Pete Hegseth gutted the military’s list of official religions. Now Air Force members must choose.

Service members must choose from a less inclusive list—or let the military choose for them

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The Department of Defense/War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, has now told members of the U.S. Air Force that they must officially change their religious labels to reconcile with a shortened, less inclusive, more Christian-heavy list.

Active duty members have until October 16 to make the changes, while Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard members have until November 9.

The needlessly revised list was announced back in June, when Hegseth pared down the list of recognized religious labels in the military from 211 to a mere 31, making it harder for service members to use the proper identification. A decade ago, as part of a larger mission to be more welcoming to people outside traditional faiths, the list of labels had expanded. Hegseth wanted to do away with that extra information in the name of “wokeness.”

Pete Hegseth (screenshot via X/Twitter)

I explained more about why this happened here, but the larger list had come after years of complaints from service members who felt they weren’t adequately represented by the labels presented to them. By saying they had “no religious preference” when they were actually Humanists, for example, they couldn’t receive the perks associated with religious groups and had a harder time finding a chaplain who could speak to them without invoking God. The 2017 expansion of the list—which included options like “Heathen” and “Deism”—was a hard-fought win for many members of religious (and non-religious) minorities.

It’s no wonder that Hegseth wanted to undo that progress. It was stupidity for the sake of stupidity. A way to appease other Christian Nationalists without improving anything within the military. He said the change would help chaplains “minister better to the flock,” but having less specific information to work with makes their jobs harder.

The list that Hegseth released this summer removed labels like Humanist, Heathen, Deist, Pagan, Wiccan, and Atheist. But you better believe it included a variety of Christian denominations.

For many service members who may not call themselves Christian anymore, or who reject the labels on here even if they are Christian, this list will now force them to use one of those categories, ultimately inflating the number of “Christian” service members at the expense of less popular faith labels. That’s kind of the whole point of this game.

That list also grouped Mormons separately from Christians, which outraged Utah’s members of Congress and forced a revision to the revision. Version 2.0 looked like this:

Same basic list but it’s less explicit about which groups count as “Christian.”

Still, members of the Air Force will now have to slot themselves into one of those categories, even if it doesn’t accurately describe them. If Airmen and Guardians don’t make the change in time, they “will have their records automatically realigned according to an approved transition construct,” according to the Air Force Public Affairs office. Which is to say, if they don’t do it, the Air Force will do it for them, presumably putting a lot of people in Christian denominations they don’t actually belong to.

And in case there was any confusion about what this is really all about, the Air Force’s press release included a helpful image of a uniform with a Christian cross on it.

(Image via Ashton Hamby, U.S. Air Force)

Military.com spoke to a few Air Force service members who were disturbed by the demand:

“Previously, when updating my emergency data, atheist was always an option,” the individual, [a Military Religious Freedom Foundation] client, told Military.com on Saturday. “But it didn’t take long to see that it was purposely excluded.

“So, my initial confusion quickly turned into outrage—not just for myself, but for the other Airmen and Guardians who may have the same belief system as I do, or belief system that isn’t one of the 31 options.”

That person said they were aware of the announcement back in June but they didn’t think the list of options would be so limited. They plan to “wait to comply” in the “hopes that it will be adjusted.” (There’s no reason to think Hegseth will backtrack on any of this, no matter how many chaplains or service members complain about it, because he doesn’t give a shit about them.)

Another member—a Christian—said it was obvious what the expectation was. This was nothing more than an “attempt to push Christianity onto the troops, and there's implicit intimidation there.”

MRFF says they’ve received “38 complaints and counting” about the revision, but as usual, the group isn’t offering any proof to back that up. We’re just supposed to take their word for it, just as Military.com took their word that MRFF “oversees more than 100,000 clients... roughly 95% of which are Christian.” (I’ve written before about MRFF’s lack of credibility with these types of statements.) I asked the reporter for the Military.com story if he personally spoke to the service members in question—or if he just asked questions via email and MRFF’s Mikey Weinstein was the middle-man—and have not yet received a response.

Still, no matter how many complaints MRFF claims they’ve received, the list is a problem for anyone whose beliefs don’t conveniently fit into one of those categories.

It’s not clear yet when members of the other military branches will be expected to change their labels but that will likely happen soon.

It’s appalling that the people defending religious freedom abroad are now being told their own religious identities may not count under this government.

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