It’s pretty terrifying how often the Trump administration tries to invoke Christianity to do whatever it wants. The fact that no one involved seems to know much about theology doesn’t make it any less terrifying, even if it does occasionally make it kind of funny, if only in a “You have to laugh” way. Example: At a worship service at the Pentagon yesterday, Secretary Of Defense Pete Hegseth invoked the Pulp Fiction bastardization of a Bible verse while trying to bless the United States’ war in Iran.
Word&Way first reported the connection and USA Today has a video. What Hegseth presented was actually a bastardization of a bastardization; he presented the prayer as “CSAR 25:17″—”CSAR” coming from the military term “combat search and rescue”—and said it was “meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.” Of course, the verse describes “great vengeance and furious anger” but adds “and you will know my call sign as Sandy 1,” which is the lead pilot of a CSAR mission. You probably had to be there.
The real Ezekiel 25:17 shares some slight similarities with the Pulp Fiction version at the very end, though it’s less grandiose. But most of what Hegseth cites is movie invention. There’s no mention of a brother or the valley of darkness. To add another layer to it, the version in Pulp Fiction is not even really an invention of Quentin Tarantino; it was mostly lifted from the intro to the Sonny Chiba martial arts movie The Bodyguard. Maybe Hegseth is a big fan of 1970s Japanese cinema; alternatively, maybe he’s a big fan of Madonna’s monologue in Ariana Grande’s “God Is A Woman” video. Regardless, it doesn’t seem like the guy facing impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” is reading the Bible all that regularly.
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