(RNS) — The United States Department of War Rapid Response X account on Sunday (Sept. 7) posted a clip showing military personnel completing outdoor training as the words “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, nor dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you, wherever you go” faded into the screen. The video, which quotes the Bible’s Book of Joshua, received more than 2,000 likes as of Tuesday.
Similar videos praising the military while quoting the Bible have flooded the former Department of Defense’s social media accounts over the past few weeks.
The department, renamed the Department of War, has joined other branches of the federal government in embracing a Christian nationalist tone in its official communications. Some warn the new social media strategy could indicate how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s conservative Christian faith is revamping the military branch.
In an email to RNS, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said the videos exemplify Hegseth’s efforts to celebrate the country’s Christian roots “despite the Left’s efforts to remove our Christian heritage from our great nation,” and that “Secretary Hegseth is among those who embrace it.”
“Secretary Hegseth, along with millions of Americans, is a proud Christian,” Wilson said in the email. “The Christian faith is woven deeply into the fabric of our nation and shared by America’s wartime leaders like President George Washington, who prayed for his troops at Valley Forge, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gifted Bibles to American soldiers during WW2 and encouraged them to read them.”
Back in early August, the DOW posted another video on X captioned “We Are One Nation Under God,” a motto from the …