Remaking God in Our Image: When violence begins to sound like faith

A few months ago, as the war with Iran was entering its third week, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, stood in the Pentagon, spoke about overwhelming military force, and asked Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

I felt something in me tighten. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it went too far. I know the difference.

I am not someone who flinches at religious language in public life. I’ve spent most of my life in the South. This is how conversations happen. God shows up in staff meetings, on football fields, and occasionally, in places God was probably hoping to avoid.  If you want to be part of public life, you make space for that language. I’ve tried to do that responsibly. At its best, it opens us toward one another. It reminds us of humility, care, something larger than ourselves.

Which is precisely why this moment was so troubling. What Secretary Hegseth said was not a prayer for guidance. It was not humility before God. It was the suggestion that American military power is aligned with a particular religious claim. And not just any claim. But a claim that risks framing violence not as tragic necessity, but as righteousness.

In the context of a war unfolding in a majority Muslim region, invoking Jesus Christ in this way is not neutral. It signals something. It narrows the moral frame of the conflict. It risks turning human suffering into something that feels spiritually endorsed.

When Secretary Hegseth uses explicitly Christian language to frame military action, Christianity is not just being expressed. It is being used. Used to create moral clarity where there should be moral weight. Used to suggest that overwhelming force carries not only strategic justification, but sacred backing.

And when language tied to the Crusades resurfaces, the old cry of “Deus vult,” “God wills it”, not as tragedy but as justification, we are not just invoking faith. We are selectively remembering history in a way that blesses violence rather than reckoning with it. The Crusades decimated and spread terror for Jews and for Muslims, each in different and devastating ways. This is not a legacy to be reclaimed. It is a stain on Christian history, not a triumph. And if this is the history we are echoing now, even implicitly, then God help us. The Crusades are not a model of moral clarity. They are a warning.

I have deep respect for my Christian colleagues, not only for how they live Jesus’ teachings of compassion and humility, but for how seriously many of them take their responsibility within a shared spiritual world. One that includes Muslim, Jewish, and other religious siblings whose lives are bound up with one another. Which is exactly why this moment calls for clarity.

In my, Jewish, tradition, we are deeply wary of anyone who claims to know God’s will in moments of violence. Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom. Moses challenges God after the Golden Calf. Again and again, our texts refuse easy certainty. They make a habit of interrupting it. We do not assume that God is on our side. If anything, we ask the opposite: are we acting in a way that could possibly be worthy of God?

Because in our tradition, human beings are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. That is not a claim of superiority. It is a demand. A demand that our actions reflect something of the Divine: restraint, dignity, a reverence for life.

That question should haunt us, especially in moments of violence. But when leaders like Secretary Hegseth speak as if God is aligned with our power, something shifts. We are no longer asking whether our actions reflect the image of God. We are reshaping God to reflect our actions.

And that, in my understanding, is idolatry. Not the idolatry of ancient statues, but something far more dangerous: the creation of a God who looks like us, who justifies what we have already decided to do, who blesses our certainty instead of challenging it.

That is what I hear in this moment. A collapse of distance. From humility to certainty. From moral struggle to moral clarity. From invoking God as a source of accountability to invoking God as a source of endorsement. When that distance collapses, something essential is lost. Not just politically, but spiritually.

We all have a role in how our traditions show up in the world. Anyone who speaks in the language of faith is responsible for how that language is used, and misused.

But I want to say this clearly to my Christian colleagues. This is a moment to speak with moral clarity. To name when the name of Jesus is being used to sanctify violence. To refuse the framing of war as divinely endorsed. To remember that the history of Christianity includes not only its beauty, but the real harm done when faith is fused with power and certainty.

There is a difference between praying for those in harm’s way and invoking God in a way that suggests divine alignment with force. That difference is not subtle. And it is not theoretical.

It is heard by Muslims who recognize the echoes. It is felt by Jews who remember where that certainty can lead. And it shapes what Christianity becomes in the eyes of the world.

So, this is the question now. Not whether God is on our side. But whether we are willing to stop remaking God in our image.

Rabbi Joshua Lesser is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Bet Haverim, the community he helped lead and shape for more than two decades. As an organizational consultant with Strelo, he works with congregations, nonprofits, and leaders navigating change, strengthening culture, and building healthier systems. He is also the author of The Deep End, a Substack dedicated to spirituality, justice, leadership, healing, and the messy, beautiful work of being human.