Since becoming defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has found no shortage of ways to bring his strand of conservative evangelicalism into the Pentagon.
He hosts monthly Christian worship services for employees. His department’s promotional videos have displayed Bible verses alongside military footage. In speeches and interviews, he often argues the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and troops should embrace God, potentially risking the military’s secular mission and hard-won pluralism.
Now the defense secretary’s Christian rhetoric has taken on new meaning after the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran, an Islamic theocracy.
If I recall, the first crusade was called because the Byzantine empire wanted help getting some stuff back from the Turks. Alexius Comnenus just wanted some military assistance, I don’t think there were crazy religious undertones at that point (at least not beyond what was normal for that time). Then the Pope got involved and some wackos in Western Europe took things WAY too far.