The increase in faith-fueled militaristic rhetoric is pitting the president against a growing list of faith leaders, ranging from local clergy to the pope.
‘For an administration that has been using religious language to justify the war, it’s remarkable that they have completely avoided engaging Christian moral theology on this point,’ said Robert P. Jones, a Christian Nationalism scholar.
This issue of A Public Witness considers how the military chaplain who authored a war prayer and the secretary of defense who appropriated it for himself performed violence against Scripture to justify violence against people.
The president mixed Christian claims with threats of war and insults to immigrants during Holy Week, including a threat to send Iran to 'Hell' on Easter.
Restrictions imposed by Israel against large gatherings due to the Iran war is casting a long shadow on Easter celebrations, but Palestinian Christians may be feeling it most acutely.
Since hostilities erupted last month between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group — in the shadow of the wider, U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — over 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, and more than 1 million have been forced to flee their homes.
He said God doesn't listen to the prayers of those who make war or cite God to justify their violence, just after Israeli police prevented the Catholic Church’s top leadership from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In the first Defense Department service since the start of the Iran war, Pete Hegseth prayed that God would ‘break the teeth’ and kill those ‘who deserve no mercy’ and should be ‘delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.’
In lieu of the Palm Sunday procession, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem called on Christians around the world to commit to a moment of prayer for the Holy City of Jerusalem.