type: timeline_event
At an official Pentagon press briefing on March 20, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth opened his remarks on the Iran campaign by quoting Psalm 144:1 — "Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle." Speaking to assembled reporters and with the briefing livestreamed on the Department of Defense website, Hegseth then characterized Iran's clerical leadership as "religious fanatics" driven by "prophetic Islamic delusions," drawing a contrast between what he described as America's righteous purpose and Tehran's apocalyptic ideology.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported receiving more than 200 complaints from service members across more than 50 military installations within 48 hours of the briefing. MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein called the remarks "the most egregious violation of the Establishment Clause by a sitting defense secretary in American history," noting that the complaints came from service members of multiple faiths — including Christians who objected to the use of Scripture to sanctify a military operation. Weinstein announced that MRFF would explore legal options on behalf of affected personnel.
Researchers from the Public Religion Research Institute appeared on CNN to discuss the broader implications, noting that Hegseth's rhetoric fit a documented pattern in which Christian nationalist leaders frame military conflicts as extensions of spiritual warfare. PRRI data showed that white evangelical Protestants supported the Iran war at significantly higher rates than other religious demographics, and researchers warned that explicitly religious framing from the defense secretary could deepen those divides while alienating the substantial majority of service members who did not share Hegseth's theological framework.
The incident marked a significant escalation from Hegseth's earlier religiously inflected remarks. Constitutional law scholars noted that while military chaplains have long offered prayers and spiritual support to service members, a defense secretary invoking Scripture to frame the strategic rationale for an ongoing war represented a categorically different use of religious language — one that blurred the line between personal faith and the official conduct of American military policy.