In recent days, deeply troubling reports have surfaced from within the U.S. military. According to complaints from service members across multiple installations, some U.S. commanders have framed the war with Iran not as a tragic last resort of geopolitics but as part of God’s plan. Troops are being told that they are sacred participants in a divine script meant to trigger the biblical end times and expedite the return of Jesus. Some troops were reportedly told that the conflict could usher in “Armageddon” and even that Donald Trump had been “anointed by Jesus” for this very purpose.
Let that sink in.
The armed forces of the United States, who, at their best, are entrusted with the sober task of defending human life and preserving the fragile experiment of democracy, are being unlawfully dictated a theology that positions this war as a catalyst for the end of the world.
This is not merely misguided theology. It is another lethal distortion of the Christian story.
For generations, many mainstream U.S. American political and faith leaders have insisted that the U.S. military is God’s righteous right hand. That force, when used, must be tethered to moral clarity: protecting the vulnerable, defending human dignity, and restraining tyranny. Of course, this conviction has been warped by greed, dishonesty, and self-preservation, resulting in geopolitical gaffes that have cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars since WWII. But the moment war is formally baptized as a divine strategy to accelerate the apocalypse, all guardrails collapse. Violence is no longer a tragic necessity. It becomes a sacred duty.
And therein lies the danger of this moment.
When soldiers believe they are participating in God’s timetable for the destruction of the world, restraint evaporates. Diplomacy becomes faithlessness. Peace becomes obstruction. And the suffering of human beings created in the image of God becomes necessary collateral damage in a cosmic drama.
This is not the gospel of Jesus.
In Matthew 5, Jesus stands on a hillside and describes what life in his Way looks like. Early in this message, he declares a series of counter-cultural blessings. Most notably, he doesn’t bless the power-hoarders: those who rush history toward destruction. Instead, he blesses the peacemakers: those who interrupt cycles of violence, who repair what violence tears apart, and who dare to believe that reconciliation is stronger than revenge.
The peacemakers…not the warmakers…are called the children of God.
Yet the violence-justifying theology that has grown in volume and fervor within our military imagines the very opposite. This false gospel positions escalating violence as faithfulness. It treats geopolitical catastrophe as spiritual fulfillment. It declares warlords as anointed by God.
The final vision of the Christian scriptures refuses this imagination.
In Revelation 21, the risen Christ does not celebrate the annihilation of the world. He declares something far more beautiful: “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Not burning all things down. Making all things new. The former is the evil he came to interrupt and redeem. The latter is what he was anointed for (Luke 4:14-30 and Colossians 1:15-20). It’s the restorative revolution we’ve been commissioned into (2 Corinthians 5:11-21).
That means the trajectory of the gospel is restoration, not ruin. It’s healing, not holy war. It’s renewal, not Armageddon.
Which is why this moment demands a clear and courageous rebuke from Jesus-followers, everywhere. Faith leaders, in particular.
We must say plainly: any theology that dignifies some while denigrating others is illegitimate. We must declare with conviction that any theology that longs for war as an accelerant to Jesus’ return is not Christian. It is apocalyptic nihilism wearing a cross.
We must proclaim the profound danger of greed-filled benefactors posing as holy authorities, and declaring a morally, spiritually, and emotionally bankrupt leader as anointed by Jesus to usher in the end of the world.
Our troops deserve better than this. They deserve leaders who remind them that their purpose is the protection of life, not the acceleration of death. They deserve a moral vision rooted in the dignity of every human being, not a theology that imagines their sacrifice as kindling for the end of the world.
The church must recover the courage to say what the earliest followers of Jesus knew: the kin-dom of God does not arrive through bombs and battle plans. Rather, it is being ushered in by makers of peace.
And in a moment like this, the most faithful act may be to refuse the seductive lie that the road to God’s future runs through Armageddon, and, instead, join Jesus in the slow, costly, stubborn, everyday work of making all things new right where we already are.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 18, 2026 on Hopeful Alternative, a free Substack by Dr. Jer Swigart, co-founder and executive director of Global Immersion. Featuring “provocations for disarming conflict and remaking our world”, Hopeful Alternative invites readers into the everyday work of peacemaking. (Learn more)
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