Religion In The War On Iran

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0:36As the military action in Iran grows, so does religious rhetoric. They wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and they'd like to take us out as well. We're the great Satan in their analogy and their misguided religion. Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics. They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons. They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles and drones and terrorism that the world will not be able to touch them for fear of those things. That was Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking last week about Iran.

1:10But these assertions about faith in Iran comes amid increasing concerns about a crumbling of the separation between church and state in the Trump administration and the military. On Thursday, a group of evangelical pastors prayed over President Trump for his success in the war. We pray for your continued blessing and favor to rest upon him. We pray for wisdom from heaven to flood his heart, his mind, and Lord, you will guide him in these challenging times that we're facing today. And now more than two dozen Democratic Congress members are requesting an investigation into a report that some military leaders are using apocalyptic theology in briefings about the war in Iran, with language that asserts Trump is anointed by Jesus to cause Armageddon.

1:53I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. Today, we discuss how religion is showing up in the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran. That's after this short break. Stay with us.

2:07This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Welcome back. Let's get into our conversation and meet our panel today. Andrew Whitehead is a professor of sociology at Indiana University in Indianapolis. He's also a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and the author of American Idolatry, How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church. Andrew, thanks for joining us.

2:45Great to be with you. Also with us is Catherine Stewart. She's a journalist covering the intersection of faith and politics. She's also the author of Money, Lies, and God, Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, and The Power Worshippers, Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Catherine, welcome back to the program. Great to be here. And also joining us is Nadir Hashemi. He's a professor of Middle East politics and the director of the Al-Walid Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Nader, it's great to have you. Thanks for the invite. So we're hearing from lots of you already.

3:22Brian emails at the January service Hexeth read from Psalm 144 and said he studied the passage during the planning of the Venezuelan operation. And he read part of that passage again, we should note, on Tuesday during an Iran press briefing. Catherine, what sort of religious rhetoric from U.S. lawmakers is catching your ear right now?

3:40Joshua Johnson:Well, I think we just have to look at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's rhetoric to see that there's an issue here. Under the Department of Defense, and this is even before the Iran involvement, they produced a number of promotional videos featuring Bible verses overlaid on clips of tanks and soldiers and fighter jets and missiles. The violence of Hegseth's rhetoric is often very religiously inflected. And it's really meant to appeal to a large base of Christian nationalist supporters of Donald Trump. The Baptist minister, Dr. Brian Kaler, has documented that Hegseth also holds monthly evangelistic Christian prayer meetings at the Pentagon during work hours.

4:26Joshua Johnson:And he also has a number of tattoos. We just need to look at him. Very crusader-like tattoos. He has the Latin phrase Deus Vult, which means God wills it. This is believed to have been a rallying cry of the first crusade in the 11th century, and it's been embraced in modern times by some white nationalist and extreme far-right groups. And we could go on. And I think, you know, this is just one example. But when we look at this war, you know, taking a step back in terms of America's internal political dynamics, I think it's basically meant to serve the political purpose of the Trump regime and the MAGA movement.

5:06I mean, it's very unlikely that Trump himself is pursuing an explicitly Christian nationalist agenda.

5:13Joshua Johnson:Hexeth is a different story. We'll get a little bit more into the politics in a moment, but I want to get to this message we got from Julie in Ohio. I think Mike Huckabee's role is not talked about enough. I think he's flying under the radar. I think he's not somebody you would have anticipated would want to fly under the radar. He would have probably wanted, his ego is big enough to want to fly on top of the radar. But I think his influence and his influence regarding faith and religion and end times theology is probably having a big impact on what's happening in the Middle East. Julie, thanks for that message.

5:54Anadar, Julie brings up Mike Huckabee. He's the U.S. ambassador to Israel. He's an evangelical Christian and an ordained Southern Baptist pastor. He spoke to NBC News in September 2025 and asserted the U.S. and Israel share a value system, and I'll quote him here, that is deeply rooted in a biblical understanding of a worldview. How do you think that worldview shows up in Huckabee's rhetoric and diplomatic relationship with Israel? It shows up all the time, every time he actually is asked to comment on the topic. more recently about two weeks ago he gave a famous interview where he was asked about Israel and its place in the region and he says that it would be perfectly fine if Israel took over the entire Middle East from the Nile to Euphrates because that's what the Bible in his understanding tells him to do and to support.

6:48So you know Huckabee is a Christian Zionist. He's also the American ambassador to Israel. And of course, that statement provoked a huge reaction within the region and leading Arab and Muslim states, specifically those that were allied and our allied with the United States in the West, had to issue a repudiation. And we should note here that that happened during an interview with Tucker Carlson, And the ambassador did try to sort of step back on those comments a bit and reframe them, talking about editing in the interview and et cetera. But you mentioned Christian Zionism. Will you define that for us, Nader?

7:29Sure. It's a particular interpretation of Christianity that sort of puts the question of Israel in support for the return of Jews back to their historic homeland at the center of Christian theology and ethics. effectively advancing an interpretation of scripture that in order to be a good Christian, in order to obtain salvation, you have to blindly and without question support the policies of the state of Israel. And this is a very powerful movement in the United States, especially in the Republican Party. And the best embodiment of this is really the figure that we're talking about, Mike Huckabee.

8:06We got this email from Jerry who says, I am an American. I am a Christian. they are not the same thing. The founders of this country experienced firsthand how toxic the combination of church and state were to both. Last month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited Pastor Doug Wilson to lead a prayer service at the Pentagon. Now, Wilson is a controversial figure. He doesn't believe women should vote. He's a self-described Christian nationalist. Andrew, define Christian nationalism for us and how it differs from Christian Zionism. Well, Christian nationalism, as we studied across the American public, is an ideology that is committed to fusing a particularly conservative strain of Christianity with American civic life.

8:50And it demands that all levels of our government defend and preserve this fusion as central to our national identity and determining which Americans truly belong. And so while the goal of infusing, quote unquote, biblical principles into American civic life may seem innocuous to some Christians, it does raise questions that are kind of being highlighted already here. Which biblical principles? Whose biblical principles? And it also excludes many Americans who are not Christian and those that are not religious at all. And so with this idea of loving Jesus and stealing biblical principles, it really is about elevating a particular expression of Christianity as central and can chip away at this idea of a pluralistic democratic society.

9:37And so Christian nationalism and Christian Zionism are not one and the same, but they are strongly related. So as we study this across the American public with many different surveys, we do see that many Americans who strongly embrace Christian nationalism do talk about a support for the nation of Israel.

9:59But we also find, though, too, that when we ask about their support for Jewish people, it tends to wane. And so it really is about supporting this nation, and I think that's indicative of this idea of Christian Zionism. Catherine, we talk about religion in U.S. politics. It's not new. It is very common to hear presidents or other politicians, for instance, in speeches with God bless the United States of America. There is this longstanding connection between a certain type of patriotism and religion. Is there something different that you see happening in this moment?

10:41Joshua Johnson:Thanks for the question. You know, I think there are many politicians across the political spectrum who have acknowledged their faith in speeches and in public service, while still recognizing the diversity of our nation and not trampling on anyone's religious viewpoint. The difference is here we're seeing the insistence that a certain reactionary view of religion is representative of our nation and our national purpose. Christian nationalism is a kind of exclusionary kind of nationalism. It's really about insiders versus outsiders, who gets to properly belong in the country and who doesn't. Well, more to come after this short break.

11:25We'll be right back.

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12:10Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Iran is run by religious fanatic lunatics. Aren't the same people who are so worried about Muslims imposing the practice of a religious law called Sharia? the very same persons who are trying to impose religious law here in America, called either white Christian nationalism or dominionism. To be honest, I'm a strong Christian, but I don't want to live in a Christian theocracy. I support our Constitution, which guarantees that I have the right to practice my preferred religion and that the government will not favor one religion over another. Michael, thanks for that message.

12:48Andrew, why do you think we're seeing U.S. politicians, particularly on the right, leaning on religious language right now? Yeah, the use of religious language and rhetoric is extremely powerful. And so this isn't necessarily unique to the United States in this historical time period or even with Christianity. So looking across different nations, majority religions, wherever you may find it, a lot of times are used to legitimate what political leaders want to do in the will of the sacred. In doing so, really tends to draw really strong boundary lines of this is who we are. This is what we're all about and that the sacred is with us.

13:31And so it gives us a vision of where we're supposed to go and how we're supposed to get there. And so this is one reason why we see it happening here. And again, it isn't necessarily unique to this moment. It's something that's been with us in American politics even before the United States was formed. And we'll continue to see it going forward. Nader, how do you compare the way faith is being used in the U.S. as compared to how we're seeing it used in Iran around this war? Yeah, one of the interesting juxtapositions about this moment is that I see religion as a tool for mobilizing support for this war much more visible and at a much higher level in the United States today than I do see it in Iran.

14:19One of the realities about contemporary Iranian society is that as a result of 47 years of religious authoritarianism, much of Iranian society has undergone a process of secularization. They don't respond to these claims of religion as a mobilizing tool. They do respond to claims of nationalism and patriotism in the context of an external attack and war. That's what resonates in Iranian society today. Now, the Islamic Republic of Iran does have a core base of supporters that are very loyal and are very religious, and the regime does in those spaces draw upon religious theology and themes to mobilize support.

14:58support. But if one were to do just, for example, a content analysis, let's say, over the last 12 days since February 28th, in terms of the leaders of both countries, the United States and Iran, and to what extent they've drawn explicitly upon religion, quoted scripture, to justify and mobilize people for this war, I think the United States would clearly come out on top. Well, that leads us to this email we received from Mary, who says, we are just witnessing the next step in anointing Trump as the holy American emperor. It's terrifying. Now, Catherine, earlier we heard that clip of pastors laying hands on President Trump in the Oval Office to pray for his success during the U.S.

15:40and Israel's war on Iran. What does that sort of imagery bring up for you?

15:46Joshua Johnson:Well, it's important to understand that by sacralizing Trump, by considering him something like a biblical king, King Cyrus, who has been called to enact God's will. They're basically saying that his will matters and that's all that matters. And it's really important for that kind of mega politics. It's of a piece with this sort of anti-democratic agenda where they want us to think that democratic processes don't matter, the will of the people, voters don't matter. All that matters is the will of an anointed leader. And it provides a permission structure for Trump to disregard the Constitution, disregard any law he doesn't like, disregard international treaties, disregard his traditional alliances and processes that are supposed to guide international aggression.

16:44Joshua Johnson:And so it's really part of a larger, I would say, move toward a more dictatorial form of power. But how sticky do you think that argument about Trump as this anointed leader, anointed by God, how sticky is that with the general public? Like, yes, his MAGA base, very loyal, very connected, very supportive of almost everything the president does. But for the broader public, what do you think? Well, we have to remember that Trump didn't win by appealing to everybody. He won by appealing to a smaller number of a disproportionately mobilized, incredibly loyal base. He turned out that vote and the Christian nationalist movement, much of which functions as a voter turnout machine, turned out that movement and its adherence in disproportionate numbers.

17:43Joshua Johnson:And that's how he wins. Secretary of Defense Hegseth, who we've noted, has been linked to Christian nationalism. He's also been criticized lately for violent rhetoric he's using to talk about the U.S.'s war in Iran. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down, which is exactly how it should be. No one's putting us in danger. We're putting the other guys in danger. That's our job. So we're not concerned about that. We mitigate it as we need to. Our commanders factor all of this. But the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they're going to live.

18:25Andrew, how much of a link do you see between Christian nationalism and this sort of violent rhetoric? Yeah, there's a very strong link, and it's one that we find over and over across many different surveys. So there really is an enduring link between Christian nationalism, militarism, and violence. Because within Christian nationalism, one of the key cultural elements of it is this desire for authoritarian social control, this belief that the world is constantly falling into chaos. And we need a strong ruler to come in and enforce order. And to do this, it's through the threat of violence or actual violence that it'll bring the world into order.

19:05And so studies show over and over that Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely to assert American innocence regarding conflict across the globe. They would see violence enacted on behalf of the United States as justifiable, that God requires our nation to, quote unquote, wage wars for good. And so when we talk about Christian nationalism and this religious rhetoric, it really does bring into mind this idea that the United States military is about dominance on the world stage in service of this Christian nation. Um, so as I think back to some research that I did for, for my first book, um, sitting in a, a church service around July 4th, where a pastor was talking about this link between our Christian heritage and declaration, uh, back in 1776.

19:57And the narrator saying any victories we claim are all because of him, God, and his faithfulness. And in the good times and bad, he, God has always been on our side. And so again, this vision of the United States and its military conquests being baptized, legitimated within the will of the sacred, and that America is always for good, no matter what. And so that's very powerful and really does bring into relief what these folks are doing is they're making decisions for where we wage wars and against who. Well, Andrew, we know you have a class to teach, so we have to let you go. That's Andrew Whitehead.

20:35He's a professor of sociology at Indiana University in Indianapolis. He's also a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and author of American Idolatry. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Let's hear from more of you. Arthur emails, this administration claims Iran is full of religious fanatics when they are the religious fanatics they claim to hate. Viewing white Christian nationalism as a superior religion is rooted in white supremacy. And to act like white Christian nationalism has not been the largest driver in the war in the past century is absurd.

21:08Nader, something we haven't spoken about is the way this religious ideology intersects with race. We're talking about white Christian nationalism. And so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about the role race plays in this discussion. Well, there's a widespread sort of attitude in many of these Christian nationalist groups, Christian Zionist groups that sort of perceive people of color, Arabs and Muslims, immigrants generally as sort of a threat to the purity of society. And so the fact that most sort of Muslims, you know, are of a darker colored skin helps sort of mobilize people around the issue of race.

22:01You know, we have many, you know, Congress men and women who have really been outspoken in terms of just bigoted Islamophobic sort of statements. I mean, just recently Representative Andy Ogles from Tennessee, you know, said Muslims don't belong in American society. And this sort of overlaps with this idea that an authentic understanding of the United States is really the people who founded this country, the European settlers, and everyone else is sort of not really a member of this country. So the issue of Islamophobia overlaps with the issue of race in the sense that there's a sense of who are the proper and true members of this community and who are outsiders.

22:48So that's how I see these things sort of playing out in contemporary American politics. Catherine, in your reporting, where have you found this intersection between race and Christian nationalism?

22:59Joshua Johnson:Well, it's very direct, actually. Hegseth himself attends a church linked to the communion of reformed evangelical churches. It's a denomination co-founded by Doug Wilson, who you mentioned earlier, a pastor who has a number of churches, but his center is in Moscow, Idaho. He's a representative of a religious movement that draws from Christian Reconstructionism, whose godfather, Rousseau John Rushdeny, actually drew directly and quotes directly leaders of the Southern Presbyterian Church. People like James Thornwell and Robert Louis Dabney, who themselves were proponents of slavery and very upset about emancipation.

23:46Joshua Johnson:They considered democracy to be a heresy. Like Doug Wilson, they believed in hierarchies ordained by God, men over women, white people over black people. And in fact, Rush Duny cited these men and also reprinted one of them, Robert Louis Dabney, through his printing house. And you hear, listen, the movement draws on different strains of, Christian nationalism draws on different strains of theology. They're not all in agreement with everything, but they draw on different sort of strains of very reactionary religion that tend to advocate these kind of hierarchies as ordained by God, along with this idea of America as a Christian nation whose rulers should be properly Christians of a certain type.

24:39Joshua Johnson:and they're very hostile to the idea of what some of them will call woke Christianity or progressive Christianity. Some of them explicitly cite the social gospel as a heresy. I mean, this is how, frankly, most American Christians understand Christianity. I think most American Christians reject the politics of conquest and division that this movement represents. Well, we heard from Renee in St. Louis who emails, I am a Christian. I do not support the U.S. war against Iran. God has not called Christians to initiate the apocalypse. Pete Hegseth and other warmongers are misreading and misapplying the Bible.