Are National Leaders Engaging in Religion Differently Than in the Past?

On May 21, 2025, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, began offering the Secretary’s Christian Prayer & Worship Service to all Department of Defense (DoD) personnel. The Prayer Service is led by Hegseth, who sends out RSVP email invitations to all DoD personnel and encourages them to forward his invitation widely within their organizations. The monthly services are held in the Pentagon’s auditorium and are broadcast on internal DoD TV channels. The Prayer Service centers around Hegseth’s own religion, a denomination of Protestant Christianity, as demonstrated by the frequent references to an Almighty God and the consistent use of prayers in Jesus’ name. For example, on March 26, Hegseth led a prayer from the Book of Psalms amid the ongoing military operations in the Middle East, using the same prayer that had been given to troops before the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In addition to his own remarks at the services, Hegseth has invited Doug Wilson, from the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) to speak at the Prayer Service. Wilson’s prayers also invoke very specific references to Christianity. 

The First Amendment requires the government to remain neutral toward religion and not endorse or promote a particular religious denomination. Although the Prayer Service is voluntary, it raises the constitutional question of whether or not Hegseth is using his influence as Secretary of the DoD to promote religion in government. It also raises the question of government endorsement of a particular religion as the Prayer Service aligns more specifically with a subgroup of Protestant Christianity.

So far, legal action has been taken by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State which has filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain all the information regarding the details of the Prayer Service, including:

All records and communications (including but not limited to letters, memos, emails and attachments, calendar invitations and attachments, text messages, and other electronic messages and attachments on messaging platforms such as Signal, WhatsApp, Teams, Slack, WeChat) related to the Secretary’s prayer services held on May 21, 2025 and any other similar group prayer services held or to be held in the future at the Pentagon.

Americans United’s primary objective is to have the district court review the information requested above to determine whether or not the Prayer Service violates the Establishment Clause. The request under the FOIA was filed on December 19th, 2025. Since then, the DoD has ignored the request and the Americans United group has been clear that they are still waiting for the detailed information on the Prayer Service but are now also requesting further legal action be taken due to the DoD’s initial failed compliance. 

The Supreme Court has demonstrated its careful evaluation in cases dealing with public prayers. In Marsh v. Chambers (1983), it upheld the practice of a traditional legislative prayer before Nebraska legislative sessions. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), it struck down a prayer that was offered in the context of a public school graduation ceremony. The critical considerations in these cases are coercion and neutrality. For example, in public schools, a concern is that young and impressionable children will be coerced to participate in religious prayer. While one could argue the issue of coercion is less applicable to adult personnel in the DoD who are less impressionable than young children, it is worth noting Hegseth holds the highest ranking position in the Department and his military influence is superseded only by the President. Since Hegseth’s appointment at the start of 2025, he has dismissed over a dozen high ranking military officers and denied many promotions of highly qualified military officers. There is speculation that some of these dismissals are disproportionately gender and racial based with mostly no explanations for their removal. The authority Hegseth has established since taking office suggests that the requested information by Americans United may be relevant to determine if potential DoD personnel feel like they must attend these services out of fear that they will lose their jobs or not get promoted. 

On the issue of neutrality, the majority opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) states that a prayer in legislative contexts can be constitutional while making specific references to a particular religion as long as it represents a longstanding tradition and history and there is no coercion or denigration of other faiths. In terms of the Prayer Service, Hegseth has attempted to unify people by invoking common Christian identity. Last month he said, “we share the same interests, and, because of this, we face an essential test – whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people, ruled not by violence and chaos but by law, order, and common sense.” While the Prayer Service remains voluntary, a potential concern is the lack of neutral language used by Hegseth, especially in a government and military context. Even though roughly seventy percent of the military are of the Christian faith, that still leaves a third that have a plurality of religious backgrounds that might not agree with Hegseth’s explicitly Christian language.

Without the complete details surrounding the Prayer Service, I can only speculate as to how the district court should rule if the information is obtained. If the information demonstrates that the meetings have been promoted within the DoD due to Hegseth's military influence, and that there has been no effort to move the services to a location off of government property, then I believe that the Prayer Service should be ruled unconstitutional. However, if the DoD continues to withhold information regarding the services, there might continue to be a constitutional gray area where the service raises serious concerns but lacks substantive information to make an official ruling. I believe the lack of religious neutrality and the intent to have United States foreign policy informed by Christian values conflicts with the constitutional boundaries designed to ensure the United States does not have an established religion.