Sunday
While I had planned an Earth Day-related post for today, it will have to wait until next week because of how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is using Jesus to justify our attack on Iran. I know what John Milton would say.
Let’s first survey how Hegseth is invoking Christianity. Back on March 15, several members of the military (11 Christians, one Muslim, one Jew) complained that Hegseth regards the attack as a holy war with End Times ramifications. As one non-commissioned officer reported in an email, Hegseth
urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”
More recently, Hegseth compared journalists exposing the war’s failures to the Pharisees who complained about Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath:
“The Pharisees — the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time — they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” the Defense chief continued. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”
I guess this means that Trump and Hegseth are like the unappreciated Jesus.
Finally there was Hegseth citing the Book of Pulp Fiction in a prayer delivered at the Pentagon. The occasion was the rescue of the downed aviator, with “Sandy” being the call sign that aircraft use in rescue missions:
The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth prayed. “Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy One when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.”
In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino has Samuel Jackson cite Ezekiel 25:17 prior to murdering a man. “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them,” he thunders.
This post wouldn’t be complete without the comparisons that televangelist Paula White-Cain has been making between Trump and Jesus, including this one on April 1:
“Jesus taught so many lessons through His death, burial and resurrection. He showed us great leadership, great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life,” she said.
“You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. But it didn’t end there for Him, and it didn’t end there for you,” she continued.
“God always had a plan. On the third day, He rose, He defeated evil, He conquered death, Hell and the grave. And because He rose, we all know that we can rise. And, sir, because of His resurrection, you rose up. Because He was victorious, you were victorious.”
Perhaps it was such language that prompted Trump to tweet out an image of himself as Jesus healing the sick. If his longtime spiritual advisor and member of his Faith Office sees the resemblance, why doesn’t everyone?
In response to people who abuse the word of God in these ways, Milton cites Matthew 7:15-16, where Jesus predicts that there will be “false prophets” who try to deceive people in his name:
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
In one of Paradise Lost’s angriest passages, Milton also refers to these false prophets as wolves. The archangel Michael, foretelling the future so that Adam will understand the arc of history, tells him what will happen once Jesus’s apostles are no longer around to spread the message. He specifically has in mind authorities in the church establishment but the words apply equally well to anyone who appropriates “the Spirit of God” in joining “the sacred mysteries of Heaven” with “secular power”:
Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven
To their own vile advantages shall turn
Of lucre and ambition…
Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,
Places, and titles, and with these to join
Secular power; though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
The Spirit of God…
These wolves will ultimately be judged, Milton predicts, and then he too draws on the Ezekiel sentiment:
Truth shall retire
Bestuck with slanderous darts, and works of faith
Rarely be found: So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign;
Under her own weight groaning; till the day
Appear of respiration to the just,
And vengeance to the wicked…
In other words, Hegseth will not be the instrument of God’s vengeance, as he so deliciously fantasizes, but the target.
All this talk of vengeance, however, misses Jesus’s point entirely. As Jesus understood and as Milton demonstrates in his depiction of Satan, we make our own hells. “Me miserable! Which way shall I fly/ Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?/ Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell,” laments the rebel angel.” Elsewhere, realizing that the adrenaline rush that accompanies destruction hollows out the soul, Satan acknowledges, “For only in destroying I find ease/ To my relentless thoughts.”
Hegseth is thoroughly enmeshed in his own mental turmoil although he appears to lack Satan’s self-awareness. Like those who crucified Jesus, he knows not what he does.
