When Presidents Are ‘Anointed’: War in the Age of Christian Nationalism
On March 5, 2026, as American bombs rained down on Iranian infrastructure and, inevitably, Iranian civilians, a group of twenty evangelical leaders gathered in the Oval Office. They formed a tight circle around the Resolute Desk, laying hands on Donald Trump. Led by Tom Mullins, a Florida megachurch pastor, they prayed for God’s “grace and protection” over the President and the armed forces, asking for the strength to lead the nation “as we come back to one nation under God” (Wingfield, 2026). Ralph Reed, a veteran operative of the religious right, later expressed his gratitude for Trump’s “courageous decision to strike the terrorist regime,” praying that God would “grant victory” (Wingfield, 2026).
This was a theological coronation and the public sanctification of an illegal war, a conflict launched without congressional authorisation, justified not by the exhausted language of international law, but by the terrifying rhetoric of divine mandate.
The danger here is not theological belief itself because faith has long played a role in American public life. The danger arises when apocalyptic prophecy becomes entangled with military decision-making, particularly within a state that commands the most powerful armed forces on the planet. We are witnessing the weaponisation of faith by a dying economic order. When the rational justifications for endless war and resource extraction collapse under the weight of their own contradictions, the system turns to the heavens to authorise its violence.
The worldview underlying this moment is Christian nationalism, an ideology that blends religious identity with political sovereignty. Within its most militant variants, American power is seen as geopolitical dominance and a divinely ordained instrument in history. As scholars Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry detail (2020), this core conviction demands that the nation’s culture, laws, and public identity be coerced into reflecting conservative Christian values. But it does not stop at the water’s edge. When this ideology captures the Pentagon, adversaries such as Iran are cast not only as geopolitical rivals, but as bad actors in a cosmic drama between good and evil. This rhetoric transforms war from a tragic failure of diplomacy into something closer to a sacred mission. Quite simply, it produces crusades.
The Collapse of the Rules-Based Illusion
For decades, Western governments justified their global influence through the language of a “rules-based international order.” Wars were framed as humanitarian interventions, defensive necessities, or the enforcement of international law. This was always, to a significant degree, an illusion — a polite fiction masking the brutal realities of imperial maintenance and capitalist expansion. But it was a fiction that required its authors to at least pretend to adhere to secular, rational statecraft.
The spectacle of pastors blessing military escalation cuts through that narrative. It exposes a deeper reality: the moral frameworks used to legitimise war are increasingly inconsistent, and sometimes openly theological. The veneer of rational statecraft is slipping, revealing something far older and far more dangerous beneath it; a politics of destiny, providence, and civilisational supremacy.
This shift is the desperate flailing of a bloated, failing capitalist system. The neoliberal consensus, built on the promise of endless growth and global market integration, is collapsing. The economic engine is sputtering, inequality has reached grotesque extremes, and the traditional mechanisms of political control are losing their grip. In this environment of terminal decline, the system requires new justifications for its continued existence and its insatiable appetite for resources and dominance.
When you can no longer convince the public that bombing a sovereign nation is necessary for “democracy” or “stability,” you tell them it is necessary for God. You replace the language of the UN Charter with the language of the Book of Revelation. You elevate a monstrous, narcissistic figurehead like Donald Trump — a man who embodies the absolute worst excesses of predatory capitalism — and rebrand him as a divine instrument. Trump is not a passive recipient of these prayers; he is the willing, ugly vessel for an ideology that provides him with the ultimate, unchallengeable authority he craves.
The Crusader in the Pentagon
The most alarming manifestation of this ideological capture is not found in the Oval Office, but in the Department of Defense, now ominously rebranded by its leader as the “Department of War.” Secretary Pete Hegseth is on the vanguard of this militant Christian nationalism.
Hegseth is a man who wears his ideology on his skin. He sports a large “Jerusalem cross” on his chest, a symbol with roots in the medieval Crusades that has been eagerly adopted by the far-right to symbolise the march of Christian civilisation against perceived Islamic threats (The Intercept, 2025). On his bicep, he bears the Latin phrase “Deus Vult” (God wills it), the historic rallying cry of the First Crusade, alongside the Arabic word “kafir” (infidel) (The Guardian, 2025). Following the January 6 insurrection, Hegseth was flagged as a possible “insider threat” by the military due to these very tattoos, a warning that was subsequently ignored as he ascended to the highest civilian office in the military hierarchy (The Intercept, 2025).
Hegseth has openly embraced “sphere sovereignty,” a doctrine derived from Christian reconstructionism, an extremist theology that advocates for a society governed by strict biblical law, including patriarchal dominance and draconian punishments for homosexuality (The Guardian, 2026). He has hosted prayer services at the Pentagon and proudly declared at the National Prayer Breakfast that the United States is “a Christian nation,” promising that any “warrior” who dies for the country “finds eternal life” (Kaylor, 2026).
Under Hegseth’s command, the assault on Iran has been dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” During a recent press briefing, he described American soldiers as fighting with God’s “providential arms of protection” (Kaylor, 2026). The hypocrisy is remarkable. In the same breath, Hegseth condemned Iran as a “crazy regime” that is “hellbent on prophetic Islamist delusions” (Kaylor, 2026). He is entirely blind to the fact that he is mirroring the exact religious fundamentalism he claims to be fighting, merely swapping the Quran for the Bible.
Subscribe to Notes From Plague Island and join our growing community of readers and thinkers.
Armageddon as Political Imagination
The consequences of this theological militarism are already bleeding into the ranks. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) recently reported being “inundated” with over 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces (The Guardian, 2026). These troops report that their commanders are using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify the war in Iran.
One non-commissioned officer, whose unit was preparing for deployment, reported that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’” and specifically referenced “numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ” (The Guardian, 2026). Most chillingly, the commander told his troops that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth” (The Guardian, 2026).
As Mikey Weinstein, president of the MRFF, noted, these commanders are displaying “unrestricted euphoria” over a “’biblically-sanctioned’ war that is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’” (The Guardian, 2026).
This is what Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor have aptly described as “end times fascism” (Lennard, 2026). Unlike 20th-century European fascism, which envisioned a purified, golden age following a grand final battle, this modern American variant is oriented almost entirely toward destruction. It is obliteration without vision.
For many evangelical believers, the Middle East occupies a central role in biblical prophecy (Schnabel, 2026). Conflicts involving Israel, Iran, and surrounding nations are interpreted as necessary steps toward the final battle. Most adherents view these prophecies as spiritual matters beyond human control. But a smaller, radicalised current, now occupying the highest echelons of military command, imagines that political actors might actually help bring about the conditions foretold in scripture.
As Landon Schnabel, a sociologist at Cornell University, points out, this end-times theology “didn’t infiltrate the military. It was invited in” (Schnabel, 2026). It flows directly from the top, from a Defense/War Secretary who views global conflict through the lens of a holy war. This is where theology intersects fatally with policy. If global war is interpreted not as a catastrophe to be avoided, but as a divine fulfilment to be welcomed, restraint becomes impossible to justify. The prospect of Armageddon ceases to be a nightmare and becomes an objective.
The Bloody Reality of “Divine” War
While pastors pray in the sterile comfort of the Oval Office and commanders preach of Armageddon in briefing rooms, the reality of this “divine plan” is being written in blood across the Middle East.
This war was a choice. In February 2026, the United States and Iran held nuclear talks in Geneva. According to reports, Iran had agreed it would “never, ever” possess nuclear material to create a bomb (Face the Nation, 2026). Yet, diplomacy was abruptly abandoned. The Trump administration, driven by a toxic cocktail of narcissism, geopolitical hubris, and apocalyptic fervour, chose war over a negotiated settlement.
The human cost of this choice is already devastating. The strikes have not only targeted military infrastructure but have exacted a horrific toll on civilians. In the southern Iranian city of Minab, an apparent US strike obliterated the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school. At least 165 people were killed, the vast majority of them children aged between eight and ten (Al Jazeera, 2026). US military investigators now believe American forces were likely responsible for the massacre (The Globe and Mail, 2026).
This is the reality of “Operation Epic Fury.” It is not a glorious crusade; it is the slaughter of schoolgirls. It is the destruction of Beirut. It is the displacement of millions.
When rulers believe they are chosen for a cosmic mission, compromise becomes weakness and diplomacy becomes betrayal. Opponents are no longer adversaries but obstacles to the fulfilment of prophecy. The fusion of religious certainty with the machinery of the American empire is perhaps the most dangerous development of our time. It provides a divine mandate for the worst impulses of a dying capitalist order, transforming the pursuit of hegemony into a holy war.
We must recognise this for what it is: a lawless, unjustified crusade given legitimacy by terrifying ideologues. The Enlightenment project, which sought to separate religious belief from the administration of state power, is being actively dismantled by those who command the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. If Americans do not confront this Christian nationalist capture of their military-industrial complex, the “signal fire” they are so eager to light will consume us all.
Or support us with a one-off tip: https://buymeacoffee.com/notesfromplagueisland
References
Al Jazeera (2026). ‘Death toll in Israeli strike on southern Iran school rises to 165’. Al Jazeera, 28 February. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/israel-strikes-two-schools-in-iran-killing-more-than-50-people [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
Face the Nation (2026). ‘Iran agreed it will “never, ever” have nuclear material to create a bomb’. YouTube, 28 February. Available at:
[Accessed: 6 March 2026].
Gorski, P.S. (2017). American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kaylor, B. (2026). ‘Attacks on Iran Draw Fire From Mainline, Catholic, and Middle Eastern Christian Leaders’. Word&Way, 2 March. Available at: https://wordandway.org/2026/03/02/attacks-on-iran-draw-fire-from-mainline-catholic-and-middle-eastern-christian-leaders/ [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
Lennard, N. (2026). ‘Military Leaders See Iran War as Part of “God’s Divine Plan”’. The Intercept, 5 March. Available at: https://theintercept.com/2026/03/05/iran-war-end-times-christian/ [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
Schnabel, L. (2026). ‘End-times rhetoric in US military “didn’t infiltrate, was invited in”’. Cornell University College of Arts & Sciences, 5 March. Available at: https://as.cornell.edu/news/end-times-rhetoric-us-military-didnt-infiltrate-was-invited [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
The Globe and Mail (2026). ‘Investigation suggests U.S. military likely responsible for Iran school strike’. The Globe and Mail, 5 March. Available at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-iran-war-school-strike-us/ [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
The Guardian (2025). ‘Pete Hegseth’s Arabic tattoo stirs controversy: “clear symbol of Islamophobia”’. The Guardian, 27 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/pete-hegseth-tattoo-arabic-language [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
The Guardian (2026). ‘US troops were told war on Iran was “all part of God’s divine plan”, watchdog alleges’. The Guardian, 3 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric[Accessed: 6 March 2026].
The Intercept (2025). ‘Military Propaganda for Boat Strikes Includes “Crusader Cross”’. The Intercept, 9 December. Available at: https://theintercept.com/2025/12/09/crusader-cross-boat-strikes-propaganda-military/ [Accessed: 6 March 2026].
Whitehead, A.L. and Perry, S.L. (2020). Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wingfield, M. (2026). ‘Evangelical leaders return to Oval Office to pray over Trump’. Baptist News Global, 6 March. Available at: https://baptistnews.com/article/evangelical-leaders-return-to-oval-office-to-pray-over-trump/ [Accessed: 6 March 2026].