Pastor Doug Wilson’s role at an official event at the Defense Department should be seen as a scandal worthy of scrutiny.
Pastor Doug Wilson wants to ban women from voting and end First Amendment protections for minority faiths he doesn’t like.
Hegseth invited this fringe Christian nationalist to the Pentagon yesterday to lead an official prayer event.
How is this not a scandal?
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-02-18T18:16:25.645Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/hegseth-welcomes-radical-christian-nationalist-to-lead-an-official-pentagon-prayer-service
In a country that’s supposed to honor the separation of church and state, Hegseth’s events raise all sorts of legal, political and theological questions, but complicating matters further is who, exactly, the former Fox News host is welcoming to the Defense Department to help lead these Christian events.
This week, for example, Hegseth brought in pastor Douglas Wilson, a radical Christian nationalist, to lead an audience in prayer. We know this for sure because the Pentagon published a photo from the gathering, held on Tuesday.
For those unfamiliar with Wilson, he’s not just another Christian conservative advocating for and against the usual culture war issues. Rather, as The Wall Street Journal reported in September, the right-wing pastor endorses a vision “in which same-sex relations are illegal, Muslims are barred from the public square and the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, is repealed.”.....
Wilson isn’t accused of being a Christian nationalist; it is a label he embraces with enthusiasm.
Common sense may suggest that leading American political figures would keep a guy like this at arm’s length. And yet, there was Hegseth, not only inviting Wilson to the Pentagon to lead an official event, but also standing alongside the radical pastor at the gathering, praying with his hand on Wilson’s back.
This was the same Hegseth who sparked a controversy last summer by promoting an online video that, among other things, included a pastor from Wilson’s church arguing that women in the U.S. shouldn’t be allowed to vote.....
Obviously, Hegseth, in his personal capacity, is free to pursue whatever religious practices he wishes. It’s a free country, and his theological beliefs are his own business. But when the secretary of defense makes a conscious decision to invite a radical Christian nationalist to lead an official prayer event at the Pentagon, that deserves to be seen as a scandal worthy of scrutiny.
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