The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Crackpot Christianity in MAGA Defense Department, continued By Matthew Fox 3/12/2026 |
MAGA Christianity is a Crackpot Christianity. And dangerous beyond words in the hands of today’s head of the defense department. |
Of Hegseth, one Marine Corps veteran has said, “I can’t even muster the words to describe his self-adulation, matched only in scope by his apparent moral depravity.” He is “an embarrassment.” Hegseth wears two tattoos associated with crusader imagery on his chest and often invokes crusader
language. Once, when drunk at a bar, he repeatedly shouted “Kill all Muslims!” No wonder he is getting high on this Iran war. Hegseth endorses a Christian reconstructionist doctrine that calls for patriarchal control of families along with capital punishment for |
“Christian Nationalist at the Pentagon: Pete Hegseth’s extreme beliefs.” @DemocracyNow! |
homosexuality (sic). (It sounds like he has something in common with the Iranian regime after all.) His pastor, Doug Wilson, advocates a theocratic vision of society where women are denied the vote and men make all the decisions in marriage. Hegseth invited this pastor to lead a worship service
at the Pentagon (sic). The manospheric glorification of violence shown in the Pentagon video we referenced in yesterday’s DM caught the attention of Robert Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute. He called it “a glorification of violence in the name of Christianity and
civilization.” Hundreds of service members have complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about military commanders invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify the Iran war. Says Jones, “It casts it as a holy war of a supposedly Christian nation against a Muslim
nation.” |
“Whistleblowers Speak Out About Religious Extremism in Military Amid War on Iran.” Democracy Now! | So much for ecumenism and deep ecumenism. Another mark of Crackpot Christianity is its complete lack of ecumenism and respect for other religious traditions. And, of course, for diversity within Christianity itself. |
Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good, says Hegseth’s worldview means that this administration believes it has a particular divine calling. “Hegseth believes that God has uniquely ordained Donald Trump” and others and that the military is “to fulfill God’s agenda for the world.” I warned about MAGA idolatry in my book Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ written just before the election. And I treated the issue of what’s behind much of the Manosphere neurosis in a chapter called “MAGA’s Precarious Manhood vs. Authentic Masculinity.” Sad to say, I don’t know any religious periodicals who had the balls to review my book, though some “secular” thinkers such as Thom Hartmann did. I attribute this indifference to the fact that liberal religion is not capable of talking about evil—unlike our ancestors such as Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century and Luca Signorelli in the early 16th century who painted elaborate depictions of the antichrist in their day. Signorelli’s painting has hung prominently in a
storied Cathedral since the 14th century. |
Liberal religion today has chosen to abandon the archetype to right and far right-wing Christianity. Oligarch Peter Thiel, bountiful recipient of billions of taxpayer dollars to support spying on American citizens a la ICE, will preach on the antichrist at a drop of the hat. |
“Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist.” Fresco by Luca Signorelli, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Orvieto. Wikimedia Commons. |
We have to look to artists to name evil when it arises. Theological rationalists lack the nerve. Martin Luther applied the archetype to the reigning popes of his day and other reformers followed. Pere Chenu criticized theology of the last 400 years, owned and bought by academic rationalism, for
being out of touch with art and artists. It has little to say about Evil but can talk incessantly about sin. Chenu said that theology tends to imitate “an aristocratic old lady” and that is often my experience too. It prefers to stay quiet when Evil looms, not unlike many churches in Germany in the
1930s. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you think one reason the young prefer to call themselves spiritual rather
than religious is that religion too rarely stands up to evil? |
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