This past week, as many Christians around the world began celebrating the beginning of Easter week, dueling sermons offered quite different interpretations of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. On Wednesday, at his monthly prayer service at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth read a prayer from a chaplain and offered his own bloodthirsty thoughts about ongoing military actions in the Middle East. A few days later, in his first Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo XIV took as his theme Jesus as the “King of Peace.”
Many have noted the timing of these two addresses and even more so the content. It’s hard to disagree with the view that the pope’s homily was a direct rebuke of Hegseth’s martial posturing. But, as a historian of Christianity with a focus on religious violence, I believe many Americans would be surprised to learn that both sermons pull from the same tradition.
To ask whose words represent the “real” relationship between Christianity and violence would be posing the wrong question
Hegseth began by reading a passage from the Book of Psalms that made it clear that his prayer was for the annihilation of the enemies of the United States (Psalms 18:37-42: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them and did not turn back till they were consumed… I beat them fine as dust before the wind. I cast them out like the mire of the streets”). He then offered a mishmash of biblical references from, among other sources, the Psalms and the prophet Jeremiah to ensure that the point was clear. Hegseth asked God to “make their [the enemy’s] land a desolation,” to “break the teeth of the ungodly,” and to give the American task force “unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence … against those who deserve no mercy.”
The pope also peppered his Palm Sunday homily with biblical references — in this case, from the prophets and the gospels. The pontiff emphasized Jesus’ humility in entering Jerusalem on a donkey, his rebuke of the apostles for using a sword to defend Him before His arrest and his willingness to go to his death on the cross. Then, pointedly, Leo said, “Brothers and sisters, 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’ (Isaiah 1:15).” Prayer, the pope concluded, must be to end the suffering of those victims of violence.
There is clear daylight between these two sermons, a seeming gulf about Christianity’s relationship to war. But to ask whose words represent the “real” relationship between Christianity and violence would be posing the wrong question. In my career researching that relationship (including an a upcoming book on the subject), I’ve learned that the Christian tradition has been entwined both with violence and heroic attempts to reject it since the very beginning.
Both Hegseth and Leo use biblical citations as many Christians have over the last more than 2,000 years. For example, one of the references to Psalms used by Hegseth, as well as the anonymous chaplain he mentions, has been cited not only by far-right influencers in the 21st century nostalgic for the medieval Crusades, but also by 12th century crusaders themselves.
One bit of genius in Leo’s homily was his use of Isaiah.
Before the Crusades, the Roman military easily adopted Christianity and welcomed Christians when it became the religion of the empire beginning in the fourth century. And even Jesus’ earliest followers believed violence was necessary to protect the kingdom of Israel and looked forward to a time when God would rain down vengeance upon the impious at the End of Time. That double helix of violence, earthly and apocalyptic, came through more than two millennia onward in Hegseth’s sermon.
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But although Christians have embraced, indeed are embracing, violence, Leo’s homily demonstrates the opposite is also true. Leo too, in his citations, referenced moments when the past of the biblical kingdom and future heavenly kingdom seem to come together. But, unlike Hegseth he did so to show how the promise of peace and the hope for an end to suffering endure. He evoked the intertwined tradition of resistance to such violence, of some Christians fleeing to the wilderness to avoid the mundane violences of Roman society, of the early medieval Peace of God movement that sought to protect the defenseless against tyrannical rulers, of those Christians who even now protest not just the war with Iran, but the everyday violence of economic inequality and the regime of paramilitary terror against Americans.
One bit of genius in Leo’s homily was his use of Isaiah: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.” But we should note this verse comes in the middle of the chapter, preceded by a description of the desolation and suffering caused by war, and followed by a call to repentance and the need to right the wrongs that caused the war. In other words, the pope taught a different, but still true, history lesson than that offered by Hegseth. Through the centuries, Christians have heard competing calls for violence and peace. And at any moment, they can choose to listen to their better angels.
Matthew Gabriele
Matthew Gabriele is a professor of Medieval Studies at Virginia Tech and co-author of "The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe," as well as "Oathbreakers:The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe." He also hosts the podcast "American Medieval." Find him at profgabriele.com.