One of the problems with abandoning the separation of church and state, as Christian nationalists like Pete Hegseth are attempting to do, is that it puts government in the position of adjudicating the legitimacy of various religions. It can be tricky. Hegseth has inaugurated unprecedented monthly worship services at the Pentagon, and presumably he makes the call as to who officiates. These aren’t open to the public, but at least two services have been presided over by ministers of the Defense secretary’s own ultra-conservative, neo-Calvinist Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches denomination, which was founded by the very controversial Rev. Doug Wilson of “men should have the vote for their families” fame.

At least attendance at those services is voluntary. But now Hegseth’s religious views are impacting how chaplains are assigned to men and women in the military. In the past, the Pentagon has had more or less a self-service approach to spiritual assistance for servicemembers: if there’s a demand for a chaplain of a particular faith, however obscure or marginal, DoD has tried to supply it. But that, said Hegseth in March, has “watered down” the theological content of chaplaincy services, which are more like “therapists” offering “self-help and self-care” as opposed to good old-fashioned God-dictated moral advice. And so the department has drastically cut down on the number of faith communities it recognizes, from 211 to 31. This invited a whole........

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