NOTE: This piece was originally published at our newsletter A Public Witness.
During the July worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday (July 29), Pete Hegseth’s pastor praised the U.S. military as “an instrument” of “God’s grace” and claimed the United States was founded as a “Christian” nation. The service marked the third time in 15 monthly services that Brooks Potteiger preached, though it’s the first time since he moved to Washington, D.C., to lead a new church plant that Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war,” often attends.
“I want to simply thank you for being a means of God’s grace to us as a country,” Potteiger declared during his sermon. “You, in real time, are an instrument, are one of the many ways God’s grace is manifested to us as a nation to continue securing the liberty that has endured through the centuries. … I want to strengthen you in God’s grace towards you personally as a Christian today. Or to say it another way, I want you this Wednesday to stand firm in the grace of God towards you as you continue the good work that he’s placed in your hands the rest of the day.”
In order to do “the good work” at the Pentagon for “the rest of the day,” Potteiger urged those gathered to “dwell on the immeasurable cost of Christ’s death for you” that saved “us from the bleak and the black eternity that our sin had plunged us towards.” He added, “So stand firm in the grace of God by meditating on the cross and realizing if God didn’t withhold his own Son but gave him for you, there is nothing that is for your ultimate good that he will now withhold.”
Screengrab as Brooks Potteiger leads the singing of the “Doxology” during a worship service at the Pentagon on July 29, 2026.
Hegseth introduced Potteiger on Wednesday as “my pastor,” adding that having him preach will be “a regular thing.” Potteiger previously pastored a church in Tennessee that Hegseth attended before joining the Trump administration. Both congregations are part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, founded by self-described “paleo-Confederate” Idaho pastor Doug Wilson (who preached at the February 2026 Pentagon service).
Joe Rigney, a leader in the CREC and author of The Sin of Empathy, preached during the installation service for Potteiger at Christ Church Washington D.C. on July 19. He framed the selection of Potteiger as following what he saw as themes in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah: “the call to build and fight and to renew Christendom in the face of the sabotage that we knew would come.”
When Hegseth launched his monthly Christian services at the Pentagon in May 2025, he invited Potteiger to offer the first sermon. During that service, the pastor claimed God directed where U.S. missiles landed: “If our Lord is sovereign even over the sparrows’ fallings, you can be assured that he is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles, including strategy meetings and war room debriefings. Jesus has the final say over all of it.” Nine months later, the United States killed more than 160 civilians with a missile strike on a girls’ school in Iran.
In January 2026, Potteiger preached at another monthly service. He exclaimed “what a blessing the Department of War is.” He also prayed for “the strength and lethality of our capabilities” and for Pentagon leaders to have “stout hearts and thick skin to withstand the heckling from ingrates.”
During Wednesday’s service, Potteiger used his sermon to push a Christian Nationalist view of the founding of the United States. Saying it’s “remarkable to live during the 250th anniversary of this nation’s founding,” he praised the founders and “the biblical values that we were founded upon.” As a kind of evidence for this claim that the nation had been “bathed in divine grace,” he quoted from remarks by Benjamin Franklin, which the deist offered during an unsuccessful attempt to get the Constitutional Convention to open sessions in prayer. Potteiger also referred to that speech during his January sermon, but he did not mention either time that Franklin’s appeal was overwhelmingly rejected by the delegates. Potteiger also prayed that the United States “might be a light to the nations.”
Additionally, Potteiger prayed that God would “give the secretary and all his advisers Solomonic instincts.” By that, he likely meant the wisdom of Solomon in making decisions and not Solomon’s instincts that got him in trouble, like marrying lots of women and worshipping false gods.
At the conclusion of his sermon, Potteiger led those gathered in reciting the Lord’s Prayer and then in singing “A Mighty Fortress” and the “Doxology.” Prior to the service’s start, recordings of several Christian worship songs were played as people assembled in the auditorium, including “Open Up the Heavens,” “Your Great Name,” and “Forever Reign.”
Before Potteiger preached, Hegseth read from Psalm 26 and urged those present to “remember” that psalm and to “keep your feet standing on firm ground no matter what fight you’re engaged in, big or small.” During his prayer, he declared to God that “we give this minute, this hour, this day, this week, this month, this year all to you — you and your purpose.”
Screengrab as Pete Hegseth speaks during a worship service at the Pentagon on July 29, 2026.
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Hidden Camera Controversy
While Hegseth has claimed his prayer services are a unifying force in the military, they continue to spark criticism from within the Pentagon. Often, such comments are anonymous as individuals fear repercussions for criticizing the secretary of defense. Last week proved that after a senior Navy official was ousted because of comments he made that were captured on a hidden camera by a rightwing activist.
Brandon Newsom was the director of business operations for the U.S. Navy until he lost that job last week because of videos created by James O’Keefe, a provocateur who has a history of creating deceptively edited videos. On July 22, O’Keefe released edited footage of a conversation with Newsom that was recorded on a hidden camera. In it, Newsom called Trump “a narcissist” and criticized the Iran war as “completely stupid” and “driven on one man’s ego.” One of the topics O’Keefe particularly highlighted was Newsom’s criticism of Hegseth’s monthly worship services.
“I would not have prayer service,” Newsom said on the edited video. “I don’t think there should be one specific prayer service — even though I believe, I’m a Christian. … The way they’ve implemented the prayer service is almost like if you’re not there, people are noticing who’s there and who’s not there.”
When asked if he would “take that away once Trump gets out of there,” Newsom added, “I would either take it away or I would implement a prayer service for all religions that are recognized.”
O’Keefe interrupted the clips from Newsom to offer his own summary and commentary on the conversation. But the activist mixed up facts about the Pentagon worship services, confusing the official services organized and hosted by Hegseth with the presence of an interfaith chapel that is open to those of various religious traditions. Additionally, O’Keefe ignored the hierarchical nature of the military as he suggested that anyone could organize their own service in the Pentagon and that Hegseth lacked “exclusive greater power to establish it.” Not only do chaplain-organized services in the chapel lack the level of institutional support of Hegseth’s services in the auditorium, those diverse services also do not come with an invite from the secretary of defense, which has led some service members and defense contractors to say they feel pressured to attend.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, a failed Republican congressional candidate who spoke and prayed at the Pentagon service in March, immediately suspended Newsom because of O’Keefe’s video. A few days later, Cao announced on Elon Musk’s X platform that “the individual is no longer employed by the Department of Navy” and tagged O’Keefe.
Other people have been fired and organizations have lost money due to O’Keefe’s videos, even though investigations later showed his videos had been deceptively edited. In 2009. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now lost federal funding and dissolved because of videos recorded by O’Keefe that alleged fraud. But multiple legal investigations later found no evidence of wrongdoing by ACORN and O’Keefe agreed to pay $100,000 after being sued by one of the employees targeted in the videos. The next year, O’Keefe was arrested for trying to tamper with the phones of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
With one internal critic of the Pentagon services removed, Hegseth continues to establish his brand of Christianity. In addition to the three sermons by Potteiger and the one by Wilson, the monthly services have included sermons by seven Southern Baptists, two members of the Graham family, two former NFL stars, and two Cabinet members (who are both Southern Baptists). The only service not featuring a rightwing evangelical was the June 2026 service with a homily by a former Catholic priest and current rightwing Fox News contributor. Hegseth’s effort has also inspired government worship services in other federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, and Small Business Administration.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
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