Pete Hegseth's America

Welcome!

Late last night, J.D. Vance broke the tie on the floor of the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.

If I had to choose a poster boy for Jesus & John Wayne Christianity, it would be hard to find a better candidate than Pete Hegseth. Almost chapter by chapter, he exemplifies the themes of the book.

Militarism? Check.

Warrior rhetoric. Double check.

Islamophobia? The guy wrote a book called American Crusade and allegedly chanted “Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims” in “a drunk and violent manner” at a bar. As one does.

White supremacy? His Deus Vult tattoo got him flagged as a potential military “insider threat.”

Christian nationalism? He attends a church that belongs to Doug Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). You may recall that Doug’s Canon Press published Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism.

Patriarchy? In addition to the obvious, given his CREC membership, his former sister-in law said he didn’t think women should vote.

Abuse? Let’s see…He paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017, which he callse a nuisance case. The same former sister-in-law said in a sworn affadavit that he made his ex-wife “fear for her safety” during the marriage. Lest there be any confusion, this was his second wife. And second ex-wife. He and his first wife, his high school sweetheart, divorced after he admitted to several affairs. While still married to a second wife, he fathered a child with an executive producer at Fox. It’s…complicated.

Or, take it from his own mother, who once wrote:

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say…get some help and take an honest look at yourself…”

“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

(She has since disavowed the above sentiments and now says he’s “a good father, husband.”)

All of this…heck, any of this…might seem like a dealbreaker for a Secretary of Defense. The military, after all, cares about honor. And this says nothing of his actual qualifications—or lack thereof—for the job. In fact, what appears to qualify him most for the position in the eyes of Republicans may well be the very things the rest of us find objectionable. His alleged lack of integrity, immorality, cruelty. And yes, allegations of abuse.

But all of this starts to make sense if you’re aware of the religious world he’s part of. Remember, posterboy for Jesus & John Wayne.

While I was working on the manuscript, another scholar of evangelicalism challenged my inclusion of Doug Wilson. He’d never heard of him, he said. He didn’t think he was important. Wilson was a fringe figure, the implication being that I was just “nutpicking” to make evangelicals look bad. But I kept him in because so many Christian men I talked to told me that I needed to look into Doug Wilson. I didn’t hear the same from women at the time, maybe because most who knew, weren’t in a position to tell me.

Remember that book Wilson published on Christian nationalism? No longer (if ever) content to build his little religious empire in Moscow, Idaho, Doug has bigger ambitions. And Pete Hegseth gives us a pretty good idea of what that looks like.

What will this look like for women in the military? I’ll let the experts tackle that one.

What will this broader vision mean for American women?

Let’s ask the women who lived under Wilson’s influence and authority. Because now, some of these women are talking.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks listening to episodes of the new podcast, Sons of Patriarchy. It lets women tell their own stories: stories of abuse, of gaslighting, of years of trying to be faithful Christian wives and mothers, tethered to abusive husbands, forced to submit to the whims of church leaders or risk losing everything. No two stories are exactly alike, but there are common themes. And the stories aren’t contained to women who lived in Moscow. Some attended other CREC churches, others attended churches in denominations (OPC, PCA, and nondenominational, with future episodes featuring the RCUS, REC, ACNA, SBC, Free Reformed Church of Australia, and others) influenced by Wilson. If you attend a Reformed or evangelical denomination, there is a very good chance that men in your church, and perhaps your pastor and elders, have been influenced by Wilson.

Listen to the podcast. You’ll hear of women losing their identities and agency, of wives living in fear, of predatory men, and of church leaders allowing all this to happen, covering up abuse, and telling victims to stay in abusive marriages. And to stay quiet.

The podcast is the result of the incredible labors of Peter Bell and a team of researchers. (A conservative, Reformed Christian, Peter had heard too many stories of corruption trickling out of Moscow to stay quiet.) And, it’s the result of dozens of women who have decided to no longer stay quiet.

Please listen to these episodes to understand how this culture works.

What you’ll hear will resonate with how I concluded the final chapter of Jesus and John Wayne:

When it came to evangelical masculinity, the ideological extreme bore a remarkable resemblance to the mainstream. In the end, Doug Wilson, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, James Dobson, Doug Phillips, and John Eldredge all preached a mutually reinforcing vision of Christian masculinity—of patriarchy and submission, sex and power. It was a vision that promised protection for women but left women without defense, one that worshiped power and turned a blind eye to justice, and one that transformed the Jesus of the Gospels into an image of their own making. Though rooted in different traditions and couched in different styles, their messages blended together to become the dominant chord in the cacophony of evangelical popular culture. And they had been right all along. The militant Christian masculinity they practiced and preached did indelibly shape both family and nation.

If you’ve read Jesus and John Wayne, you can skip the first episode, which is mostly me describing who Wilson is and where he came from. Even if you haven’t read J&JW, I’d recommend starting with one of the episodes containing first-person accounts. Then, you can go back for more context if you want. Some episodes bring in outside experts, some focus on the finer points of Wilson’s theology, and the rest platform the voices of women who are finally telling their stories.

Peter devoted countless hours to producing Sons of Patriarchy for the same reason I made the film For Our Daughters. We knew people needed to know the truth.

For both of us, it has been a labor of love. To support Peter’s work, please consider donating here. Any money you give will support his team, support the women who have shared their stories, and help spread the word as widely as possible.

Now that we’re all living in Pete Hegseth’s America, what can you do? It’s a good idea to educate yourself on exactly what we’re dealing with. Sons of Patriarchy is a good place to start.