In a collection of newly unearthed podcasts, Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s decide for protection secretary, seems to endorse the theocratic and authoritarian doctrine of “sphere sovereignty”, a worldview derived from the extremist beliefs of Christian reconstructionism (CR) and espoused by church buildings aligned with far-right Idaho pastor Douglas Wilson.
Within the recordings, Hegeth rails in opposition to “cultural Marxism”, feminism, “essential race principle”, and even democracy itself, which he says “our founders blatantly rejected as being fully harmful”.
For a lot of the over 5 hours of recordings, which have been revealed over February and March 2024, Hegseth additionally castigates public colleges, which he characterizes as implementing an “egalitarian, dystopian LGBT nightmare”, and which podcast host Joshua Haymes describes as “considered one of Devil’s biggest instruments for excising Christ from not simply our lecture rooms however our nation”.
Elsewhere within the recordings, Hegseth expresses settlement with the precept of sphere sovereignty, which, in CR doctrine, envisions a subordination of “civil authorities” to Previous Testomony legislation, capital punishment for infringements of that legislation corresponding to homosexuality, and rigidly patriarchal households and church buildings.
Julie Ingersoll, a professor and director of non secular research on the College of North Florida who has written extensively about Christian reconstructionism and Christian nationalism, advised the Guardian: “When these guys say they imagine within the separation of church and state, they’re being duplicitous. They do imagine in separate spheres for church and state, but additionally in a theocratic authority that sits above each.”
Hegseth’s far-right beliefs have garnered consideration as his nomination to guide the world’s largest army has proceeded. The previous elite US soldier and Fox Information tv star has additionally garnered unfavourable consideration over media stories on his allegedly extreme ingesting and allegations of sexual assault.
On Hegseth’s possible assumption of a high-ranking cupboard place within the Trump administration, and the way he would possibly view his constitutional function, Ingersoll mentioned: “These people should not significantly dedicated to democracy. They’re dedicated to theocracy.”
She added: “If the democratic system brings that about, so be it. If a monarchy brings it about, that’s OK, too. And if a dictatorship does, that’s additionally OK. So their dedication is to theocracy: the federal government of civil society in keeping with biblical legislation and biblical revelation.”
Logan Davis, a researcher, marketing consultant and columnist from Colorado, grew up in a reformed Calvinist church just like Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, which Hegseth now attends, and spent center and highschool in a classical Christian faculty affiliated to the one Hegseth’s kids now attend.
In November he wrote a column entitled “Pete Hegseth and I do know the identical Christian Nationalists”.
Requested how Hegseth would perceive his oath if sworn in as secretary of protection, Davis mentioned: “Hegseth might be swearing to defend the structure that he, to the extent he’s aligned with Doug Wilson, doesn’t imagine contains the separation of church and state.”
Requested if Hegseth’s efficiency of his duties is likely to be influenced by the assumption that, as Wilson put it in a 2022 blogpost, “We would like our nation to be a Christian nation as a result of we would like all of the nations to be Christian nations”, Davis mentioned: “I can inform you that the reformed leaders round him… are all sincerely hoping that that’s how he’ll view his mandate.”
The Guardian contacted Hegseth with questions on his beliefs on the separation of church and state, and sphere sovereignty, however obtained no reply.
Podcast
The podcast collection, recorded for Pilgrim Hill’s Reformation Pink Tablet present, was ostensibly a dialogue of Hegseth’s 2022 e book Battle for the American Thoughts, co-written with David Goodwin. The e book claims to disclose a “progressive plan to neutralize the premise of our republic” by way of public colleges, core curriculums, and even rituals such because the pledge of allegiance, all of which stretches again no less than a century.
Hegseth’s co-author, David Goodwin, can be the serving president of the Affiliation of Classical Christian Colleges (ACCS), a company based in Moscow, Idaho, which promotes and certifies “classical Christian” colleges, and is intently related to Wilson, a pastor primarily based in Moscow, Idaho, and a number one promoter of classical Christian training.
Each the John Edwards Classical Academy, which Hegseth’s kids attend, and Franklin Classical Faculty attended by Davis are affiliated with ACCS. Every is close to Nashville, which Davis describes as “one of many cradles of the motion”, however Classical Christian Training has by now exploded nationwide. By his reckoning the variety of colleges affiliated to ACCS across the nation has greater than doubled within the final decade to 475.
The Guardian has reported extensively on how Wilson and the church he based, Christ church, have sought to increase their affect in Moscow; how the church resisted Covid-19 public well being mandates regardless of members pocketing authorities loans related to the pandemic; and the way figures related to Christ church, together with Wilson’s son, sought to increase their actions into the leisure trade, together with, apparently, mainstream kids’s leisure.
Wilson has additionally attracted broader criticism. Controversies have arisen from his obvious protection of slavery; his church’s dealing with of abuse accusations and the tolerance of convicted pedophiles of their ranks.
Wilson’s teachings embody that “wives should be led with a agency hand”, that “Christians don’t put aside the demise penalty for gay sin”, that “all of the nations of man are to be introduced into submission to Christ”, and that in a Christian nation, non-Christian religions can be banned from the general public sq..
In a dialogue of sexuality, Wilson as soon as wrote: “The sexual act can’t be made into an egalitarian pleasuring social gathering”, including: “A person penetrates, conquers, colonizes, crops. A girl receives, surrenders, accepts.”
Earlier this month, Proper Wing Watch reported that Wilson outlined his Christian Nationalist objection to H1-B visas by saying: “That’s numerous Hindus.”
Within the first of the recorded episodes, Hegseth tells Haymes, the host, that writing the e book with Goodwin led him to maneuver his household to Tennessee so he might enroll them in a classical Christian faculty.
“The entire writing course of was a crimson tablet,” Hegseth says at one level, including: “We moved to Tennessee to maneuver to a classical Christian faculty due to this e book. As a result of after I began writing it, we didn’t have all our youngsters in that type of training.”
Later, he provides: “We landed on one in center Tennessee and we moved to it. We thought we have been transferring to a faculty, however we moved to a church and a neighborhood and an entire view of the world that has modified the way in which we predict, too.”
The church, Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, is in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, the identical neighborhood the place Hegseth in 2022 acquired a greater than 8,800 sq ft home standing on over 76 acres for some $3.4m, in keeping with Sumner county property information, MLS information, and information brokers.
The church is, in flip, a member of the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Church buildings (CREC), one other group co-founded by Douglas Wilson, which unites a rising variety of church buildings across the nation who subscribe to Wilson’s theological imaginative and prescient.
Within the recordings, Haymes or Hegseth immediately and favorably quote Wilson no less than 3 times, with Haymes praising his criticism of the idea of white privilege, and sharing his criticism of the founders for “not making our nation distinctly Christian within the [founding] paperwork”, and Hegseth reporting that he would learn a e book from a rightwing Catholic writer at Wilson’s suggestion.
Ingersoll, the faith scholar, mentioned Hegseth’s membership within the church and his kids’s attendance at its related classical Christian faculty point out an in depth alignment with the views of Wilson and his motion. “He’s in a CREC church and sends his children to a classical Christian faculty. There’s no means you are able to do that and never agree with the theology,” she mentioned.
“Their means of changing into a member of a church isn’t simply displaying up,” Ingersoll added. “You need to go earlier than the board of elders, you get grilled in your theology and your conversion expertise, and if the elders of the church agree to simply accept you as a church member, you need to signal a covenant submitting to the authority of the congregation and thru the elders.”
“So if he didn’t agree with Wilson, he couldn’t be a part of that church. They might kick him out,” she mentioned.
Davis agrees, “CREC could be very “covenant pushed”, he mentioned. “CREC has actually taken it to a degree of contractual relationships as a result of they’ve a factor for authority.”
All through the podcasts, Hegseth repeatedly affirms features of CREC theology, together with the essential doctrine of sphere sovereignty, which sees all features of human life, together with authorities, as being sure by a imaginative and prescient of biblical legislation that features Previous Testomony precepts of morality and punishment.
Within the first of the recordings with Hegseth, Haymes, who can be a pastoral intern at Pilgrim Hill, introduces “the doctrine of sphere sovereignty”, which he says prescribes “authorities which might be outlined in God’s phrase, which might be pure authorities that we should undergo as people”.
These authorities are “the state, the household, and the church”. Within the church, he says, “we really are purported to undergo the authority of our elders”, such that “once we are in unrepentant sin, we may be put beneath church self-discipline”.
Within the dwelling, Haymes says, “the daddy has precise authority over his spouse and kids. After which the spouse has authority over the kids too, however in the end it’s a patriarchal imaginative and prescient.”
“After which the state,” Haymes says, “… the device that God has given the state is the sword.” The state’s function is “to reward the great and to guard the righteous from the depraved, however by primarily punishment, capital punishment and [other] punishments”.
“The state’s function is to not do good,” he says. “It’s not their accountability to teach your kids. It’s the household’s accountability. Helped together with the church.”
On this imaginative and prescient, all three spheres are sure to function inside the confines of biblical legislation the place the Bible is known as a unity, and during which Previous Testomony legislation – together with proscriptions on homosexuality and adultery – is usually nonetheless binding.
Ingersoll mentioned that “when these guys discuss a biblical perspective, it’s all rooted on this thought”. She added: “The Bible applies to all areas of life, and the Bible from Genesis to Revelation remains to be related for at this time and for all tradition.”
Ingersoll added: “The way in which they put that into follow is thru this mechanism of sphere sovereignty.”
She mentioned that whereas the unique understanding of sphere sovereignty is rooted within the Reformation, and was additional developed within the nineteenth century by the Dutch churchman and politician Abraham Kuyper, the model in circulation in church buildings influenced by Wilson descends immediately from the theocratic Christian reconstructionism of Armenian American minister RJ Rushdoony, whose writings all through the latter half of the twentieth century knowledgeable Christian homeschooling and dominionist Christianity alike.
“Rushdoony’s model is the one Wilson adopted,” Ingersoll mentioned.
Davis says that “essentially the most troubling methods I’ve seen Sphere Sovereignty teachings manifest are in issues that have been dealt with solely by church self-discipline with out different authorities being made conscious of what was occurring”, citing the instance of a classmate who had been topic to sexual abuse of their household.
“That was dealt with solely by way of church self-discipline and no police have been ever knowledgeable,.” he mentioned.
For Wilson and people influenced by him, “the civil authorities isn’t purported to be working colleges. The function of the state is to punish evildoers,” Ingersoll mentioned. “They usually don’t actually imagine in incarceration, as a result of the evil that they’d punish can be largely issues that they’d punish with the demise penalty.”
In his contributions on the podcast, Hegseth repeatedly outlines what he seems to see as the basic illegitimacy of public training, which he sees as little greater than a conduit for a “culturally Marxist” worldview.
Within the final of the 4 recordings, Hegseth places a very dramatic spin on the hazard he says that public training poses to Christian kids and their dad and mom.
In the direction of the tip of the recording, Hegseth tells Haymes: “I imply, we’re within the kill zone at present. He provides: “The phrase we use within the army is ‘the X’. If you happen to’re standing on the X in an ambush, you’re useless. Meaning the enemy’s weapons are pointed at you.”
“We’re all on the X proper now,” Hegseth continues. “Our youngsters are on the X in authorities colleges.”
“They’re being accosted and assaulted each day with evil ideologies which might be corrupting their thoughts, which might be corrupting their affections and leaving them incapable of in search of the type of knowledge that’s required.”
The response he suggests is a type of “insurgency” or “guerrilla struggle”.
“I’ve written battlefield assessments my entire life,” Hegseth says throughout the identical episode. “After which as I began desirous about it, I’m like, wow, that is the place we’re insurgents.”
Amplifying the theme, Hegseth says: “I used to be a senior counter-insurgency teacher in Afghanistan. So my job was to coach troops coming in, largely American, however coalition, typically Afghan, give them a way of the Taliban’s capabilities and al-Qaida.”
He means that these wanting to hold out an insurgency in opposition to public training ought to imitate the ways of the Taliban.
“Delegitimizing your enemy is a large a part of insurgency,” Hegseth says. “To make use of the Afghanistan instance, that’s what the Taliban did for twenty years. ‘You suppose the Afghan authorities represents you? They’re simply puppets of the Individuals. They’re extra corrupt than we’re.’”
Persevering with to paraphrase theocratic insurgents, Hegseth says: “‘Not less than we execute justice. Chances are you’ll not like us, however if you come to court docket, we’ll resolve your drawback in half-hour, and also you’ll have a ruling primarily based on the Qur’an that you just say you imagine in.’”
To delegitimize public colleges, Hegseth suggests opponents might argue that “initially, these colleges fail everyone. Nobody learns something in them.”
He continues: “And second of all, they’re indoctrination camps. They’re transing your children.”
In one other concrete suggestion, Hegseth says that “a part of what we name for, too, is cameras within the classroom”.
“Why can’t I see what’s occurring there?” he asks. “That’s frequent sense.”
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