{"id":49378,"date":"2026-02-24T11:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=49378"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:50:12","slug":"pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth Declares America’s Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against ‘Godless’ Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
@NRBassociation \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered an unapologetically faith-centered address to thousands of Christian communicators in Nashville this week, arguing that America’s founding principles flow directly from biblical truth and warning that secular ideologies threaten the nation’s spiritual foundations.<\/p>\n

Speaking as the keynote at the National Religious Broadcasters’ Freedom 250 Celebration during the NRB 2026 International Christian Media Convention, Hegseth framed the United States’ approaching 250th anniversary as both a civic and spiritual milestone. He credited God for the nation’s blessings and praised President Donald Trump as “a fierce defender of Christians and people of faith,” highlighting administration actions he said strengthened religious liberty and protected biblical values in public life.<\/p>\n

Throughout the speech, Hegseth drew a clear theological line from Scripture to the core concepts of Western democracy. He argued that Christianity’s teaching that all people are created in God’s image gave rise to the ideas of inherent dignity, individual liberty, and natural rights that shaped America’s founding documents. Quoting John Adams’ warning that the Constitution is suited only to a “moral and religious people,” Hegseth said the nation’s legal and political framework cannot endure apart from the moral vision that birthed it.<\/p>\n

“You see, without an internal compass, we need the leviathan of big government,” he told the audience. “As we celebrate our nation’s 250th year, it’s important to understand that the very fabric of our founding documents are woven into the threads of Christian and biblical principles.” He added that there is a “direct through line from the Old and New Testaments” to the development of both Western civilization and the United States.<\/p>\n

Hegseth contrasted this vision with what he called the “godless left,” accusing modern secular movements of subordinating individuals to collective or state power. He argued that ancient non-Christian societies and contemporary progressive ideologies alike deny the transcendent worth of the individual affirmed in Scripture. “The Christian belief that every person is created in the image of God established a new understanding of humanity,” he said. “From this core principle come individual liberty and natural rights.”<\/p>\n

Turning to the military, Hegseth celebrated what he described as a renewed emphasis on faith within the armed forces under the current administration. He cited the expansion of Christian prayer services at the Pentagon, revitalization of the Chaplain Corps, and removal of diversity, equity, and gender policies he called “godless and divisive.” Invoking George Washington’s 1775 creation of the military chaplaincy, he said American defense has always involved both arms and prayer. “We are one military, one fighting force, one nation under God,” he declared. “We are not ‘in woke we trust,’ we are ‘in God we trust.'”<\/p>\n

The secretary also challenged Christian media leaders to resist pressure to soften biblical teaching on issues such as life, borders, and gender. “It’s not political, it’s biblical,” he said, urging communicators to speak boldly despite cultural opposition. He closed with a confession of faith\u2014”Christ is King. He died for our sins. He will come again in glory”\u2014and a citation of Psalm 18: “The Lord is on my side. I will not fear.”<\/p>\n

Hegseth’s remarks have resonated strongly with many conservative Christians who see faith as inseparable from America’s heritage, though critics argue his rhetoric blurs lines between church and state. He has also drawn scrutiny for connections to Idaho pastor Douglas Wilson, a controversial figure known for advocating a theocratic vision of society. Still, supporters say Hegseth’s message reflects a longstanding conviction among believers that religious faith has played a formative role in American identity.<\/p>\n

A decorated Army National Guard veteran with multiple deployments to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Hegseth has long spoken publicly about the intersection of faith, patriotism, and military service. As the nation approaches its semiquincentennial, his address signals that debates over Christianity’s place in public life\u2014and the meaning of America’s founding ideals\u2014are likely to intensify rather than fade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered an unapologetically faith-centered address to thousands of Christian communicators in Nashville this week, arguing that America’s founding principles flow directly from biblical truth and warning that secular ideologies threaten the nation’s spiritual foundations. Speaking as the keynote at the National Religious Broadcasters’ Freedom 250 Celebration during the NRB…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":49381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\nPete Hegseth Declares America's Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against 'Godless' Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pete Hegseth links America\u2019s founding ideals to biblical truth, urges Christians to stand firm against \u201cgodless\u201d culture at NRB event.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pete Hegseth Declares America's Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against 'Godless' Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pete Hegseth links America\u2019s founding ideals to biblical truth, urges Christians to stand firm against \u201cgodless\u201d culture at NRB event.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-24T16:50:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2026\/02\/Hegseth-NRB_credit-NRBassociation-YouTube.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beliefnet Contributors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pete Hegseth Declares America's Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against 'Godless' Culture","description":"Pete Hegseth links America\u2019s founding ideals to biblical truth, urges Christians to stand firm against \u201cgodless\u201d culture at NRB event.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pete Hegseth Declares America's Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against 'Godless' Culture","og_description":"Pete Hegseth links America\u2019s founding ideals to biblical truth, urges Christians to stand firm against \u201cgodless\u201d culture at NRB event.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2026-02-24T16:50:12+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2026\/02\/Hegseth-NRB_credit-NRBassociation-YouTube.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Beliefnet Contributors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html","name":"Pete Hegseth Declares America's Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against 'Godless' Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2026\/02\/Hegseth-NRB_credit-NRBassociation-YouTube.jpg","datePublished":"2026-02-24T16:50:12+00:00","dateModified":"2026-02-24T16:50:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Pete Hegseth links America\u2019s founding ideals to biblical truth, urges Christians to stand firm against \u201cgodless\u201d culture at NRB event.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2026\/02\/Hegseth-NRB_credit-NRBassociation-YouTube.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2026\/02\/Hegseth-NRB_credit-NRBassociation-YouTube.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"@NRBassociation \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2026\/02\/pete-hegseth-declares-americas-biblical-roots-urges-christians-to-stand-firm-against-godless-culture.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pete Hegseth Declares America’s Biblical Roots, Urges Christians to Stand Firm Against ‘Godless’ Culture"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49384,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378\/revisions\/49384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}