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Another indication of America’s war on Iran being cast in Christian terms reportedly has emerged from the ranks of the U.S. military.
A poster showing a mortar round being fired by a stereotypical western version of Jesus was found at a U.S. Army battalion headquarters at an undisclosed installation outside the U.S. when new troops rotated in, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) told me today.
The black-and-white poster appears to have been produced within the last year, as it bears the watermark of a social-media account that posted a color version, with the same watermark, in May 2025. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to MRFF President and Founder Mikey Weinstein, displaying the poster in a common area violated Pentagon guidelines. “People should be court-martialed for allowing this,” Weinstein said.
Weinstein also said that the poster’s alleged placement meant that high-ranking brass, up to and including generals, would have seen it and, presumably, didn’t have it taken down.
The MRFF typically does not reveal the identities or identifying information of military or intelligence service personnel who come forward with complaints about inappropriate proselytizing or religiosity.
In this case, a combat battalion was rotating in to a military installation outside the U.S., the whistleblower wrote in an email that MRFF then redacted and shared with me:
“[M]e and a couple of the NCOs were going through some things in the work area of our BN [battalion] headquarters here at [redacted] and we discovered a poster of Jesus firing a mortar round that was left over by the previous unit that we rotated in to replace [redacted]. The building were we found it used to be the headquarters and headquarters company for that unit. This really concerned me that the previous unit would have something like [this] especially considering the reports of commanders in the Middle East telling there soldiers that the war with Iran is a holy war and god has anointed Trump to bring about the apocalypse.”
The email was dated Thursday night. To illustrate just how visible the poster would have been to the unit, Weinstein compared the area where it was found to New York’s Times Square and “the work area of the bridge of the starship Enterprise,” from Star Trek.
The point being that this was not something an individual soldier put up in their locker. It was in a high-traffic area where visiting brass would have seen and, presumably, either permitted it or ordered it removed.
In a statement provided by the MRFF, Weinstein said:
“MRFF demands that anyone in the U.S. military chain of command who either directly or indirectly allowed the display of this wretched sectarian poster, drenched in fundamentalist Christian nationalism, dominance, exceptionalism, exclusivity, and superiority in a U.S. military combat battalion headquarters work area (and who knows how many other places?), to be publicly and aggressively punished to the full extent of the law pursuant to General Court Martial under inter alia Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice." [Full statement below.]
Congressional Freethought Caucus co-chairs Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) two weeks ago called on the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate the MRFF claims of prohibited proselytizing by commanders allegedly calling the Iran campaign a holy war. The letter was signed by 28 other members of Congress, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
A color version of the black-and-white image reported to the MRFF on Thursday was posted on Facebook as early as May 3, 2025, by an account called U.S Army W.T.F! moments (USAWTFM). That account shares unusual or comedic images from Army life, suggesting the account was sharing the Jesus poster as an object of amusement or ridicule.
The same image was posted the same day, with the same USAWTFM watermark, on at least one other account that I could find. Similar images have appeared elsewhere since then.
Portraying Jesus in a martial context has been for years both deadly serious but also a source of humor. In 2014, one site promoted a Jesus doll with rocket launcher as a goof.
The 2025 photo of the poster appeared to show the color version mounted on wood, with captions above and below. “DO NOT JUDGE, OR YOU TOO WILL BE JUDGED” read the top caption, attributing it to Matthew 7:1.
Beneath the image appeared to be its title: “MORTAR JESUS.”
The blend of religious imagery and impious irreverence suggest ironic or humorous intent. The religious sentiment behind it might still have been genuine and regulations don’t permit sectarian displays even as satire.
“There’s a slew of directives” against such displays, Weinstein said, in Pentagon regulations, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and, of course, the Constitution.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, however, has proudly flouted the Constitution, military law, procedures, and tradition when it comes to elevating his sectarian beliefs over others, failing to uphold his secular obligations.
He instituted a monthly prayer service led by those who share his evangelical Protestant creed. He joined a weekly White House Bible study that teaches the canard of deicide, blaming the Jews for killing Jesus. And Hegseth has weakened guidelines preventing chaplains from drifting into sectarian bias and proselytization.
Last week, Hegseth told CBS that, “The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.”
The Pentagon has yet to comment publicly on my report that some service members told the MRFF that commanders were portraying the Iran War as a holy war, in some cases framing it as part of biblical prophecy involving Armageddon and the return of Jesus.
Full March 20, 2026, statement from MRFF President Mikey Weinstein
This repulsive and completely unconstitutional, immoral, unethical and illicit poster of Jesus firing a mortar round only further immeasurably buttresses the absolute validity of the equally repugnant and repellent ‘Armageddon narrative of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament’ spewed forth by a number of U.S. military commanders to their subordinates as divine justification from Christ after America’s unprovoked attack on Iran on February 28-March 1, 2026.
The flagrant display of this heinous poster in an actual working area space of the headquarters of a U.S. military combat battalion, viciously violates a slew of Department of Defense Directives, Instructions and Regulations, including, but not limited to, Joint Ethics Regulation (JER) DoD 5500.07-R. Of course it is a prima facie violation of the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution as well.
MRFF demands that anyone in the U.S. military chain of command who either directly or indirectly allowed the display of this wretched sectarian poster, drenched in fundamentalist Christian nationalism, dominance, exceptionalism, exclusivity, and superiority in a U.S. military combat battalion headquarters work area (and who knows how many other places?), to be publicly and aggressively punished to the full extent of the law pursuant to General Court Martial under inter alia Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
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I’m an independent journalist whose reporting is made possible by reader support. As a former executive producer at MSNBC, I helped create Up w/ Chris Hayes and previously was a senior producer on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. Your paid subscription helps me keep reporting.
This is the greatest perversion yet. I'm afraid that nothing can stop the self-righteous.
"Pete Hegseth, however, has proudly flaunted the Constitution,"
should be "flouted," I think?