous week, according to reporting by the Associated Press, Hegseth had asked Americans to pray for service members "in the name of Jesus Christ." He again prayed in Jesus' name at Wednesday's service.

Chaplain Corps Reforms Announced

On Tuesday, the day before the service, Hegseth announced two reforms to what he described as "making the chaplain corps great again." He said military chaplains would be directed to focus more on religious ministry and less on therapeutic "self-help and self-care," a function the military has increasingly relied on chaplains to fulfill amid growing mental health concerns among troops.

In a video message, Hegseth said chaplains would no longer wear their rank on their uniform, instead being identified by religious insignia. He said the change would reduce "unease or anxiety" service members have about approaching officers for spiritual care.

He also announced that the military would reduce the number of recognized faith codes — the religious affiliations tracked in personnel records — from more than 200 down to 31. The previous list of more than 200 included many small Protestant denominations as well as identifications for Wiccans, atheists, and agnostics. The Pentagon had not released the updated list as of Thursday.

According to a 2019 congressional report, nearly 70% of active-duty troops identify as Christian. Nearly a quarter were listed as "other/unclassified/unknown," with small percentages of atheists and agnostics, Jews, Muslims, and adherents of Eastern religions.

Who Leads the Services

Hegseth belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a conservative network co-founded by the self-described Christian nationalist Doug Wilson. According to the Associated Press, CREC pastors have appeared at Hegseth's Pentagon services at least three times, including Wilson himself, who preached there in February.

Hegseth began hosting worship at the Pentagon in May 2025, when his Tennessee pastor, Brooks Potteiger, preached. Potteiger is relocating to Washington, D.C., to lead Christ Church DC, a new CREC congregation that Hegseth has attended. Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, an Air Force chaplain and Southern Baptist pastor and former congressman, preached at Wednesday's service.

Hegseth mentioned the Pentagon services at a gathering of Christian broadcasters in February, saying: "We mostly do it because I need it more than anybody else." He acknowledged criticism from civil liberties groups, saying: "We hear a lot from the 'freedom from religion' crowd. They hate it. The left-wing shrieks, which means we're right over the target."

Lawsuit Filed Over the Services

The civil liberties organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit Monday — the day before Hegseth's chaplain reforms and two days before Wednesday's service — seeking to enforce a public records request filed in December. The suit asks the Pentagon to produce internal communications about the worship services, including their cost, the identity of guests, and any complaints received from employees.

The group filed a parallel suit against the Labor Department, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer hosts monthly prayer gatherings that Americans United says were inspired by Hegseth's Pentagon model.

"Secretaries Hegseth and Chavez-DeRemer are abusing the power of their government positions and taxpayer-funded resources to impose their preferred religion on federal workers," said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, in a statement. "Even if these prayer services are presented as voluntary, there is pressure on federal employees to attend in order to appease their bosses."

Constitutional Questions

Ronit Stahl, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America, said that broad religious references in public contexts are not unusual — but that Hegseth's approach is distinct. "But the shift towards the specificity of Jesus Christ and therefore Christianity and in Hegseth's case, a particular form of Protestant Christianity, is new, especially coming from the defense secretary," Stahl told the AP.

Stahl added: "In a nation with no establishment of religion per the Constitution, what does it mean to have a leader being not just broadly religious or religious in a pluralistic sense, but religious in a very particular sense?"

Defenders of Hegseth have cited historical precedents including President Franklin D. Roosevelt's support for distributing Bibles to troops, and George Washington's role in establishing the military chaplain corps. Hegseth himself regularly invokes Washington in defending the practice.

The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion. Federal courts have generally held that government-sponsored religious activities can be permissible if they are genuinely voluntary and not coercive — but the line has been contested in military and workplace contexts where power dynamics create implicit pressure to participate.

Context: Hegseth's Faith and the Iran War

The services have drawn renewed attention since the Iran war began. Hegseth has previously defended the Crusades — the medieval Christian military campaigns against Muslim-controlled territories — and has frequently framed the defense of the United States in explicitly Christian terms. He has asked Americans to pray for troops "in the name of Jesus Christ" and depicted the current conflicts as efforts by a Christian nation against its enemies.

The Pentagon did not respond to AP requests for additional information about the chaplain corps changes before publication.