On Friday, a chaplain who served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Chaplain Corps during President Donald Trump’s first term warned that Americans must reject the Trump administration’s “religious tyranny.” According to theologian Leigh Larson, Trump and his Christian nationalist allies seek to “illegitimize” any religion but their own.
“I served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Chaplain Corps as a chaplain candidate during Donald Trump’s first term as president,” writes Larson for Baptist News Global. “I was endorsed through the Disciples of Christ denomination and under their faith code, ‘GE.’ That faith code is now gone.” As she elaborates, earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had the number of faith codes recognized by the department cut from more than 200 to 31. These codes, Larson asserts, are about more than mere bureaucracy. As she writes, “Not only do they allow for religious accommodations such as diet and appearance, but the code tells a commander who to call when someone is dying, guidance on holy days, burial and which chaplain gets matched to the soldier for spiritual care. As a chaplain candidate, I understood the faith listed on a dog tag to be the last bit of human freedom a soldier can enjoy in the military. While they are still free to list whatever faith on the dog tag, the bureaucratic paperwork used for advocating for accommodations now will be much narrower.”
The new system now lumps all Christian denominations, for example, under one label, identifying “Catholic,” “Methodist,” or “Lutheran” as the same, regardless of their ideological nuances. Another glaring example: the Southern Baptist Convention and the Progressive National Baptist Convention now both fall under “Baptist,” even though these are two radically divergent denominations, along with the other nearly 30 Baptist-related bodies from the list prior to trimming. The code change also gave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a code separate from “Christian,” which prompted objections from MAGA Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who told the Pentagon to “not just reconsider it but undo it.” He urged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to “tear down that wall. This is not cool. Get rid of it — get rid of it now.” The following day, the code list was revised to include Latter-day Saints as “Christian.”
These changes make it clear, writes Larson, that “the state is serving as a theologian and magistrate, defining who is and who is not Christian. Baptists should buck at this notion.” She points to an essay published just after the code changes – Bill Leonard’s “First They Came for the Mormons” – in which he argued the government shouldn’t define a group’s religious identity. “Baptists once were the unrecognized minority in America, forming their own haven of dissenters in Rhode Island, with the first Baptist church in America coming shortly after,” explains Larson, citing theologian and Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, who argued in 1644 that the state had no business sorting true faiths from false ones, urging that “a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all Nations.” According to Larson, “This is about soul freedom and soul competency. Every individual has the competency of soul and the freedom to develop their own conscience.”
While some have claimed that code eliminations are mere acts of administrative consolidation, Larson notes that the change bureaucratically erased scores of religions. As she warns her Baptist audience, “They folded my code (Christian – Other), and yours (Christian – Baptist). Non-Christians, including Wiccan, Unitarian Universalist and Humanist are folded into ‘Other Religions,' and atheists are now no religion. It is concerning that a government that can erase recognition by memo can illegitimize anyone’s.”
There is, however, a solution. According to Larson, “To ensure that the commonwealth protects everyone’s conscience, not about which theology defines it, it will require congressional oversight of the office through the National Defense Authorization Act, regular and accurate auditing of the chaplaincy and force’s beliefs, and institutional policies that reflect the needs of the force.” After urging her readers to join the fight, she concludes, “Protecting religious liberties from religious tyranny and state theological abstraction is about as American, and as Baptist, as it gets.”
