America’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, sports an array of tattoos with Christian messaging, including one which reads “Deus Vult”, God wills it, and is associated with the medieval crusades. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, while leading a Christian service at the Pentagon on March 25, Hegseth reached for biblical language to describe the war against Iran.

He called on God to “break the teeth” and kill the “wicked” enemies “who deserve no mercy” and should be “delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them”. In other words, for Hegseth this is a holy war in which he calls on god to “grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence”.

This war is not primarily about religion. But leaders on all sides have used religion to justify their actions. Not for decades have political leaders of all three major Abrahamic faith traditions invoked parts of their respective traditions to legitimise war in this way. The way faith and religious scripture and doctrine have been used by the US and Israel to justify launching their war in Iran is a worrying development, and one that highlights the growing relationship between religion and authoritarian nationalism.

It has also deepened the animosity with Iran, where politicians and religious leaders have themselves invoked religious and messianic narratives. But Iran is an Islamic Republic in which religion has a significant constitutional role.

The Israeli prime minister used religious imagery on February 28 while announcing the start of the war. He invoked the Jewish holiday of Purim, which fell on March 2-3 this year, and which celebrates the Jewish escape from a plot by Haman, an evil Persian official, to annihilate the Jews in the ancient Persian Empire. He said:

My........

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