Pentagon slashes recognized faith groups to 31 in major shift under Hegseth
The Department of Defense has dramatically reduced the number of officially recognized religious faith groups from 211 to just 31, in a move that critics say further advances Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Christian nationalist agenda. The change, first reported by Military.com on June 4 and confirmed through a May 20 memorandum issued by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata, excludes atheists, pagans, humanists, and New Age faiths from the official list.
It is the first revision of the military’s faith group list since 2017, when it was expanded to include approximately 211 recognized groups. The new list includes only 31 faiths. While it is not yet clear whether Hegseth directly ordered the reduction, the secretary said in March that the previous system “had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes” and was “impractical,” according to the Religion News Service.
Tata, who issued the memorandum, has a history of anti-Muslim rhetoric and controversial statements about former President Barack Obama, whom he once called a “terrorist leader.” He was confirmed by Senate Republicans last year.
Family trip to France draws fire
Meanwhile, Hegseth faced a separate wave of criticism this week after flying to France with his wife and six of their seven children to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. The Defense Department confirmed the trip is an official visit, with Hegseth scheduled to meet French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin on June 6.
Social media users quickly accused Hegseth of turning a work trip into a family vacation at taxpayer expense. Video posted to X showed Hegseth stepping off a Boeing aircraft often referred to as the “flying Pentagon,” wearing a black hat with rolled-up sleeves, while his wife wore jeans and a blazer. “Looks like a family holiday to me,” one commenter wrote.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell defended the trip, stating that Hegseth “follows all ethics rules, regulations, and guidelines to the letter” and that “department travel policies are applied consistently and with full accountability.”
Broader Christian nationalist push intensifies
The faith group reduction is the latest in a series of actions that have drawn attention to Hegseth’s efforts to infuse Christian symbolism and rhetoric into Pentagon operations. Since the war in Iran began, the former Fox News host has intensified these moves. He has led Christian prayer services in the Pentagon auditorium, invited radical Christian nationalist figures to speak at official events, and argued during a press briefing that Americans should pray “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
In March, The New York Times reported that Hegseth “has framed U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as bigger than politics or foreign policy. Often he has imbued these actions with a Christian moral underpinning that suggests they are divinely sanctioned.” He later likened the rescue of a missing American airman shot down over Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and began equating journalists he dislikes with “pharisees.”
Controversial AI clash with Anthropic shows signs of easing
Hegseth’s tenure has also been marked by a high-profile confrontation with AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude model. In March, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk after the company refused to modify guardrails on Claude that prohibited use in autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of Americans. President Donald Trump backed a blacklist of the company, and Hegseth led calls to purge Claude from government systems.
But that stance appears to be softening. The National Security Agency is now using Anthropic’s Mythos AI model for offensive cyber operations, likely against China and Iran, according to the Financial Times. Anthropic has also installed engineers at the NSA to customize models. Reuters reported Friday that the dispute “has been showing signs of easing,” especially as Anthropic prepares for an initial public offering.
Analysts say the military and intelligence communities need access to the most advanced AI tools, and cutting ties with Anthropic may have been untenable in the long run. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei visited the White House in April and was originally invited for a planned executive order signing on AI in May.
Perspective: A Pentagon transformed by faith and friction
Hegseth’s simultaneous battles — over religious recognition, family travel, and AI ethics — paint a picture of a Pentagon undergoing rapid change under a secretary who shows little patience for established norms. The reduction of faith groups from 211 to 31 is a concrete administrative shift that will affect how service members designate their religious preferences and how chaplains are allocated. Critics argue it marginalizes non-Christian and non-theistic personnel in a military that has long prided itself on religious accommodation.
The family-trip controversy, while less substantive, underscores how Hegseth’s public persona as a cultural warrior — often seen as a throwback to an earlier era of masculinity — resonates poorly with many who view such displays as a misuse of taxpayer funds. At the same time, his supporters see the moves as a necessary correction to what they view as a Pentagon that had drifted from its traditional values.
Meanwhile, the apparent de-escalation with Anthropic suggests that even the most ideological conflicts may yield to practical necessity when national security interests are at stake. That may be the most telling lesson of Hegseth’s tenure so far: ideology may drive the agenda, but the demands of war and technology can force compromise.
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