Pete Hegseth shrinks military's recognized religions list, erasing atheists and Humanists

The Defense Secretary slashed the military's religious categories from 200+ to 31, making countless service members effectively invisible

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The Department of Defense/War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, has just pared down the list of recognized religious labels in the military 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 to well over 200.

It’s yet another example of the Trump administration just doing away with useful information as part of their irrational war on “wokeness.”

Pete Hegseth (screenshot via X/Twitter)

Here’s why this is important even if you’re not in the military yourself: One of the strengths of our military is that it brings together people from a variety of backgrounds who are working together for a common cause. In theory, it’s supposed to be merit-based; it’s not dependent on your family’s name or your religious background.

One of the ways the military can accommodate people who had previously felt left out of the system is by simply allowing soldiers to more accurately describe their beliefs. Why? Because, for example, a military chaplain who only knows you’re “Christian” isn’t going to be as helpful as one who knows you’re “Southern Baptist.” Similarly, someone who has “No religion” is very different from someone who’s explicitly “atheist.” More information is good for everybody involved.

(Also, if you knew the military had a sizable population of Humanists, it might make it easier to hire Humanist chaplains, something that still hasn’t happened.)

It’s also important because there are benefits to being associated with a religious group. Since religious beliefs must be accommodated, the same rationale that allows Christians in the military to gather for Bible study can be used by Humanists to meet up and talk about philosophy. They can all have time off to attend worship services regardless of what that looks like. If there are enough people with a particular label, they may be able to have a dedicated space to gather. And, of course, if you die in combat, you can be assured you’ll be treated in accordance with your beliefs instead of some generically Christian one.

Before 2014, there were a limited number of “faith codes” you could use to describe yourself. They included “Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Jewish, Buddhist, or one of more than 100 Christian denominations.” But non-religious soldiers could only choose from “atheist” or “no religious preference.”

After 2014, the list was expanded to include “Humanist.” A hard-fought win that was years in the making!

In 2017, the list was expanded again to include even more specific non-religious categories like “Heathen,” “Deism,” “No Preference,” and “No Religion.”

Again, the goal was accuracy. There was finally an understanding that the spectrum of non-religious thought wasn’t as simple as saying “I’m not.” Much like there are many denominations of Christianity, each of which has meaning for people who belong to those groups, there are non-religious people who believe “Humanist” or “Deist” or “Agnostic” more accurately describes who they are and what they believe.

That’s where we were at after 2017. The military has always treated faith like it’s a net positive for good soldiers but they were finally using language that was less overtly Christian. And they were finally more open to the diversity of thought in an increasingly non-religious country.

But Hegseth is now blowing up that progress like it’s a harmless fishing boat in the Caribbean.

Hegseth, a Christian Nationalist who wants to turn the military into crusaders for Christ, posted a video last December saying the list of faiths and beliefs would be “simplified” to get rid of all that diversity.

That’s why today at my direction, we are also simplifying the faith and belief coding system. In recent years, it ballooned to over 200 overly complex faith and belief codes. An overwhelming majority of the military population only uses six codes. Eleven are not used by anyone. We’re going to streamline it and move it to a new list of religious affiliation codes so that our chaplains can actually use it to minister better to the flock.

He said he would “streamline” the list of military religious affiliation codes. But how would that help chaplains “minister better to the flock”? If anything, as I said earlier, having less specific information to work with would make their jobs harder. Republicans want to eliminate an expansion of religious codes that took over a decade to approve for the simple reason that they can’t handle complexity of thought.

It’s stupidity for the sake of stupidity.

Hegseth doesn’t understand the military and he refuses to listen to the people who have spent their lives in it, so his only solution is to destroy what others have carefully crafted. Instead of deferring to military leaders, Hegseth is imposing his idiotic will because he always assumes he knows best. It’s the kind of unearned arrogance that defines the modern Republican Party.

Anyway, for months now, I’ve been asking the Department of Defense/War to send me the updated list, but they kept telling me they had no updates. The list hadn’t changed despite Hegseth’s claims. I thought (hoped?) that perhaps he just forgot about it.

Alas. Last week, I was tipped off that the list had indeed been changed, though the DoD didn’t respond to my request for the official memo saying so. All I’ve been able to get access to is the first page of the memo which doesn’t include the full list:

Yesterday, however, Military.com (an independent site) said the list was updated and would go into effect within two months:

… The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and obtained by Military.com.

This latest revision to the faith codes comes at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Tata-signed memo, done to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.” It calls for the previously instituted faith and belief codes to be revised within a 60-day period from the issuance of the memorandum.

“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” Tata wrote.

All of that is bullshit. It doesn’t make chaplains’ jobs any easier when they have less useful information about what service members believe.

Let’s be blunt: This is being done to erase and push out military personnel who are not Christian or a member of one of the larger religious denominations (that even Hegseth can’t ignore).

According to the memo, which I’m still trying to obtain, the new list of 31 codes includes Agnostic, Baha’i, Buddhist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hindu, Islam (Muslim), Judaism (Jewish), No Religion, Other Religions, Sikh, and 21 different flavors of Christianity.

This is the purported list:

What’s gone? Humanist. Heathen. Deist. Pagan. Wiccan. Atheist. And literally dozens upon dozens of smaller religious groups.

Think about what this means: If you’re an atheist, like I am, the only sensible category would be “No Religion.” What about people who no longer buy into organized religion but still think there’s a Higher Power somewhere up there? They would also be listed under “No Religion.” What about people who never think about religion at all? “No Religion.”

It’s a catch-all term that erases open atheists from the military by lumping them in with people who don’t share their views at all.

This isn’t helpful for Christians either, because there’s far more diversity under the broader Christian umbrella than the 21 options listed here. There are progressive Baptists and very conservative Southern Baptists. The United Methodist Church recently underwent a massive schism but the list doesn’t recognize that. If you belong to a non-denominational megachurch, are you “Christian - Non-denominational” or “Christian - Evangelical”?

There are also very different kinds of Jewish people just as there are different sects of Islam.

None of it matters to Hegseth.

There’s no rhyme or reason for this list to be shrunk, but we’re doing it anyway because Hegseth wants to destroy the military from the inside by making it less welcoming for the type of people he doesn’t like: minorities of any stripe.

As one anonymous chaplain told Military.com:

“There’s a lot of faith groups out there that I particularly don’t have an interest in, but there are service members who are sending their sons and daughters into the military, and they’re expecting pastoral care for their sons and daughters as needed—and I don’t think they’re going to get it.

“All it takes is the chaplain to say, ‘Well, I don’t see them on this list. I don’t know how I can help you. Maybe go off the installation and see if you can find anybody who can work with you. Goodbye.’ And that’s it. That’s not the American way.”

To put this another way, the National Cemetery Administration (under the Department of Veterans Affairs) has over 80 “emblems of belief” that they can put on the headstones of dead service members.

That means, when it comes to the military, our government is more interested in your religious affiliation when you’re dead than when you’re alive.

Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, said this move by Hegseth was “entirely unsurprising”:

As much as Hegseth wants to push the lie that the U.S. is a Christian Nation, repeating a lie doesn’t make it true. This is a nation with hundreds of faith and belief systems and our military reflects that simple fact. That Hegseth apparently believes numbers larger than 30 are just too complicated to handle says a lot about his management of the Pentagon.

If reports are accurate, his decision to remove the atheist designation makes it clear this has nothing to do with “streamlining” anything. The exclusion of millions of Americans and countless members of our military sends a message about who counts as a “real” American to Hegseth and the extremists aligned with him.

No matter how hard White Christian Nationalists like Hegseth try, they will never succeed in writing us out of our history or in silencing us. Atheist soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians are patriots committed to protecting our nation and our Constitution. It’s a shame we can’t say the same thing about Hegseth.

This unnecessary change is all the more infuriating because it solves a problem that doesn’t exist while creating a bunch of new ones. No service members were harmed because the military allowed people to identify themselves accurately. No chaplain was overwhelmed because there were too many religious categories. If anything, the expanded list was a small but meaningful acknowledgment that the people serving this country come from a wide range of backgrounds and deserve to be treated accordingly.

No one would ever say a doctor is better served by having fewer options to diagnose you. Yet that’s effectively the logic Hegseth is applying here. And this hits hardest on the very groups that have spent years fighting for recognition, like Humanists. Their inclusion on the earlier list reflected the reality that America’s military is more diverse than we give it credit for, not less. Hegseth has been on a mission to downplay that diversity, ejecting people who don’t fit his vision of what the military ought to look like and preventing minorities from receiving earned promotions. As if pretending diversity doesn’t exist will magically make it all go away.

This move doesn’t save money. It doesn’t improve readiness. It doesn’t strengthen unit cohesion. It doesn’t help chaplains. It doesn’t make the military more effective in any measurable way. All that will happen is that thousands of service members will be less accurately represented in the system.

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