Pete Hegseth walks towards the elevator to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York, December 15, 2016. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

on wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced the selection of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. This choice is iconoclastic to say the least. Although Hegseth served as an Army National Guard officer, he lacks the government leadership experience that could inform the management of the federal government’s largest agency.

But what Hegseth has is TheoBrosA group of mostly millennial, ultra-conservative men, many of whom proudly call themselves Christian nationalists. Among the tenets of its branch of Protestant Christianity, known as Reformed or Reconstructionist, is the idea that the United States should be subject to biblical law.

magazine last year Nashville Christian Family costume profile He mentioned that he was a member of a “Bible and book study” focusing on Hegseth’s book. My Life Is For You By Doug Wilson, the 71-year-old unofficial patriarch of TheoBros. Patriarch is the right word: When I interviewed Wilson a few months ago, she said that she, like many other TheoBros, believes women should never have been given the right to vote.

Wilson presides over a small asylum in Moscow, Idaho, where he serves as lead pastor of the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), the flagship church of the denomination he helped found. Wilson also helped found a college, printing house, and a classical Christian school in Moscow. Besides his ventures in Moscow, Wilson is extremely online; she blogs, posts on social media, and produces expertly produced YouTube videos. Once famous mostly among reformed Christians, Wilson’s star power shined significantly during an interview with the former Fox News host last year. tucker carlson and speech area National Conservatism conference with then-Ohio senator and now vice president J.D. Vance.

Wilson is also the founder of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a national network of private K-12 schools focusing on religious education and Western principles. (I wrote about the classical education movement Here.) Looks like this is another intersection. Hegseth, who did not respond to requests for comment. Mother JonesIt has strong links with the Association of Classical Christian Schools. he said Nashville Christian Family His family decided to move to Tennessee so his children could attend Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a school in that network that he described as “a small, country, blue-collar classical Christian school,” he said. During a recent event appearance On insurance executive Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, Hegseth said he would never send his children to Harvard, but would send them to New Saint Andrews, the university Wilson helped found in Idaho.

Hegseth’s relationship with Wilson’s schools goes beyond his own children’s education. Co-authored in 2022 The Battle for the American MindWith the group’s president, David Goodwin. In the book, they claim that Americans have “shifted our children’s minds to the left for too long” and promise to give “patriotic parents ammunition to join a rebellion that will give America a fighting chance.”

One thread Matthew Taylor, a religious scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, noted this week on X that Hegseth was a guest on “Reformation Red Pill,” a podcast hosted by pastors at Doug Wilson’s Tennessee church. attended by Hegseth. Hegseth too appeared on Veritas Vox, a podcast produced by a Pennsylvania-based broadcaster that is also affiliated with Wilson’s church network. Veritas was the publisher of Hegseth and Goodwin’s book on education.

Then there are the tattoos. First highlights jerusalem cross The tattoo, Taylor stated, is a reference to the Christian crusades and an important symbol for TheoBros. (When viewed closely, part of the logo of the real estate and investment company New EstablishmentOwned and operated by several TheoBros, there’s some sort of riff on this.) Reconstructionists believe that Christians were called to expand the territory they controlled, in line with the Crusades of the Middle Ages. “It’s about building God’s kingdom on the earth and building it in a way where you can actually draw borders and boundaries around it,” Taylor told me.

Hegseth also has a tattoo containing the words “Deus Vult” (Latin for “God wills it”); Taylor writes that this expresses the idea that for TheoBros, “God mandated the violence of the Crusaders.” Hegseth for the extremist nature of his tattoos not allowed Attending Biden’s inauguration as a guard.

In 2020, Hegseth turned his passion for the Christian Crusades into a book: American Crusade. In an article this week, Media Matters noted One of its main themes is the destruction of Muslim holy places in order to convert them to Christianity. Hegseth also opposes Muslims’ “well-documented aversion to assimilation.” Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida who studies the Reconstructionist tradition of which TheoBros is a part, told me that she found Hegseth’s obsession with the Crusades “really disturbing, but also completely consistent with Christian Reconstructionists.” “This is especially troubling for someone who can control the world’s largest military.”

Taylor also said he was concerned about the idea of ​​Hegseth controlling the military. Hegseth pointed out persistently Trump will pardon Edward Gallagher, the US Navy SEAL accused of killing an Iraqi prisoner and taking a photo with his body. Taylor stated that the US army has had difficulty controlling the region recently. radicalization from its members. He told me he was concerned that Hegseth’s appointment “will only allow this far-right radicalization in the military, if not encouraged, to fester and grow unchecked.”

Hegseth’s last book War Against WarriorsHe condemned what he saw as the infiltration of the military by the “radical left”. He complains that soldiers are “abused by compulsory training based on Critical Race Theory, radical sex theories, gender politics, and ‘domestic extremism’…designed to neutralize our fighting forces.” As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer points out notedhis focus on culture war issues was likely part of what led Trump and his advisers to elect him; he was well-suited to advance the anti-woke agenda laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Project. When Trump announced he would pick Hegseth for the defense secretary, the X account of the CrossPolitics podcast, hosted by the lead pastor at Wilson’s Moscow, Idaho, church, sent“BIG WIN! @PeteHegseth He is a devout Christian man. She is a member of a CREC church and educates her children classically. “It will enable the awakening of the army, which will bless our nation beyond belief.”

Trump has in the name Hegseth is “tough, smart, and a true believer in America First.” as AP reportedTrump praised Hegseth’s book on the military at a rally in June. He promised the crowd that if re-elected, “The woke things will be gone within 24 hours. I can tell you.”