It was a history-making occasion: In a chapel at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, 2nd Lt. Khady Ndiaye stood proudly — carrying a hijab – as she grew to become the primary Muslim girl commissioned by the U.S. Military as a chaplain candidate.

Presiding over the ceremony in June was Maj. Gen. Invoice Inexperienced, the Military’s chief of chaplains. He mentioned the chaplains serve greater than 200 religion teams, “whereas caring for the whole Military household … no matter their private beliefs.”

That ethos – a dedication to non secular variety all through a U.S. army with 1.3 million active-duty troops — may very well be strained if Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for protection secretary, is confirmed as the subsequent Pentagon chief.

Hegseth typically conveys his conservative Christian outlook in militaristic phrases, has justified the medieval Crusades that pitted Christians towards Muslims, and evokes the specter of Islamists searching for to impose their religion on non-Muslims. He has denounced the army’s initiatives to foster variety, fairness and inclusion, which embody faith amongst different classes.

At the moment’s army “is among the most various establishments in American society, racially, ethnically and particularly religiously,” mentioned Ronit Stahl, creator of “Enlisting Religion: How the Navy Chaplaincy Formed Faith and State in Fashionable America.”

“Total, the army was an engine of non secular inclusion and actually occupied with methods to handle non secular pluralism, but it surely was not a easy or straightforward course of,” mentioned Stahl, a professor of historical past on the College of California at Berkeley. “To have a secretary of protection who promulgates a worldview or operates inside a worldview the place not simply Christianity, however a sure strand of Christianity, is the precise faith, doubtlessly modifications the tenor of what an ethos of non secular pluralism seems to be like within the army.”

The army chaplaincy has developed as America has diversified. It initially functioned with mainline Protestant and Catholic chaplains, increasing throughout World Struggle I to incorporate such teams as Jews and Mormons.

Current many years have seen the army’s first Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist chaplains. The army has additionally made lodging akin to permitting Sikhs to take care of their religiously mandated turbans and beards.

At the moment, about 70% of active-duty army determine as Christian – together with about 20% Catholic and about half Protestant or different Christian, in line with a 2019 congressional report. A couple of quarter of troops have been listed as “different/unclassified/unknown,” with small percentages of atheists/agonistics, Jews, Muslims and adherents of Jap religions.

The Protection Division couldn’t instantly verify the figures. However they roughly match People’ non secular demographics general.

At the moment, the Military’s careers-and-jobs web site depicts its chaplaincy as “a multi-faith program — ministers, monks, imams, rabbis, and extra.”

The mission for its chaplains: “Observe the distinct doctrines of your religion whereas honoring different denominations and making certain the precise for others to look at their very own.”

Rabbi Scott Klein. who serves as an Military chaplain inside the 82nd Airborne Division and is garrison rabbi at Fort Liberty, mentioned the army “has made important strides in fostering an interfaith setting.”

“One space the place I feel we are able to proceed to enhance is in schooling and coaching,” he mentioned by way of e-mail. “Offering extra alternatives for service members to find out about completely different religion traditions would additional break down limitations and misconceptions.”

The U.S. Navy experiences that it has 874 chaplains. Most have a spread of Protestant affiliations, together with 101 Southern Baptists. Additionally they embody 46 Catholics, 18 Latter-day Saints, 12 Jewish, 9 Jap Orthodox, 4 Muslim and 1 Buddhist. Statistics from different branches weren’t instantly out there.

Hegseth’s nomination requires affirmation from the Senate, the place he’s dealing with deepening scrutiny over different controversies. He’s topic to a number of allegations which have emerged within the media about alcohol intoxication at work occasions, sexual misconduct and potential monetary mismanagement. He was flagged as a potential “Insider Risk” by a fellow service member in 2021.

Hegseth, now a Fox Information host and creator, is an Military Nationwide Guard veteran of deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

He has written of America as a Judeo-Christian nation, portraying the founders as Christians regardless of what historians say have been their various non secular views. He mentioned People of any faith are welcome in a “righteous campaign for human freedom,” although he typically fuses Christian and American id. “We Christians — alongside our Jewish associates and their exceptional military in Israel — want to choose up the sword of unapologetic Americanism and defend ourselves,” he wrote in his 2020 e book, “American Campaign.”

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Navy Non secular Freedom Basis, mentioned Hegseth “promotes the idea of fundamentalist Christian dominance and supremacy.”

Weinstein, an Air Power veteran, mentioned army personnel have the precise to follow and proclaim their religion – however inside constitutional restrictions on the “time, place and method” of such expressions.

“Christian nationalists like Hegseth consider there aren’t any limits on after they can deploy their religion,” Weinstein mentioned.

However different veterans are supporting Hegseth, together with Damon Friedman, a retired 20-year Marine and Air Power veteran who now leads SOF Missions, a Florida-based program aiming to scale back veteran suicides.

Friedman, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, mentioned he shares Hegseth’s Christian religion. That didn’t intrude together with his responsibility to steer troops no matter their faith, he mentioned.

“We dwell in a free nation. We get warriors of all faiths,” mentioned Friedman, a retired lieutenant colonel.

He favors Hegseth’s objective of rolling again variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives, which he contended is inflicting the army to give attention to members’ varied identities fairly than on solidarity in being a “war-fighting machine.”

“We simply must get again to being inexperienced,” he mentioned, referring to the first uniform coloration.

Sen. Invoice Hagerty, R-Tennessee, concurred.

“We have to get again to enterprise, and I feel Pete is simply the individual to do it,” Hagerty mentioned not too long ago on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos″ .

Some considerations about Hegseth heart on his views towards Islam and the non secular motivations he cites for supporting Israel.

He has spoken enthusiastically about the opportunity of a restored Jewish temple on its historical web site in Jerusalem. Such a transfer would contain the geopolitically explosive step of displacing the Al-Aqsa Mosque – considered one of Islam’s holiest websites and an emblem of Palestinian aspirations.

Hegseth made his feedback at a 2018 convention in Jerusalem. He rejected Palestinian aspirations for statehood, saying there may be “no such factor as the result of a two-state answer, there may be one state.”

Hegseth bears a distinguished tattoo proclaiming “Deus Vult,” (“God Wills It”), the Latin phrase attributed to the eleventh century pope who referred to as the First Campaign. That launched two centuries of fierce, intermittent warfare between Christian and Muslim armies in and across the Holy Land.

Hegseth wrote in his e book that he wasn’t romanticizing the Crusades and however mentioned the “current second is very like the eleventh century.” He referred to as for Christians, Jews and the Israeli military to “push Islamism again,” culturally and when needed militarily.

He outlined Islamism as an ideology imposing Islam on others. He contended that reasonable Muslims could also be peaceable however are both “complicit in Islamism’s enlargement or impotent to reverse it.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations opposes Hegseth’s nomination.

“If President-Elect Trump is critical about pursuing peace overseas and placing American pursuits above the pursuits of overseas governments, he ought to rethink Mr. Hegseth’s nomination,” the Muslim advocacy group mentioned.

Thomas Lecaque, a professor of historical past at Grand View College, mentioned the “Deus Vult” expression is unambiguously militant.

“There isn’t any model of ’Deus Vult’ which means something aside from a name for violence,” mentioned Lecaque, who research non secular violence from the Crusades to trendy America.

The Trump-Vance transition workforce didn’t return emails searching for remark. Emails to Hegseth and his lawyer additionally didn’t obtain replies.

Larry Wilkerson, a retired colonel with 31 years within the army and an advisory board member of the Navy Non secular Freedom Basis, mentioned Hegseth is an alarming selection.

“Range is a energy, however you’ve acquired to know methods to lead it,” mentioned Wilkerson, a former chief of employees to Secretary of State Colin Powell. “You don’t do it by forcing the bulk’s and even a big minority’s views on them.”

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