U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced this week that the department is establishing an “Office of Religious Affairs” amid calls for his removal from both sides of the aisle.
In a Wednesday memorandum, Hegseth said the purpose of the new office will be to “strengthen the moral, ethical and spiritual readiness of our warfighters.”
He also said it will be led by a director who reports directly to Hegseth himself. Per the AP it is not yet known who will fill the position. The memo said the director will be responsible for resource advocacy, planning, programming, budgeting, spiritual readiness, analytical innovation and more.
While the memo said that “nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to compel religious participation or to diminish the free exercise rights of any Service member, civilian employee, or family member of any faith or no faith,” the Associated Press noted this week that Hegseth “has infused his evangelical Christianity into his leadership of the Pentagon, hosting Christian worship services for employees and often speaking of the United States as a Christian nation.” Last year, he announced that the number of religious affiliation codes recognized by his department would be reduced from 200 to 31.
When he made that announcement, Hegseth said the military’s chaplain corps had become “infected with political correctness and secular humanism.”
Hegeth’s memo said that he expects to receive an initial baseline budget and plan for the Office of Religious Affairs within 60 days and that funding would be included in the budget for fiscal year 2027. Going forward, he said the Director of Administration and Management (DA&M) will work with the new Office of Religious Affairs director to formalize and establish ORA in the department’s organizational framework, including the drafting of a Department of War Directive chartering the ORA within 90 days.
Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretaries of the Military Departments, in coordination with their respective Chiefs of Chaplains, will submit to the Director a comprehensive baseline report of all unfunded and underfunded religious affairs requirements, including, but not limited to, delivery of religious ministry, facilities and infrastructure, logistics, chaplain-led programs, chapel youth programs, faith-based homeschool support for military families, programs related to suicide reduction, and contracted services from faith-based non-Federal entities; research, technology, and analytical tools to support spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness, and spiritual resilience; chaplain in-service procurement programs, chaplain and religious support team training and education,” the memo added.
Hegseth has said that 5% of the joint force identifies as nonreligious, and the other 95% recognizes an “Almighty God,” according to the Military Times. However, the outlet noted that “the Pentagon has not released an official report of the religious makeup of the military since 2019, when the composition of active-duty personnel was 70% Christian, 2% atheist or agnostic and 24% reported as unclassified or unknown.”
The Military Times also reported that Hegseth has already faced backlash from advocacy groups for hosting monthly Pentagon Christian prayer services. Soon after the memo was released this week, Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser issued a statement.
“The Department of Defense owes it to the nation’s service members to defend religious freedom as promised in our Constitution – a freedom they risk their lives protecting for all of us. Hegseth’s latest announcement violates that promise by elevating Christianity to an even higher role in shaping U.S. military policy,” she said. “For more than 250 years, the military and its chaplains have served the diverse religious and spiritual needs of all our service members. Hegseth’s new plan upends this to the detriment of all who serve.”
Laser also alleged that the establishment of the ORA is “yet another example of Hegseth abusing the power of his government position to impose his beliefs on others – and worse, it puts the needs of America’s service members second to this administration’s Christian Nationalist agenda.”
Hegseth has also received criticism from both sides of the aisle recently, in part due to his role in the ongoing military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) read articles of impeachment against Hegseth last month. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) announced that she received a letter from Acting United States Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao confirming that eight sailors in the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group had attempted suicide during the group’s record-setting deployment.
During a Wednesday interview with CNN’s “The Situation Room”, Gillibrand called for Hegseth to resign.
According to the Associated Press, other federal agencies have had religious or faith-based offices, “which were established under President George W. Bush and were continued in different forms under the Obama and Biden administrations,” and “President Donald Trump established a White House Faith Office and had a similar effort during his first term.”
