President Trump has been trimming the upper ranks of his administration. He has, for instance, fired two of his more notorious cabinet members: Kristi Noem from secretary of homeland security and Pam Bondi from attorney general.

But perhaps more surprising was the axing of army generals in the midst of his Iran war. First and foremost was Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. Apparently George had sought a meeting with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth after the secretary had blocked promotions for women and Black officers. Instead of meeting, Hegseth fired him.

George wasn’t alone. Also fired were General David Hodne, head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Major General William Green, head of the Army’s Chaplain Corps. The three officers were apparently all tainted by “woke” thinking.

The secretary of war has been busily remaking the military into something more amenable to his and his boss’s liking. He is, for example, dumbing it down. The U.S. has some of the world’s finest universities, yet incredibly Hegseth has banned active-duty service members from attending them. To date that includes Princeton, Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown, Yale and Harvard. He calls them “factories of anti-American resentment” that promote “wokeness and weakness.” In other words, they encourage thinking outside the MAGA box.

He has also purged a number of officers who apparently weren’t ideologically suitable. Military analysts and former officials say some are being forced out for simply resisting illegal orders. Hegseth has boasted that U.S. forces would show “no quarter, no mercy.” In military law, “no quarter” means killing combatants who try to surrender, something the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual identifies as criminal behaviour.

Presumably in keeping with suppressing “wokeness,” specifically the dreaded DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), Hegseth is withholding promotions from women and Black senior officers. Many of the officers he’s fired were also Black or female. It could, of course, just be simple bigotry.

Perhaps most disturbing is Hegseth’s imposition of Christian nationalist doctrine. He hosts monthly evangelical Christian worship services within the Pentagon, and asked the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for a victorious Iran war “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Hegseth is a great fan of the Crusades; he has a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his chest along with “Deus Vult” (God wills it), the Crusaders battle cry.

Needless to say, the Pope begged to differ about Jesus and war, observing that Christianity has often been “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.”

Hegseth, however, is no Catholic. He is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, an outfit influenced by a movement called Christian Reconstructionism. It calls for the implementation of biblical law and a theocratic state based on Christian patriarchy.

He has introduced clergy from his denomination into the military, including Reverend Doug Wilson, the most influential voice in the movement. Wilson has defended Christian slavery and argued that women should be denied the vote. Other chaplains have complained about being sidelined, and resources for non-Christian service members have been reduced.

Where Trump and Hegseth are going with their dumbed-down Jesus army isn’t apparent. Yesterday they were threatening to bomb Iran back to the stone age (with God on their side). Tomorrow, who knows. But the mightiest military in the world in the hands of a criminal narcissist and a Christian jihadist is not a comforting thought.