“I pray that God kills him.” - “Right. We want him to be crucified with Christ”

There are moments when, as a journalist, you pause. Not out of uncertainty, but because what you are reading is so open and so brazen that you wonder whether the world has simply stopped feeling shame. Brooks Potteiger is a pastor. Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, Nashville. And he is the spiritual advisor to Pete Hegseth - the man who leads the United States Department of Defense. The same Potteiger whom Hegseth invited into the Pentagon in August to pray there. In front of soldiers. In the name of God.

Pete Hegseth with the pastor he trusts: Brooks Potteiger

Last week, Potteiger sat on the podcast Reformation Red Pill with Joshua Haymes - not a coincidence, not an unfamiliar format, because Hegseth has appeared there at least four times. Haymes is also a member of the Pilgrim Hill congregation. They know each other, they think alike, they pray together. The conversation turned to James Talarico. Democratic state representative in Texas, recently won primary for the U.S. Senate. Talarico is a Christian - but he rejects Christian nationalism. And that, it seems, is reason enough.

Haymes said it without hesitation: “I pray that God kills him.”

Potteiger replied: “Right. We want him to be crucified with Christ.”

Haymes continued: “And if it is not God’s will - then stop him, by any means, O God.”

You sit with that for a while. Let it sink in. The pastor of the American Secretary of Defense publicly endorses a death wish against an elected politician - and finds it so natural that he does not even hesitate. No pause, no reflection, not a single moment of doubt. Just: right. This is not faith. Faith doubts, carries, endures. What is happening here is something else. God’s name is taken and placed over a political opponent like a verdict that no longer requires justification. And because it is framed as a prayer, it is meant to be untouchable.

But it is not untouchable. It is the opposite of what religion in a free society should stand for. Hegseth remains silent. The Pentagon remains silent. And Potteiger continues to sit where Hegseth placed him - close to the center of American military power, close enough to pray, close enough to be heard.

In November, Talarico will face the winner of the Republican primary - either Senator John Cornyn or Attorney General Ken Paxton. Until then, one question remains, one that cannot be prayed away: how many of these moments will it take before someone in Washington stands up and says that this is not normal. That it never was. And that a Secretary of Defense whose closest spiritual advisor publicly welcomes the death of political opponents has no place in that office.