To the Journal editor:

Alarming and troubling are the words I use to describe what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently said when he invoked the name of “Jesus Christ” during his remarks at a Pentagon press conference on March 20 whose purpose was to pray for our troops and honor our fallen soldiers in the war against Iran.

This was the official Secretary of Defense in an official governmental briefing directing the American public to pray–in a specific religion, in the name of a specific savior for a war that has killed thousands. But this war is unjustified. No one attacked the U.S. Neither our allies nor Congress were even notified. Congress did nothing to approve it. The bombs from U.S. and Israel airplanes and missiles have already killed between 1,300-1,500 innocent civilians and 165-175 school children and teachers.

To invoke the name of Jesus to bless this unauthorized killing is anathema to the Jesus’s teachings in the four Gospels in favor of peace, against killing and love of neighbor as self. The culprit is the emergence of Christian nationalism infecting the White House and Secretary Hegseth, an ideology that has nothing to do the four central Gospels of the Christian faith, nor does it have anything to do with the religious neutrality enshrined in the U.S. Constitution by our founders.

Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to blur the line between church and state by imposing Christian values on others. Christian nationalism falsely believes America was founded as a Christian nation and therefore should be a Christian nation now and in the future. Christian nationalists believe that Congress should declare the United States as a Christian nation and our laws should imbue its version of conservative Christian values.

As attorney, I am especially offended by how Christian nationalism has twisted the principle of separation of church and state, a lasting precept that the founders, especially Jefferson and Madison, wrote into the First Amendment, stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor preventing the free exercise thereof.”

In conclusion, patriotism and love of country are desired attributes but believing that America was ordained as a nation by God is going too far. The Savior of the New Testament is universally intended for people of all nations, not just Americans.