Why Pete Hegseth nomination is a milestone for the rightwing Christian movement he follows

To his brotherhood within a theologically conservative, hard-right church coalition, Fox News host Pete Hegseth's ascension as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department wasn’t merely opportunistic.

It was providence.

This church coalition, associated with a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and mobilized by firebrand Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, has grown considerably in recent years by appealing to conservative evangelical Christians who are drawn to a more combative and openly rightwing temperament. Hegseth’s church, Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship outside Nashville, Tennessee, is part of this recent influx to the CREC.

This success has gained the CREC-aligned camp a reputation as an important group in a broader movement on the religious right known as Christian nationalism, though it’s been slower than other Christian nationalist factions to curry favor with Trump's inner circle. Hegseth’s proximity to the president-elect is changing that.

The Trump transition did not respond to a request for comment.

But to this group of Wilson-led Reformed evangelicals, Hegseth’s prospective appointment also represents an early return on investment in its yearslong aspiration to create a theocratic state in which traditionalist Christian men lead the military and other essential government institutions. At a minimum, Hegseth’s nomination energizes these Reformed evangelicals to dig in their heels and keep fighting.

“They sure wouldn’t mind having some more influence and having a figure who shares their ideology in such an elevated position of power,” Matthew Taylor, a religious extremism expert at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies, a nonprofit research center in Baltimore, said in an interview. “It both advances their agenda and gives them a toe hold within this broader Trump landscape.”

Taylor, author of the 2024 book, “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy,” said a different strand of Christian nationalists who are charismatic have been disproportionately represented in Trump’s advisory circle in his first term and in moments like the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Charismatic Christian nationalists tend to use the language of prophecy and demonic possession amid calls for God’s direct and immediate intervention in society.

In contrast, these hardline Reformed evangelicals appeal to logic and present their ideas with a scholarly certainty, even when those beliefs are heavily disputed or criticized as fringe. Wilson has long been known as a provocateur who challenges normative beliefs on issues like slavery and a woman's right to vote, which he criticized as harmful to the male-led family institutions he fiercely supports.

Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida, said these Reformed evangelicals also differ from charismatics’ sense of immediacy and instead expect desired change to manifest over a longer period.

Amid these factions’ key distinctives, “they come together around this idea of militancy,” Taylor said. “They believe the church is supposed to be militant in the world, is supposed to be reforming the world, and in some ways conquering the world.”

This mindset among far-right Reformed evangelicals is deeply entwined with a hypermasculine virtuousness. As part of that, women serving in combat is viewed unfavorably, which has been a source of contention between Hegseth and several key senators whose votes are critical to his confirmation. Hegseth has recently softened his position against women in combat, and has also continued to fight a sexual assault allegation he denies and said was consensual.

Throughout this nomination process and the ensuing controversy, Pilgrim Hill founding pastor Brooks Potteiger and pastoral intern Joshua Haymes, who jointly manage a small-scale media operation and podcast, have been among Hegseth’s most enthusiastic supporters.

“Replacing degenerates with God fearing Christian men,” Haymes said in a Nov. 13 social media post about Hegseth’s nomination. “Trump’s White House will be staffed by (at least some) faithful, God-fearing Christians who will be advising president Trump and wielding political power.”

Latest Hegseth confirmation news: Trump's embattled Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth reverses position on women in combat

An army for God builds its ranks

Hegseth’s confluence with Wilson’s movement is a testament to how its institutions have evolved and created new opportunities to exert influence.

Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, was less concerned earlier in his career about political clout and more focused on developing four key institutions: New Saint Andrews College, the Association of Classical Christian Schools, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, and Canon Press, which is a publishing arm that now produces various digital media, according to Molly Worthen, a religious historian at the University of North Carolina.

“When I got to know him, he was coming off an earlier phase of his career that disillusioned him about party politics,” Worthen said in an interview. Worthen, author of the 2013 book, “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism,” reported on Wilson’s early rise for The New York Times and Christianity Today in the late 2000s.

Since then, Wilson's strategies have changed and he's been more open to associating with influential Republicans. Earlier this year, he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show and a panel for the National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C.

"In some ways, he would be a fool not to take advantage of the platform that he has now," Worthen said. “He has a cultural moment and a platform that allows him to make a much more strident case for radical impatience with existing institutions and existing political practices."

Hegseth's involvement with this Reformed evangelical camp arose not from any personal relationship with Wilson, but the recent expansion of CREC churches. Wilson doesn’t personally know Hegseth but called the nomination “a wonderful pick,” Wilson said in a Nov. 25 blog post. “He is an advocate of classical Christian education, an opponent of women in combat roles, and to top it all off he is a member of one of our CREC churches.”

Hegseth’s church, Pilgrim Hill, is among 50 the denomination added between 2020-2024, a 41% growth in U.S. congregations now totaling 120, according to an analysis of the CREC’s church directory.

This 41% spike is credited by denomination leaders in a September 2023 report as the fruits of conservative disenfranchisement with mainstream evangelical groups, starting with COVID-19 and CREC pastors like Wilson resisting public health guidelines. Potteiger, who founded Pilgrim Hill in 2021, said on a Feb. 10 podcast interview another driver was the Black Lives Matter protests and evangelical leaders’ alleged acquiescence to the movement’s demands, which Potteiger characterized as “a huge satanic tactic to corrupt the gospel.”

Wilson, in response to a request for comment submitted through his blog, did not explicitly address Hegseth’s nomination but commented on the growth of the CREC and its sister organizations.

“We are a small denomination but because of a faithful stand during COVID, a lot of people became aware of us,” Wilson said in a Jan. 3 email. “When you couple that with our strong connections to the resurgent classical Christian education movement, you get what we are seeing now.”

Potteiger did not respond to a request for comment. He said in the Feb. 10 podcast he was drawn to how the CREC “was not only not defensive, but overtly offensive. Namely: ‘We don’t expect to concede any ground, we expect to take the high ground in the culture war.’”

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A sword-wielding state for a God-fearing man

Once he founded Pilgrim Hill, Potteiger quickly pivoted from a mere pupil of Wilson’s teachings into an avid evangelist for this gospel of Christian patriarchy.

A dominant conceptual framework that Potteiger and Haymes often promote on their podcast is that of “sphere sovereignty,” or a blueprint for Christian patriarchal authority throughout society. Under the framework, Christian men are over three equally powerful spheres — the government, church, and family — to maintain order and submissiveness through different forms of discipline. Haymes explained in a Feb. 24 podcast episode featuring Hegseth that “the tool God has given the state is the sword…they are to execute justice to protect the righteous from the wicked.”

Hegseth potentially leading the nation’s top sword-wielding institution, though this vision for sphere sovereignty is far from being realized, is an encouraging sign to believers like Haymes. “God is raising up Christian men into positions of leadership in our country,” Haymes said in a Nov. 27 social media post about Hegseth.

But for Ingersoll, author of the 2015 book, “Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction,” divine intervention isn’t the explanation for this seemingly coincidental triumph that Hegseth’s nomination symbolizes among this Reformed camp.

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“They’re always anticipating these sorts of moves into positions of power for people who see the world the way they do,” Ingersoll said. "I don’t think it’s coincidental. I think that’s the plan.”

That plan is illustrated by Hegseth’s own journey, starting with his introduction to Wilson’s ideas and institutions through the Association of Classical Christian Schools. Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a Nashville area campus that is part of the private school network co-founded by Wilson, appealed to Hegseth so much that he and his family relocated from New Jersey to Tennessee to enroll his children there, according to Nashville Christian Family magazine in a December 2023 article. From there, Hegseth deepened in his affinity for this much narrower Reformed ethical perspective championed by the CREC and the Association of Classical Christian Schools.

“My life over the past four-to-five years has been a Reformation red pill,” Hegseth said in a February podcast interview with Haymes. “When you really submit to the reality that God’s law sets you free because it is truth, it’s made me want to understand that law and understand Him even better.”

Due to its ties with the school, Hegseth discovered Pilgrim Hill and has since completed a formal process to become a full member in good standing, which Potteiger confirmed on social media praising Hegseth's nomination. Pilgrim Hill's constitution, modeled after other CREC congregations, requires prospective members to explicitly endorse certain beliefs and vows, and for elders to examine the candidate’s orthodoxy.

“The (CREC) structure itself ensures this kind of conformity,” Ingersoll said.

Hegseth’s devotion to this hardline Reformed evangelicalism is celebrated by its proponents, an indicication that their worldview is well-represented within the nation’s highest echelons of power. It’s seen as a major stride on a long journey toward their idealized version of a Christian state.

“They think there is a long, time horizon for building the kingdom of God, but that there are points in history where substantial things happen,” Ingersoll said. “And they expect to win.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pete Hegseth nomination is milestone for Doug Wilson's church movement