American soldiers were told that the Iran conflict is ‘God’s plan’ to bring concerning the end of the world, a spiritual watchdog has claimed.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received greater than 200 complaints from personnel across all branches of the armed forces.
One complainant said their commander kicked off their combat readiness briefing by ‘urging us to not be “afraid”‘ of the looming threat of war.
They said: ‘He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all a part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced quite a few 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.”‘
Based on a copy of the e-mail shared by journalist Jonathan Larsen, the commander said this with a ‘big grin on his face’.
The grievance was filed by a noncommissioned officer (NCO) of a 16-strong unit made up of Christians, Muslim and Jewish service members.
They added: ‘It’s the indisputable fact that our commander feels as if he’s fully supported and justified by your complete [unit] chain of command to inflict his Armageddon views of our attack on Iran on those of us beneath him within the chain of command.’
MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said many complaints describe senior military officials referring to the conflict as ‘biblically-sanctioned’.
‘A lot of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle shall be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must develop into with the intention to fulfil and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology,’ Weinstein added.
What’s Armageddon?
It’s less of a particular moment where fire and brimstone appear and more of a spot.
Armageddon is referred to within the Recent Testament as a location where world leaders under demonic rule will wage war with God’s forces.
As essential as this sounds, this specific Armageddon is referenced only once within the Revelation to John and was prophesied to happen in Megiddo, a town in ancient Palestine. That’s why ‘Armageddon’ in Hebrew roughly translates to ‘Hill of Megiddo’.
Nowadays, Armageddon is used to seek advice from any cataclysmic event.
Weinstein added that he’s observed a pointy rise in Christian extremism and called for the separation of church and state.
US ‘secretary of war’ Pete Hegseth has long called for a Christian nationalist approach to leadership.
He has praised the Crusades – when Christian warriors from western Europe ruthlessly removed control of Jerusalem from Muslim rule between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
The American Crusade writer has a tattoo on his arm with the words ‘Deus Vult,’ which he says was the ‘battle cry’ of the Crusades.
On podcasts published in 2024, Hegseth said he agrees with sphere sovereignty, which calls for Old Testament law and capital punishment for violations like being LGBTQ+.
Hegseth called the conflict in Iran the ‘generational turning point’ for the US on Monday, calling for soldiers to uphold a ‘warrior ethos’ and the Structure.
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