At a Marine Corps Base Quantico address Hegseth led troops in what he called a Send Me Tour and repeatedly invoked Isaiah 6:8, saying, “Here am I; send me,” to rally support for war with Iran. The Substack author, a self-identified veteran and man of faith, argues that Isaiah’s call is a prophetic commission to rebuke Israel, not a recruitment slogan for foreign military action, and points to Isaiah’s vision that “They shall beat their swords into plowshares” as evidence the book largely warns against reliance on military power. The author cites a pastor who told HuffPost that Hegseth’s use of Isaiah reveals “a clear ignorance of Isaiah.” The piece notes Hegseth’s March Pentagon worship service prayer asking for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” closed “in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ,” and contrasts that language with Jesus’s teachings to bless and forgive enemies. The writer says he is not a pacifist, invokes the long Christian debate over just war going back to Augustine, but concludes there is no biblical warrant for Hegseth to decide who deserves mercy or to twist prophetic texts into a war slogan.
