A high-ranking defense official is drawing attention for his ties to a church network where leaders publicly question women’s right to vote. Here's what Christians need to know and why it matters.



U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been linked to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a conservative Christian network where pastors argue that women should not have the right to vote, after he shared a video of a pastor upholding that view. Hegseth reposted a video on X last Thursday of a CNN interview with Pastor Doug Wilson, cofounder of the CREC and lead pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, who argued that women should not have the right to vote.

Hegseth’s repost included Christ Church’s motto: “All of Christ for All of Life.”

“He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen,’ at some level,” Wilson said.

According to the Associated Press, Hegseth attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a CREC member church in a suburb outside Nashville, Tennessee. Earlier this year, his pastor, Brooks Potteiger, prayed at a service Hegseth hosted at the Pentagon.

Hegseth also recently attended the inaugural Sunday service at Christ Church DC, a new CREC outpost in the nation’s capital.

Sean Parnell, chief spokesman for the Pentagon, confirmed Hegseth’s affiliation with CREC and informed the AP that Hegseth “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”

Wilson has previously drawn controversy for expressing views on patriarchy, Christian nationalism, and the role of women in society. Speaking to the Associated Press, Wilson said he believes the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, “was a bad idea.” At the same time, however, his wife and daughter vote.

Although repealing the 19th Amendment is not a top priority, Wilson hopes that the United States will follow his church’s example of allowing heads of households to vote in church elections. Moreover, unmarried women qualify as voting members of his church.

“Ordinarily, the vote is cast by the head of the household, the husband and father, because we’re patriarchal and not egalitarian,” Wilson explained.

Wilson, a Navy veteran who served on submarines, also questioned certain roles women have in the military.

“I think we ought to find out the name of the person who suggested that we put women on those submarines and have that man committed,” Wilson said. “It’s like having a playpen that you put 50 cats in and then drop catnip in the middle of it. Whatever happens is going to be ugly. And if you think it’s going to advance the cause of women and make sailors start treating women less like objects, then you haven’t been around the block very many times.”

CREC, which was founded in 1998, is a network of more than 130 churches in the United States and around the world. The network adheres to Reformed theology and Christian Reconstructionism, a 20th-century Reformed movement.

According to Julie Ingersoll, a religion professor at the University of North Florida who wrote about it in her 2015 book “Building God’s Kingdom,” explained that Hegeth’s use of Wilson’s slogan “‘All of life” is “referencing the idea that it’s the job of Christians to exercise dominion over the whole world.”

Wilson himself says he wants the United States to become a Christian nation and does not mind being called a Christian nationalist.

“I am more than happy to work with that label because it’s a better label than what I usually get called,” Wilson said.

“If I get called a white nationalist or a theo-fascist or a racist bigot, misogynist thug, I can’t work with them except to deny them,” he said. “I’m a Christian, and I’m a patriot who loves my country. How do I combine those two things? How do they work together?”

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