Recommendations of the Editorial team
Donald Trump’s government apparently has no intention of sparing its critics false and blasphemous Bible quotations. On Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a rambling tirade that barely qualified as a sermon – in which he quoted a made-up Bible passage from Quentin Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction” and insulted the press on a biblical basis at a press conference, in which he compared the president to Jesus.
Hegseth, who for weeks has been using Christian scriptures to justify the administration’s disastrous war on Iran, gave his usual service and sermon at the Pentagon on Wednesday. In his speech, he cited a violent monologue that Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield delivers shortly before being shot in the Oscar-winning Tarantino film “Pulp Fiction.” The monologue is loosely based on Ezekiel 25:17 – omitting the previous verses from Ezekiel 25 and replacing them with an original text written specifically for the film.
Hegseth recited the famous quote as a prayer, claiming it was recited by members of the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) team that recovered a downed pilot from Iran earlier this month.
Prayer from the cinema
“They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is a reference to Ezekiel 25:17,” he said, inviting the audience to pray with him.
“The path of the downed airman is surrounded on all sides by the injustice of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed be he who, in the name of companionship and duty, leads the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” he recited. “I will descend with great vengeance and furious fury on those who seek to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know that my call sign is Sandy 1 as I carry out my revenge on you. Amen.”
It is almost word for word for the monologue that Jackson speaks in Pulp Fiction – a text that appears three times in the film and is intended to literally trace the path of the film’s tyrannical characters: how the violent Jules and others struggle with their nihilism and brutality and search for redemption.
Hegseth and the Bible
It doesn’t look like Hegseth knew he was quoting from a film – and if he did, he deliberately didn’t tell the audience the origin of the famous scene. It wasn’t the only time this week that the defense minister used a free interpretation of the Bible for war propaganda.
At a press conference on Thursday, Hegseth compared the Pentagon journalists in attendance to the Pharisees – a Jewish movement during the Second Temple period that later gave rise to rabbinic Judaism. In the New Testament, the Pharisees come into conflict with Jesus of Nazareth after they observe him forgiving the sins of a paralyzed man – they accuse him of blasphemy because he usurped God’s sole right to absolution. Jesus proves his connection to God by healing the man. His arguments with the Pharisees were often used in the Bible to explain his departure from traditional Jewish religious law.
“I can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage that you simply cannot resist – despite the historic and significant success of this operation and the success of our troops,” Hegseth fumed. He then described his pastor’s Sunday sermon about the Pharisees.
Trump as Jesus
“The Pharisees, the self-proclaimed elites of their day…even when they experienced a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were just there to talk away the good and push their agenda,” he continued. “I sat in church and thought, ‘Our press is just like those Pharisees – not all of them, but the old-school, Trump-hating press.'”
“Your politically motivated hostility toward President Trump blinds you almost entirely to the brilliance of our American fighters. The Pharisees scrutinized every good deed to find offense, always looking for the negative. The hardened hearts of our press are designed solely to defame. I ask you to open your eyes to the good, to the historic success of our troops, to the courage of this President and this historic moment for a deal that could end the Iranian nuclear threat – the incredible one Battle success unfolding before your eyes.”
In this scenario, Trump and his government apparently represent Jesus – and the press the supposedly petty Jews who called what they considered blasphemy by its name? Hegseth didn’t delve too long into the intricacies of the analogy, probably because it’s still an open wound: Trump was widely condemned this week for comparing himself to Jesus Christ in a Truth Social post.
Hegseth’s comments caused even more attention given the government’s ongoing dispute with Pope Leo
Leo appears to continue to closely follow the government’s statements justifying the war. Shortly after Hegseth’s press conference, he wrote on social media: “Woe to those who abuse the religion and the name of God itself for their own military, economic and political purposes and drag the sacred into darkness and dirt.”
