Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has brought religion back to the Pentagon, and the forces of secularism are furious. But nothing — not even prayers in Jesus’s name quite raises their dander like the imprecatory prayers for victory that Hegseth has dared to offer publicly amid America’s military campaign against Iran. Such prayers have caught the attention of not only the American press and politicians but also a far more formidable religious critic — the pope himself.

Last Wednesday, Hegseth prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” At a separate service on Palm Sunday, Hegseth preceded his prayer by reading Psalm 18:37-42, where King David recalls God giving him utter victory over his enemies. “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” Hegseth prayed. “Let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse, that evil may be driven back, and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.”

“I’ve never heard a secretary of Defense say things like this,” griped Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). “I don’t think it’s appropriate.” A Washington Post columnist reserved choice words for not only the prayers but the very practice of holding Christian worship services: “dangerous” and “unconstitutional.”

In a Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope — delivered his own oblique critique, invoking a pacifism worthier of Leo Tolstoy than a Leo of the Vatican.

“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’ (Is[aiah] 1:15),” the pope pontificated.

“We turn our gaze to Jesus, who reveals himself as King of Peace, even as war looms around him. He remains steadfast in meekness, while others are stirring up violence,” he added. “Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!”

The pope is right that God is love and that Jesus brings peace. But God’s love is not divorced from his holiness and justice, nor is the peace Jesus brings a universal brotherhood of man that would abolish war while the curse still operates. This is not a Catholic versus Protestant point; liberal mainline denominations would agree with the pope, while traditional Catholics, who sincerely believe their church’s doctrine, would find his words concerning.

Pope Leo’s argument finds little support from Scripture. In the Scripture he quotes, the hands full of blood refer to simple murder, a violation of the Ten Commandments, rather than warfare. Contextually, God’s reason for ignoring the people’s prayer is not because of bloodshed alone, but because they pretended to worship him while pursuing all kinds of iniquity in violation of his law. God said just before, “I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly” (Isaiah 1:13). If the pope is right that this verse means God does not listen to warriors, it means he does not listen to any sinner.

The rest of Isaiah’s prophecy casts further doubt on the pope’s interpretation. One of Isaiah’s most common names for God is “the Lord of hosts,” which could be translated, “the Lord of armies.” Even in the same chapter, Isaiah records, “the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: “Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes” (Isaiah 1:24).

In fact, the book of Isaiah records God directly executing one of the deadliest single events in the entire Bible. “And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies” (Isaiah 37:36).

Widening the scope to the rest of Scripture, we find no general prohibition of God against warfare. Instead, we find God strengthening David when he invokes “the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel,” to slay Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45) — among many other examples. Even in the New Testament, when soldiers asked John the Baptist what repentance looked like for them, he did not tell them to desert the Roman army, but to not abuse their military position for unjust gain (Luke 3:14).

Pope Leo rightly called Jesus the king of peace (cf. Hebrews 7:2), but Scripture also tells us Jesus will return again as a victorious general. Jesus is depicted sitting on a white horse, “and in righteousness he judges and makes war. … And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:11, 14-15).

None of these texts justifies a sort of “martial” Christianity that glories in warfare. God’s endorsement of ancient Israel’s conquest of the land and subsequent political-religious wars does not translate one-to-one into an endorsement of any modern nation’s invasion of its neighbors. The fact that “the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 14:3) does not mean that individuals should be; Paul commands Christians, “never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God” (Romans 12:19). But in the next paragraph, Paul writes that government is God’s servant that bears the sword (Romans 13:1-4).

Instead, the takeaway is that we cannot distill the whole Bible’s teaching to a simplistic statement like, “Jesus rejects war.” We must think carefully about many texts, considering their place in the biblical storyline, their universality (or lack thereof), and their application to our own day. Christian theologians in the Just War Tradition have wrestled with these questions since at least the fourth century.

Secretary Hegseth’s prayers raise a more nuanced question: not simply whether Scripture leaves room for a just war, but whether Christian soldiers today, with no specific revelation about their own context, have a basis to pray imprecatory prayers against their enemies. If the Psalms are intended as a model to shape our prayers and songs, then it seems there must be some appropriate role for imprecatory prayer.

Christians can disagree in good conscience about what the role for imprecatory prayer is. But Secretary Hegseth, a Christian leading a military composed of 70% Christian servicemembers, clearly believes it is appropriate to call on God’s aid for success in battle.

However, we must grant one fact for which history provides abundant evidence. On many occasions, Christians in opposing armies have fought one another and invoked God’s aid for victory, prayers which could not both be answered. President Abraham Lincoln made this point in his Second Inaugural Address during the Civil War, “Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. … The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

A Christian soldier praying for victory does not mean that God will grant a positive answer to that prayer. When Christians pray against one another — as tragic as that is — it is logically impossible for God to grant both requests. Thus, in addition to having a category for imprecatory prayer, we must also have a category for God’s sovereign providence. God sometimes uses the prayers of his people as a means to accomplish his purposes, but he will accomplish his own purposes, no matter what anyone prays.