Trump, Hegseth, and a “Holy War?” Religion’s Role in the Iran War

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, with negotiations to end the war in Iran stalled, the United States has yet to give an entirely clear rationale for starting it in the first place, much less an exit strategy. Well, our next guest argues that the Trump administration is invoking Christian scripture as a moral justification for this war. It’s a topic Peter Wehner explores in depth in two recent columns for The Atlantic, where he’s a contributing writer. And he’s joining Michel Martin to discuss what this all means for politics and for religion.

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Christiane. Peter Wehner, thank you so much for joining us.

PETER WEHNER: It’s delightful to be with you. Thanks for having me on.

MARTIN: So people who followed your writing know that you have spent years writing about faith, politics, and power. In two recent pieces in the Atlantic, you’re really wrestling with what happens when religion is used either to justify war or to restrain it. So as we look at the Iran War right now, what are some of the central moral questions that you think need to be wrestled with?

WEHNER: Well, I think the central moral question is whether the war is legitimate on moral grounds. And that’s a real debate to be had, that’s true of of any war. And you have to take into account facts and circumstances. I think what what troubles me in this present moment is – one, I would say is President Trump and his team have not made any argument really for going to war, let alone a moral argument for going to war. But beyond that, it’s the invocation – particularly by Secretary of Defense Hegseth, but not only by him – to use the Bible to validate this, this war, and to essentially cast the war as a spiritual and religious struggle. And I think they’re wrong to do that. I think it’s, it’s destructive to the larger debate that we’re having. And I think it’s also destructive to to the Christian faith, which Hegseth proclaims.

MARTIN: At a Pentagon worship service on March 25th, secretary Hegseth reportedly prayed for violence against those who “deserve no mercy.” His words. And some military reporting around that period said, commanders were telling troops that the war was part of “God’s plan,” and that Trump had been “anointed by Jesus” to trigger Armageddon. At the same time, President Trump told Iranians to “take over your government” and “help is on the way.” So when you put those two statements together, what do they say about how the war is being framed?

WEHNER: Yeah, I think what it says is that the war is being framed as a holy war, as a religious war. And that’s the wrong frame. I don’t think the application, in fact, I’m quite certain that the application that they’re using, these biblical texts to justify what’s essentially a merciless war. A war of total destruction. I mean, we, we heard from the president in one of his tweets several weeks ago, a threat to destroy the entire civilization. There is a tradition, it’s called the just war tradition within Christianity about whether one should go, whether a country should go to war. And if you do go to war what are the parameters of that war? How do you prosecute a war justly? Now, that’s not easy because war by, by its very nature, involves a lot of complicated moral questions and doing things that you might otherwise not do.

But you still have to have constraints that, that keep you from, from acting in ways that are, that are that are barbarous. 

And what we’re seeing from the administration is not only no reference or engagement with a just war theory, it’s actually turning it upside down. And it’s – the argument that they’re making is that the just war theory doesn’t matter, and morality doesn’t matter. We’re going to war. We’re on the side of God, and we can do – carte blanche – we can do anything we want in the name of God to win this war. And that can lead to not only a lot of terrible human destruction, unnecessary human destruction, but it can weaken the moral stature of the United States to do this kind of thing. And I think it’s a defamation of the Christian faith and, and the name of Jesus. And I’m a person of the Christian faith. So that that troubles me, too.

MARTIN: In your April 13th piece for the Atlantic, it’s titled “Hegseth’s Unholy War.” You write that the defense secretary “seems less interested in being on the side of God than on insisting that God is on his side.” And in the same piece, you argue that Hegseth’s language isn’t just political spin, but something deeper than that. At a Pentagon press briefing on April 16th, 2026, Hegseth dismissed negative coverage or moral criticism as “incredibly unpatriotic” and an “endless stream of garbage,” compared the press to the biblical Pharisees and said, it’s often hard to figure out “what side some of you are actually on.” A couple questions I have about that is, where does his worldview come from in your, in your reporting? 

WEHNER: I think he has reached for faith to try and put meaning into his life. And it’s no secret that he’s had something of a desolate life. And I think he’s gone to faith to try and bring it together. Now, a lot of people do that. 

I think in, in this case, with Hegseth, a couple of things are going on. One is that he’s found himself under the influence of a pastor named Doug Wilson, who is with a reformed tradition that’s within the Protestant world that I think deeply misunderstands Christianity and corrupts and distorts, you know, the scriptural teaching. So I think that’s one thing that’s going on with Hegseth. 

So the other thing that’s happening with him, and this is not specific only to him, it’s temptation that I think all people of faith have, but I think it’s particularly pronounced in his case. And that is you take preexisting sentiments, reflexes, sensibilities, core identities, and you proof text the Bible to validate what you already believe. So the Bible and faith becomes almost a hood ornament. It’s secondary to other things. And in this case, I think it’s secondary to Pete Hegseth’s psychological profile, his ideology, the dogmatisms that he’s a part of, the world he is a part of, which is the MAGA world. That is really what he is going to do. That’s what he’s gonna act. And he wants to validate that. And he validates it by invoking in the case of some of these services that he’s held at the Pentagon by invoking the Bible and the name of God to, to justify and ratify what, what he wants to do. The trouble is that what he’s trying to do, which is to get the Bible to validate his approach, actually has nothing to do with what the Bible or what God wants.

MARTIN: You know, the scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures and the subsequent New Testament say a lot of things. And you can find justification for a lot of things. There is genocide, you know, there is, you know, smiting. There’s also, there’s love, there’s compassion. There’s empathy. There’s tolerance. But so is incredible violence. So I guess how can we sort kinda sort out what is a misapplication of these texts and what is kind of the truth?

WEHNER: You know, Shakespeare got at this in the Merchant Venice when he said that the devil can quote scripture for his own purposes. And it’s for precisely the reason that you said, I mean, the Bible is not a single book. It’s actually a library of books, and you can proof text virtually anything that a person wants to in the name of scripture. This, this was a great struggle in the American history, slavery and anti-slavery. Both sides quoted the Bible for their purposes, and both of them had texts that they could invoke. The Bible is not a simple book to interpret. So that raises the question you did, which is how do you sort your way through this complicated–?

I mean, one is, I would say – and this is a I think a truer impression I’ve had the older I’ve gotten – which is the central importance of discernment, of sensibilities. That is the capacity to sort through facts and circumstances and try to figure out what does the moment require of me? But simply proof texting the Bible, saying, you know, the Bible said it. I believe that that settles it. That’s gotten Christians in a lot of really bad places throughout history. 

The other thing I, I’d say is a pretty good thing to keep in mind when one is asking oneself these questions is, what’s the end result? What’s the end product of it? If what you were doing in the invocation of biblical verses is advancing injustice, advancing suffering, advancing pain, then I think you have to call into question whether that interpretation is leading you the wrong way. Because I think at the end – certainly here speaking as person of the Christian faith – I mean, if lovelessness and an ethic that’s antithetical to Jesus is the net result of what you’re doing in your use of the Bible and you’re quoting of the Bible, then you’re just really off. 

The third thing I’d say, is you just need people in your life that you trust in your life who have some measure of maturity, including spiritual maturity, who can help to, you know, point out, look, you’re just taking this in the wrong direction. 

MARTIN: Well, speaking of somebody who says that’s not the way it is, and we’re gonna speak out against it. In your latest piece you described Pope Leo the first American born Pope, as someone who is “unwilling to subordinate his faith to politics or to adjust his commitment to the gospel in exchange for access to power.” I can’t think of a time when there was an exchange like this between an American president and a Pope. Just as briefly as you can, walk us through what happened here for people who haven’t followed it.

WEHNER: Yeah. Pope Leo, American Pope born in Chicago. He’s had some statements over the last several months that has taken issue with some elements of, I would say, the Trumpian approach. Mass deportation the use of Jesus that Trump has done in some of his social media tweets. But especially on the Iran war. And he’s expressed objections to it. He’s Pope, the Catholic Church traditionally speaks out on behalf of peace. The fact that a Pope would speak out against the actions of a country or president is not unusual. It’s happened, happened before. I think what’s what’s different about this is that Donald Trump, in responding to Pope Leo does what he always does, which is the personalization of it, and the way in which he’s so aggressively going after Pope Leo, what struck me in –

MARTIN: He called him – just to clarify for people again, he called him “weak on crime.” He says that the Pope doesn’t mind if Iran has a bomb. He’s saying he doesn’t know anything about war. He doesn’t know anything about foreign policy, he’s weak on foreign policy, et cetera. And I just wanna, if you could frame for us just how remarkable this is, because a lot of people just find it shocking.

WEHNER: And people are right to be shocked. And it’s unprecedented. It really has never, has never happened. Again, presidents and popes have had differences over time, but it’s always been respectful differences. It’s also politically stupid. I should add. I mean, he’s, Trump is taking on, you know, the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide and a lot of Catholics within the United States. I will say that one of the things that – well, several things struck me about the fact that Pope Leo spoke out. One is what you alluded to, which is here’s an example of a person of the Christian faith who’s not subordinating the gospel, to being close to power. He has no interest in being close to power, cozying up to power. He has no career ambitions that he’s, that he, that he, that he’s that he’s after. So that I think is is notable. 

But the other thing that was notable to me, it was like I don’t know, an archetypal sort of conflict. One was the fact you have men who are just polar opposites. One who is a person of deep religious faith whose entire interior life has been shaped by spiritual disciplines, is a man of, by all accounts, calmness and kindness. Part of the Augustinian and tradition of contemplation and action. And a preferential treatment for the poor, to use a Catholic phrase. So that’s on the one hand. And on the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who’s a man who’s completely and thoroughly secular, who views life as a series of conquest, sexual conquest, financial conquest, conquest in the realm of power, who has no institutional ties to any church who himself has said that he’s, that doesn’t think he needs to ask forgiveness for God for anything.

So you’ve got that conflict, but beyond that, it – what struck me is not only this Pope Leo standing up to Donald Trump, but he’s in a sense transcending Donald Trump. You mentioned that attack on the Pope saying he was weak on crime. Even by Trumpian standards, that’s a ludicrous attack. What is it supposed to mean? I think what it means is that Donald Trump doesn’t know how to attack this pope in a way that’s meaningful.

MARTIN: What about JD Vance, the vice president who converted to Catholicism in 2019? He said at a, this was at a Turning Point USA event. That’s that sort of campus oriented kind of movement to sort of inculcate conservative principles, mainly focused on college kids. And this was in April 14th. And the vice president said the Pope should quote unquote, “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” He says, the Vatican should stick to questions of morality. He says, “when the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is more than a thousand year tradition of just war theory.” So what do you make of the Vice President’s response to this?

WEHNER: Yeah, look, I think it’s reasonable to say that the Pope should be careful in invoking his theology. But I think it’s also fair to say that JD Vance should be careful about invoking theology on his part as well, you know, as I mentioned earlier, there’s a real debate to be had about wars and the role of faith, and whether a war qualifies as a just war or not. I think the trouble with Vice President Vance is not the critique that you read from as it relates to the Pope. Those are fair questions to ask. I think the trouble with JD Vance – apart from the fact that he’s a recent convert to Catholicism – is that his life has shown itself to be one that abuses faith in order to pursue power and to promote Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda. So in some sense, I think he’s almost disqualified himself from the start from this debate.

MARTIN: So before we let you go, I wanted to kind of loop back to where we started our conversation, which is to say, there are many people who’ve told me, for example, well, I voted for him because of abortion, and I don’t, there’s really no other choice or there are people who say, well, I may not like the way he talks about people, but he’s promoting the things that I care about. Like, I believe in a strong traditional family structure. So how would you want people, particularly people who have that point of view, to think about this, to think about the current moment?

WEHNER: The first thing I would say is if you think Donald Trump’s agenda’s for promoting the things that you care most about — whether it’s abortion or, or, or the courts —  let’s set aside the fact that I think in many respects he’s not, but let’s assume for the sake of the argument he is, you can do two things at once. You can, you can praise him for what you think his policy achievements are, and you can call him out for rank immorality and corruption and, and and unethical behavior.

The problem for an awful lot of evangelicals and fundamentalists, Michel, is that they have not done that. They have tossed their head over that wall, and they have championed him and defended him at every single point along this ugly path. And, and you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to give up your independence of judgment or your moral independence for a political leader. 

And last thing I would say is that if what is being produced – and here I’m speaking, you know, to Christians – if what’s being produced is an ethic that’s antithetical to the ethic of Jesus, then you ought to ask yourself a second and a third time, am I on the right path and am I supporting the right cause and I supporting the right person? I think the answer to that question is pretty clear. And I think only somebody with a deep vested interest in the outcome can come away and say Donald Trump and his administration over these last 10 years is the personification of a Christian ethic. He’s the opposite of that. And people who value their faith should speak up more often than they do for the sake of a country they love and for the sake of the faith that they love.

MARTIN: Peter Wehner, thank you so much for talking with me.

WEHNER: Thanks. I enjoyed it very much.