The Bombs of Anti-Christmas

Military strikes in Nigeria reveal a distorted moral narrative

While Christians around the world celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace, Pete Hegseth ordered US troops to bomb Northern Nigeria yesterday. “The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end,” Hegseth wrote as justification for the strike on social media. After naming ISIS as the target, he concluded, “Merry Christmas!”

As tens of millions of Americans gathered in churches to sing, “peace on earth, good will to men,” the Secretary of Defense of the United States celebrated an Anti-Christmas by dropping bombs.

Pentagon photo of Hegseth at a pre-Christmas worship service.

When Pete Hegseth moved to Washington, DC to lead the US military for the Trump regime, Doug Wilson opened a new church just blocks from the US Capitol. Wilson is a religious extremist from Idaho who believes that the 19^th amendment, which guarantees women the right to vote, was a bad idea and empathy for the most vulnerable in society is a “sin.” He also started a network of churches, one of which Pete Hegseth joined in his hometown in Tennessee. Hegseth couldn’t find a church home in Washington, DC, because he does not believe the gospel taught in most churches. Wilson had to move to DC to start a church for Hegseth and the extremists who wanted to work for him at the Pentagon.

When Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Hegseth thinks our Lord makes Christians looks weak.

While Jesus taught the nonviolent discipline of “turn the other cheek,” Pastor Wilson tells Hegseth he doesn’t have to listen.

Though Jesus teaches that those who live by the sword will die by the sword, Pete Hegseth doesn’t hear it as a sober warning, but as a call to arms.

This is a “Christianity” that is directly opposed to the teachings of Christ.

The Secretary of Defense who couldn’t find a church in DC says “Merry Christmas” when he drops bombs because he is a true believer in an anti-gospel that takes the language of Christianity and uses it to mean the very opposite of what the church has historically taught and practiced. This is why we refuse to call “Christan nationalism” Christian. Sociologists rightly describe the overwhelmingly white and reactionary adherents of this distorted moral narrative in the language they use to describe themselves—that is, as Christians. But we are pastors who made a promise to proclaim the gospel and teach the doctrines of the Christian church. So we have a duty to be clear that a faith that celebrates the birth of its founder by incinerating perceived enemies is not Christianity. It is anti-Christ.

This heresy is not new. Because religion serves to bind people together in any society, authoritarians who want to abuse power have always sought religious sanction. Pharaoh in ancient Egypt called his priests to dispel the prophetic challenge of Moses, just as the slaveholders of the plantation economy paid theologians and preachers to use Christian faith to argue against the abolitionists. Scholar of American religion C. Eric Lincoln called the Neo-Confederate theology that justified Jim Crow segregation “Americanity.” Today’s so-called “Christian” nationalists are just the latest in a long line of would-be kings who claim divine right in the language of their culture’s predominant religion.

Old as it may be, the misuse of faith would not be so common in human history if it were not effective. Many people are misled by the heretical teachings of Doug Wilson because he exploits themes that are present in our religious texts. Because the early Christian movement was a persecuted minority faith in an empire that worshiped its leaders, the Christian New Testament does address persecuted believers. Taking Scripture out of context, it is easy to misquote the Bible to support a persecution narrative that can then be used to justify aggressive and violent action in defense of fellow Christians. Just last weekend, American rapper Nikki Minaj was at the religious nationalist “AmericaFest,” repeating a talking-point about persecuted Christians in Nigeria. A celebrity willing to use her platform to amplify this distorted moral narrative, Minaj doesn’t have to make any complicated arguments to normalize religious extremism for her fans. The groundwork has already been laid by a well-funded network of nonprofit organizations. TPUSA, the host of AmericaFest, had an annual budget of more than $80 million last year.

The bombs dropped on Christmas Day in Jesus’ name were not paid for by religious nationalists, but by the US taxpayers. They were purchased with our money, dropped in the name of American dominance, and justified by a distorted moral narrative that says persecution is just cause for a holy war waged by the largest military in the world.

For too long, Christians who know the danger of false teachers like Doug Wilson have dismissed them as fringe and hoped they would go away. Instead, they have been sponsored by some of the richest people in the world, have led millions of souls astray, and work in concert with some of the most dangerous political movements in the world. People who love money would not invest so much of their wealth in manipulating Christianity if they did not understand the power of faith. We who know Christianity’s true message must lean into the best of our prophetic traditions to both challenge this abuse and tap the power of faith for the common good.

Amidst the bombs of anti-Christmas, we must recall and recommit ourselves to the message that the bells of Christmas have wrung throughout the ages. Maybe no one in US history has captured their message more clearly than Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, who penned “Christmas Bells” in 1864, after three and half long years of Civil War.

Longfellow knew well the corrupting influence of Confederate theology that told Southern Christians that God was on their side as cannon fire thundered, drowning out the melodies of Christmas carols. His personal experience of the 1860s resonates with many people today:

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Honest as he was about how it feels to stare into the darkness of a night that feels like it will never end, Longfellow noted how the message of the bells rang out even deeper than the recoil of the cannons—today’s Christmas bombs. His final answer to the cannons of the South must be our declaration in response to Hegseth’s promise of “more to come” after his Christmas bombs.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.