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On February 17, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited Pastor Doug Wilson — a self-described Christian nationalist and leader of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), the denomination Hegseth himself belongs to — to lead the Pentagon's monthly official Christian worship service. Wilson preached about trusting God for protection in battle, drawing on biblical examples from Noah, David, and Gideon, and compared Hegseth's monthly Pentagon prayer meetings to historical Christian revival movements, saying: "Prayer meeting at the Pentagon for a possible example...God is great."
Hegseth praised Wilson effusively at the service, saying: "Thank you for your leadership, for your mentorship, for the things you've started, the truth you've told." Hegseth used the occasion to again exhort military personnel under his command to seek redemption through Jesus Christ.
Doug Wilson holds positions that were, until recently, relegated to the fringes of even conservative Christianity. He is a self-identified "paleo-Confederate" who has downplayed the brutality of chattel slavery. He advocates that women's suffrage should be repealed, arguing that only male heads of household should vote on behalf of their families. He supports criminal bans on same-sex marriage, Pride events, and abortion. He openly calls for Christian theocracy — the replacement of secular constitutional governance with governance explicitly derived from his interpretation of Christian scripture — and led his congregation to violate public health orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. He founded the CREC denomination in Moscow, Idaho, where his influence dominates local civic and religious life.
Reporting by CNN, Word & Way, and others noted that Hegseth's invitation of Wilson represented not merely the accommodation of personal religious belief within the Pentagon but the explicit promotion of one of the most theocratically aggressive strands of American Christian nationalism through official Defense Department channels. Service members and military contractors had previously described to Military.com a culture in which perceived failure to participate in Hegseth's religious programming could damage careers.
The monthly Pentagon prayer services, which Hegseth began in the summer of 2025, had by February 2026 evolved into a vehicle for platforming figures at the extreme end of Christian nationalist ideology within the world's most powerful military institution. The Pentagon worship series — led on this occasion by a man who openly seeks to replace constitutional democracy with theocratic governance — demonstrated how institutional capture of the military proceeded not through coups or formal policy changes alone, but through the patient remaking of command culture.