By Heath Druzin, Idaho Capital Sun
Pete Hegseth, president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Defense, has close ties to an Idaho-based Christian nationalist church that aims to turn America into a theocracy.
Hegseth is a member of a Tennessee congregation affiliated with Christ Church, a controversial congregation in Moscow, Idaho, that has become a leader in the movement to get more Christianity in the public sphere.
In an appearance last year on the Christ Church-connected streaming show “Crosspolitic,” Hegseth talked about how building up fundamentalist Christian education systems is important in what he sees as a “spiritual battle” with the secular world. He sees Christian students as foot soldiers in that war and refers to Christian schools as “boot camp.”
“We’re in middle phase one right now, which is effectively a tactical retreat where you regroup, consolidate and reorganize and as you do so, you build your army underground with the opportunity later on of taking offensive operations – and obviously all of this is metaphorical and all that good stuff,” he said on the show.
Hegseth did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
Christ Church is led by Pastor Doug Wilson, who founded the Calvinist group of churches called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC. CREC has congregations in nearly all 50 states and several foreign countries. Hegseth’s church is a member of CREC, and Hegseth has spoken positively of Wilson’s writings.
Wilson and his allies have a rigid patriarchal belief system and don’t believe in the separation of church and state. They support taking away the right to vote from most women, barring non-Christians from holding office and criminalizing the LGBTQ+ community.
Recently, Wilson has increased his influence nationally as he’s built a religious, educational and media empire. His Association of Classical Christian Schools has hundreds of fundamentalist schools around the country, and his publishing outfit Canon Press churns out dozens of titles a year as well as popular streaming shows that highlight unyielding socially conservative ideals.
In the recently released podcast, “Extremely American” (created by this reporter), Wilson says one of his goals is to get like-minded people into positions of influence. In an emailed response for this story, he said he’s closer to that post-election and that he supports Hegseth’s nomination, though he downplayed any influence he has on him.
“I was grateful for Trump’s win, and believe that it is much more likely that Christians with views similar to mine will receive positions in the new administration,” he said.
That’s what worries Air Force veteran Mikey Weinstein, who is the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Weinstein says Hegseth, if confirmed as secretary of Defense, would threaten the cohesion of a religiously and racially diverse U.S. military.
“Pete Hegseth is a poster child for literally everything that would be the opposite of what you would want to have for someone who’s controlling the technologically most lethal organization in history of this country,” he said.
Weinstein sees Hegseth’s nomination as an example of the dangers of Project 2025, a 900-page policy paper written by far-right political activists. It lays out a plan to gut the federal government and install Christian nationalist ideals.
“Christian nationalism is an absolute fatal cancer metastasizing at light speed (for) the national security of this country,” he said. “It is a Christian version of the Taliban.”
Matthew D. Taylor, senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, said Hegseth is “one of the most extreme far right figures ever nominated to a cabinet post, at least in modern memory.”
Taylor said he’s broadly concerned about Christian nationalists, who tend to take a dim view of democracy, potentially having a lot of sway in this administration.
“I think we should expect a profound degradation of our democratic norms of the rule of law, and I think we are edging closer to a de facto Anglo Protestant establishment, of the kind where Anglo Protestant Christianity as the de facto official religion in the United States,” he said.
Hegseth faces some headwinds in his nomination process due to multiple marital sex scandals and the recent revelation that he paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in exchange for her not speaking about it. He denies he assaulted her but admits he paid her. He’s also gotten criticism for tattoos that are symbols of the Crusades and wrote a book titled “American Crusade,” where he derides Muslims.
Before becoming a TV personality, Hegseth led the conservative veterans group Concerned Veterans for America, which advocated for increased privatization of veterans’ health care.
He has also said that women should not be allowed to serve in combat roles in the military, and has complained about what he terms “woke” policies in the military.
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“Wilson says one of his goals is to get like-minded people into positions of influence.”
And that’s not your goal? I assume this character assault on Wilson and Hegseth is at least in part out of a desire to see these men barred from positions of influence because they don’t share your vision for our republic.
“They support taking away the right to vote from most women, barring non-Christians from holding office and criminalizing the LGBTQ+ community.”
I don’t suppose, as a journalist of integrity, you’d care to share references for your boldly worded statements?
I didn’t write this piece, David, but I’ll do my best to answer your questions because the answers are important. As a journalist of integrity, I see it as my duty bring attention to those who come among us as sheep in wolves clothing and try their best to swindle or deceive or, as with the new wave of the “like-minded” and their redoubt predecessors, who come with the stated intent of taking over and establishing for yourselves an enclave from which to survive whatever dystopian vision of the end times your sect happens to be preparing for.
There have been waves upon waves of people who, like yourselves, have been lured here by the glowing but unfounded promises of panderers to predilections; those of the 60s and 70s who read “Mother Earth News” and came with a seed catalog, a rake, two shovels and a hoe looking for 10 untouched acres on which to create a self-sustaining commune, the “Soldier of Fortune” readers who infiltrated by night to set up and maintain their defensible one-man observation post from which to see while remaining unseen, the readers of “American Police Beat” retired and came here for the relative peace and quiet after careers that were anything but.
Ask most of them what brought them here and you’d hear things like “the beauty,” “the quiet,” “the people.” Nearly all of those who stayed here, even those who came for the solitude, found a niche and a place in a community that welcomed them. We are a diverse group, but that by no means indicates that we all gather around the campfire of a night, join hands and sing “Kumbaya.” What it means is that we are appreciative of the freedoms inherent in being diverse, that to deprive any one of us our right to freedom of choice is to erode the freedoms of all. We are for the most part tolerant, and that tolerance extends to staying clear of those whose beliefs we can’t abide.
And there’s a phenomenon that arises therefrom that is amazing to see. When disaster or tragedy strikes, people you’d only see together at the counter in the auto parts store or in line at the grocery are shoulder to shoulder, working together to influence the best possible outcome, joining hands to move mountains. No matter our differences, we remain neighbors, and neighborly when required.
There were also those attracted to the area by their perception that this was a place that embraced bigotry and white supremacy, that we didn’t question those of the clergy, such as the late Richard Butler, who preached a gospel of hate and exclusion. Then came those of the Redoubt, heeding the ideas of novelist and blogger James Wesley Rawles, who said society was collapsing and that a large chunk of the Pacific Northwest was where conservative white Christian nationalists would find their fortress, the one place they could defend and so survive the coming cataclysm when society collapsed.
Ask people recently arrived in Boundary County now what brought them here and you’ll still hear beauty, quiet, the people, but now there’s one I hear more often, one I’d never heard before in this quiet, beautiful and neighborly place, dubbed not all that long ago as “Idaho’s Most Friendly Town” by Governor Butch Otter.
“I’m here to be around like-minded people.”
It changed around the same time a sign across Highway 95 from Mirror Lake Golf Course proclaimed Boundary County Trump Country, when “like-minded Christians” began appearing more often on the ballots, when the Scott twins, Heather and Herndon, were elected to serve the Idaho Freedom Foundation rather than their constituents.
You explained the key difference between our diametrically opposed factions with your choice of quotation in the first line and your erroneous assumptions in the second.
Wilson and all the like-minded I’ve seen thus far see public offices as “positions of influence.” They “win” and see first the privileges of holding elective office.
Personally, I prefer as candidates people the like-minded seem to look down on and deride as Republicans in Name Only; Jim Woodward, Mark Sauter, Shawn Keough, Ron Campbell, George Eskridge, Glenda Poston, Ron Smith, Tim Bertling and others who see elective offices as “positions of public trust.” They “win” and see that they have been trusted to serve others before themselves.
Telling the truth about those who aspire to public office is by no means “character assault.” No one I know wants to see men barred from “positions of influence” because “they don’t share your vision for our republic.”
No David, we don’t concern ourselves all that much with “our vision” as much as we do with the vision set down in the greatest document yet conceived by man by which we might govern ourselves with equal fairness and equity thanks to our diversity, not in spite of it. That’s why we swear our oaths to serve in offices of public trust to an ideal to which we can aspire rather than to a man who might seek privilege instead. Why we don’t swear fealty to gods or ideas.
We pledge fealty instead to ideals that can’t be denied … they are irrefutable … inalienable.
It might be obvious to all that no two people standing side by side are the same, but there can be no denying that all men are created equal, that all who draw breath therefore have life and with it the right to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness. No man is guaranteed said inalienable rights, but all afforded life are entitled for its duration to pursue the moments of joy at being alive and on the face of our one and only home … a pale blue dot we still don’t understand.
And please forgive me, David … I don’t think you’re interested in references as regards bold statements and I’m pretty sure you deny the existence of journalistic integrity, so I’ll not waste my time. Let’s both just grab some popcorn and order a pizza on January 20, the first day, and find out together who Donald Trump is.
No, I actually was looking for references.
It’s funny that you presume to know me. I’m just asking for a little integrity in the reporting here. What public record is available to support the claims?
As I said, I didn’t write the article, but if I had I’d have started at https://christkirk.com/ … no better source than their own sermons.
My request for sources is directed at the author. The originating site doesn’t allow comments. After looking around a bit I can see why.
But you did choose to repost the content here. Is “read their website” the best you can offer? If the atrocities in question are so central to this movement, it should be hard to provide some clear examples.
The following accusations are quite specific and inflammatory:
– “taking away the right to vote from most women”
– “barring non-Christians from holding office”
– “criminalizing the LGBTQ+ community”
I was hoping the author actually had sources so I could get some context. But if you’d like to speak on his behalf, I’m all ears.
Try reaching him at https://x.com/HDruzin or https://www.linkedin.com/in/heath-druzin-1644a741