President Donald Trump is using Christian rhetoric to rally core supporters behind an increasingly unpopular war with Iran, religious and political experts say. The message is being amplified from evangelical pulpits, where the conflict is being cast as a battle between good and evil.
Trump, who announced a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, is struggling to persuade Americans to support a war that has sent energy prices soaring, killed American troops and Iranians and weakened his standing among voters.
In recent days, the president has repeatedly turned to Christian language, calling the rescue of a downed US airman in Iran an "Easter miracle" and suggesting the US-Israeli strikes have God’s blessing.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went further, citing the Bible to justify the use of "overwhelming violence" against enemies he said "deserve no mercy".
The message has been echoed by conservative Christian leaders, from figures close to Trump such as Robert Jeffress, an influential Texas pastor, to small-town preachers. They stress the biblical significance of the modern state of Israel, which many evangelicals associate with prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The War in Iran as a Struggle Between Good and Evil
Jackson Lahmeyer, an evangelical pastor and Trump supporter running for the US Congress, said he had told his congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in some Sunday sermons that wars are typically battles between good and evil. Iran, he added, was no exception.
"Evil people exist, and if you do not deal with them, they will deal with you," he said. "Good and evil, that is the story of the Bible. The good news is that in the end, good will always prevail."
White evangelicals are among Trump’s strongest supporters. Exit polls show that more than 80% voted for him in 2024. Surveys suggest they make up about one third of his voter base.
That political reality is a major reason Trump and members of his cabinet are increasingly leaning toward a religious framework for the conflict in Iran, several political and religious experts told Reuters.
"Look at Donald Trump’s standing in the polls and realize that he has just over a third of the public on his side. Much of that voter base is white evangelical Christians," said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in South Carolina and an expert on religion in American politics.
Faith as Political Strategy
The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s use of Christian rhetoric, but spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that the president has taken bold steps "to eliminate the threat of this terrorist regime while protecting the American people for generations".
American presidents have appealed to the Christian faith in times of war throughout history. The Trump administration’s use of harsh and unambiguous language to frame and justify violence in explicitly religious terms sets it apart.
"It is the same language used during the Crusades in the Middle Ages. You know, we have to stop the infidels, we have to defeat the bad guys," said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University who has published widely on evangelicals and politics. "We have not seen anything like this in American history."
The overt religious messaging has drawn criticism from some Democrats and left-leaning Christian leaders, who see it as a misuse of faith to justify an unpopular five-week-long war.
Pope Leo XIV addressed tens of thousands in St Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday, which for 1.4bn Catholics marks the opening of Holy Week before Easter. He described the conflict as "atrocious" and said the name of Jesus should never be invoked to propagate a war.
Doug Pagitt, a progressive evangelical pastor, said the administration was promoting a "very specific Christian narrative" to keep evangelicals aligned. The message, he said, was that "Trump is on God’s side. You can be calm. Because without a Christian coalition, the MAGA support base is very fragmented."
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week, 60% of respondents opposed US military attacks on Iran. The poll showed a deep partisan divide, with 74% of Republicans supporting the war versus just 22% of Democrats.
A Worldly Man Whom God Used
Prominent preacher and missionary Franklin Graham praised the attacks on Iran in biblical terms, comparing Trump to Esther, a Jewish queen who, according to the Bible, was elevated by God to save her people from destruction in ancient Persia, modern-day Iran.
In a message to his congregation last Sunday, Ken Peters, pastor of Patriot Church in Tennessee, expressed hope that the war would bring about a "pro-Israel, pro-American Iran", which drew applause, according to a video.
"We see Trump as a secular man that God is using to help us," Peters said in an interview, adding that he supports understanding the war in religious terms.
Hegseth Casts War in Biblical Terms
Hegseth has repeatedly used overtly religious language to describe the war. On Sunday, he compared the rescue of the American airman in Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
"A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing," he said. "God is good."
In a statement to Reuters, Pentagon spokesman Kingsley Wilson said war leaders have long appealed to the Christian faith, pointing to former President Franklin D Roosevelt, who handed out Bibles to soldiers during World War II.
"Secretary Hegseth, along with millions of Americans, is a proud Christian. Encouraging the American people to pray for our troops is not controversial," he added.
Similar religious rhetoric was used by Protestant pastors close to the US president at an Easter event with Trump at the White House last week. Televangelist Paula White-Cain, a senior adviser to the White House Office of Faith-Based Ministries, compared Trump to Jesus and said both had been "betrayed, arrested and falsely accused".
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Texas, who was among the faith leaders who laid hands on Trump during the meeting, told Reuters he did not believe the Iran war was directed against Islam or Muslims, but was instead "a spiritual war between good and evil, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan".