It was a history-making event: In a chapel at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, 2nd Lt. Khady Ndiaye stood proud – dressed in a hijab – as she became the first Muslim woman appointed by the U.S. Army as a chaplain candidate.
The June ceremony was presided over by Maj. Gen. Bill Green, the Army’s chief of chaplains. He said the chaplains serve more than 200 faith groups, “while caring for the entire Army family … regardless of their personal beliefs.”
That ethos — a commitment to religious diversity within a U.S. military with 1.3 million active-duty troops — could come under pressure if President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is confirmed as the next leader of the Pentagon.
Hegseth sometimes conveys his conservative Christian view in militaristic terms, justifying the medieval crusades in which Christians fought against Muslims, and raising the specter of Islamists seeking to impose their faith on non-Muslims. He has denounced the military’s initiatives to promote diversity, equality and inclusion, which includes religion.
Today’s military “is one of the most diverse institutions in American society, racially, ethnically, and especially religiously,” says Ronit Stahl, author of “Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America.”
“Overall, the military was an engine of religious integration and really thought about how to manage religious pluralism, but it was not a smooth or easy process,” said Stahl, a history professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Having a Secretary of Defense who proclaims or operates within a worldview in which not only Christianity, but some element of Christianity is the correct religion, potentially changes the tenor of how an ethos of religious pluralism works in the military looks. ”
Military chaplaincy has evolved as America has diversified. Originally functioning with mainly Protestant and Catholic chaplains, it expanded during World War I to include groups such as Jews and Mormons.
In recent decades, the military’s first Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist chaplains have emerged. The military has also made adjustments, such as allowing Sikhs to keep their religiously mandated turbans and beards.
Today, about 70% of active-duty military personnel identify as Christian — including about 20% Catholic and about half Protestant or other Christians, according to a 2019 congressional report. About a quarter of troops were listed as “other/unclassified /unknown’, with small percentages of atheists/agonists, Jews, Muslims and followers of Eastern religions.
The Ministry of Defense could not immediately confirm the figures. But they are approximately the same as those of the Americans religious demographics in general.
Today, the Army’s careers-and-jobs website portrays its chaplaincy as “a multifaith program – ministers, priests, imams, rabbis and more.”
The chaplains’ mission is: “Uphold the distinctive tenets of your faith while honoring other denominations and safeguarding the right of others to observe their own tenets.”
Rabbi Scott Klein. who serves as an Army chaplain within the 82nd Airborne Division and is a garrison rabbi at Fort Liberty, said the Army has “made significant progress in fostering an interfaith environment.”
“One area where I think we can continue to improve is education and training,” he said via email. “Providing more opportunities for service members to learn more about different faith traditions would further remove barriers and misconceptions.”
The U.S. Navy reports having 874 chaplains. Most have a range of Protestant affiliations, including 101 Southern Baptists. They also include 46 Catholics, 18 Latter-day Saints, 12 Jews, 9 Eastern Orthodox, 4 Muslims and 1 Buddhist. Statistics from other industries were not immediately available.
Hegseth’s nomination requires confirmation from the Senate, which he faces deepening supervision above other controversies. He has been subject to multiple allegations that have emerged in the media regarding alcohol intoxication at work events, sexual misconduct and possible financial mismanagement. He was marked as one possible “Insider threat” by a fellow service member in 2021.
Hegseth, an author and former Fox News host, is an Army National Guard veteran who deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
He has written about America as a Judeo-Christian nation, portraying the founders as Christians despite what historians say was their differing religious views. He said Americans of any religion are welcome in a “righteous crusade for human freedom,” though he often conflates Christian and American identities. “We Christians – alongside our Jewish friends and their remarkable army in Israel – must take up the sword of insolence. Americanism and Defending Ourselves,” he wrote in his 2020 book, “American Crusade.”
Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said Hegseth “promotes the concept of fundamentalist Christian dominance and supremacy.”
Weinstein, an Air Force veteran, said service members have the right to practice and express their faith — but within constitutional restrictions on the “time, place and manner” of such expressions.
“Christian nationalists like Hegseth believe there are no limits to when they can express their faith,” Weinstein said.
But other veterans are supporting Hegseth, including Damon Friedman, a retired 20-year Navy and Air Force veteran who now heads SOF Missions, a Florida-based program that aims to reduce veteran suicides.
Friedman, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he shares Hegseth’s Christian faith. That did not hinder his duty to lead troops regardless of their religion, he said.
“We live in a free country. We get warriors of all faiths,” said Friedman, a retired lieutenant colonel.
He favors Hegseth’s goal of rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which he claims will make the military focus on members’ diverse identities rather than solidarity as a “warfighting machine.”
“We just have to go green again,” he said, referring to the primary uniform color.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tennessee, agreed.
“We have to get back to work, and I think Pete is the right person to do that,” Hagerty said recently on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
Some concerns about Hegseth center on his views on Islam and the religious motivations he cites for supporting Israel.
He has spoken enthusiastically about the possibility of a restored Jewish temple on the ancient site in Jerusalem. Such a move would entail the geopolitically explosive move of moving the Al-Aqsa Mosque – one of Islam’s holiest sites and a symbol of Palestinian aspirations.
Hegseth made his comments at a 2018 conference in Jerusalem. He rejected Palestinian aspirations for statehood, saying there is “no such thing as the outcome of a two-state solution; there is one state.”
Hegseth bears a prominent tattoo that reads “Deus Vult” (“God wills it”), the Latin phrase attributed to the 11th century pope who declared the First Crusade. That marked the beginning of two centuries of intense, periodic warfare between Christian and Muslim armies in and around the Holy Land.
Hegseth wrote in his book that he was not romanticizing the Crusades, but said that “the present moment is much like the eleventh century.” He called on Christians, Jews and the Israeli army to ‘push back’ Islamism, both culturally and where necessary militarily.
He defined Islamism as an ideology that imposes Islam on others. He argued that moderate Muslims, while peaceful, are either “complicit in the expansion of Islamism or unable to reverse it.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations opposes Hegseth’s appointment.
“If President-elect Trump is serious about pursuing peace abroad and putting American interests above the interests of foreign governments, he should reconsider Mr. Hegseth’s nomination,” the Islamic advocacy group said.
Thomas Lecaque, a history professor at Grand View University, said the phrase “Deus Vult” is unequivocally militant.
“There is no version of ‘Deus Vult’ that means anything other than a call to violence,” says Lecaque, who studies religious violence from the Crusades to modern America.
The Trump-Vance transition team did not return emails seeking comment. Emails to Hegseth and his attorney also received no response.
Larry Wilkerson, a retired colonel with 31 years of military service and member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board, said Hegseth is an alarming choice.
“Diversity is a strength, but you have to know how to lead it,” said Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. “You don’t do that by imposing the opinion of the majority or even a large minority on them.”
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