Pete Hegseth’s belief in Christian dominion should deeply trouble American Jews

Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense last week was a clear win for Israeli hawks and their American supporters — one that should alarm every American Jew.

Yes, the former Fox News host and National Guardsman has gone on the record saying he opposes a two-state solution and approves of expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Those are policies that the anything-goes pro-Israel crowd — Jewish and otherwise — should theoretically welcome.

But since the senators at Hegseth’s hearing did not press him further, he did not explain the specific source of his rightwing Zionism: his church, a small congregation outside Nashville. Its teachings dovetail with Christian Reconstructionism, a little-known evangelical movement with big dreams of establishing a theocratic Christian government. And if you, like me, are one of the 73% of Americans who think religion should not dictate government policies, Hegseth’s beliefs are a good example of why that separation is so essential.

Christian Reconstructionists believe that God’s law, in particular the legal mandates of the Hebrew Bible, should govern society. Their goal is a theocracy in which believers rule, and sinners, as well as non-believers, can be put to death. At its inception in the late 1950s, Reconstructionism was tied to Calvinism, but dominion theology — the notion that Christians should govern nations according to Biblical law — has been embraced by a wide range of evangelicals.

Hegseth says he began leaning into his Christian faith in 2018 and, a few years later, decided his seven children needed a “classical Christian education.” A classical Christian education is important to many white, right-wing evangelicals. which is why they steer clear of public schools.

R.J. Rushdooney, Reconstructionism’s founder, asserted that the family, not the government, should oversee the instruction of children. An early proponent of homeschooling, Rushdoony supported Christian schools which taught Biblical values such as creationism and male headship, the belief that wives should be subordinate to their husbands.

So, in 2022, Hegseth’s family moved from New Jersey, settling outside Nashville. There, Hegseth discovered Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a congregation aligned with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Like other CREC churches, Pilgrim Hill adheres to Reconstructionist principles and supports an extreme version of Christian nationalism.

Douglas Wilson, the Moscow, Idaho pastor who co-founded CREC in 1998, has propounded a number of extreme views, including banning non-Christian religions from the public square. According to Wilson, “The public spaces belong to Christ.”

And in a series of 2024 Pilgrim Hill podcasts unearthed last week by the Guardian Hegseth affirmed his adherence to Wilson’s teachings.

“We want our nation to be a Christian nation because we want all the nations to be Christian nations,” he said

Among the teachings of the Reconstructionist movement is “sphere sovereignty,” the idea that God is over all things, and that separate spheres — family, church, government — are distinct and self-contained realms under God’s authority. If the sphere of government exists under divine authority, several concerning questions arise: How will that theology shape the agenda of the new defense secretary — who sports a tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross, a symbol of the medieval Crusades against Muslims?

Will Hegseth, following church teachings, remove women from combat and dismiss LGBTQ+ people from the military? Will non-Christian service members face discrimination?

For Jews, Hegseth’s beliefs raise a whole host of separate issues, including the Department of Defense’s stance toward Israel. Hegseth, who hosted a three-part podcast series, “Battle in the Holy Land: Israel at War” in late 2023, has already shown his allegiance to a staunch Christian Zionist view. He called for rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem — a move that evangelicals see as a prelude to the Second Coming, and which many analysts have warned could spark a massive war.

And he’ll find an ally in the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee: the former governor of Arkansas, a Christian nationalist and a Christian Zionist. In 2008, Huckabee declared, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” Nine years later, he added “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria.”

Jewish Zionists have had a long, if somewhat problematic, relationship with Christian Zionists, who see the Israeli state as the first step toward the Second Coming. They’ve been able to accept an alliance because the evangelical contingent has mostly stayed in the pulpits and pews. With Hegseth bringing these beliefs to the Pentagon, and Huckabee advancing his own version of them, they will have a very different proximity to power.

For Jews, that proximity must necessarily be uneasy. In a Christian nation, members of other faiths are second-class citizens — even when those in power appear to be advancing their interests. With Hegseth’s particularly aggressive theology so close to the presidency, there’s no telling what other, and more unwelcome, changes could come next.

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