So . . . Pete Hegseth and the Iran War
Blog & Mablog
Canon Press
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
So the war in Iran has been going on for a little over a month now, and enough of it has unfolded that I am now being asked on the regular what I think of the big picture....There is an additional factor in all of this in bello discussion. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, worships as part of our church service in Washington D.C. How does that factor into all of this?...On the one hand, some critics want us to intervene and “make Pete stop it.” But then, think for a minute. Do these same critics really want me or any of my fellow pastors—with no background on the intel, with no military training at this level, with no security clearance, and with no basis for sticking our noses into the internal workings of the Pentagon—to be giving Pete any specific policy advice?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So Pete Heg-Seth and the Iran War, April 8th, 2026. Introduction. So the war in Iran |
| 0:13.2 | has been going on for a little over a month now, and enough of it has unfolded that I am now |
| 0:18.1 | being asked on the regular, what I think of the big picture. |
| 0:25.4 | This post this morning would be my attempt to answer that question. As a reminder, these preliminary thoughts are what I wrote right after the fighting started. Just war theory. When Christians |
| 0:29.5 | come to evaluate war, any war, it is genuinely foolish to begin the reasoning from scratch. |
| 0:34.7 | The church has been in this violent world for 2,000 years now, |
| 0:37.9 | and that time has spanned countless wars. We have had quite long enough to figure out what we make |
| 0:42.7 | of it all. And in the course of these very human events, we have hammered out what is known as |
| 0:46.4 | just war theory, and in my mind that is obviously the best place to start. As a summary, here's |
| 0:51.7 | something I wrote in opposition to the war in Iraq. |
| 0:54.6 | Quote, over the centuries Christian theologians, beginning notably with Augustine, |
| 0:58.7 | have developed criteria under which war may be undertaken. There are two basic categories. |
| 1:03.6 | First is use ad bellum, the circumstances under which it is appropriate to go to war, |
| 1:08.3 | and use in bellow, the standards of conduct within war itself. |
| 1:11.7 | For the most part, with certain notable exceptions, I believe our military does well in fighting |
| 1:15.8 | in a way that lines up with use in bellow, e.g. not executing prisoners, not attacking civilians |
| 1:21.2 | as a principal target, etc. But on the criteria for war ad bellum, we have it all gummed up. |
| 1:26.3 | Such standards include, one, having a just cause, |
| 1:29.5 | two, an appropriate authority declaring the war, three, having a righteous intention, four, |
| 1:34.3 | having a reasonable chance of success, and five, having proportionality between the ends sought |
| 1:39.3 | and the means used. A just war? A piece I wrote back in the day opposing the war in Iraq. |
| 1:43.8 | So what about this war? I will reserve the use in Bello question to the last section of this post, the one that deals with Pete Hegeseth and the CRAC. When it comes to the other category, the use outbellum criteria, having to do with whether we have any business doing this at all, I would give us different grades in different areas. And in what follows, I'm going |
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