asking the American people<\/a> to pray \u201con bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ\u201d for the safety of our troops.<\/span><\/p>\nNot an iota of irritation. Not a teaspoon of tumult.<\/span><\/p>\nThe outrage is a performance \u2014 and a particularly threadbare one, conjured in response to perhaps the most banal, good-faith, unambiguously decent request a public official has made in recent memory.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen Hegseth stood at that podium and invoked Christ\u2019s name on behalf of men and women in harm\u2019s way, he was drawing on something Americans have done since before there was an America. George Washington is remembered kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge. FDR led the entire nation in prayer on D-Day, asking God for strength and providence as young Americans stormed the beaches at Normandy. Patton once called his chaplain and asked, point blank, for a prayer for good weather. This is the tradition Hegseth reached for \u2014 long, deep, distinctly American \u2014 the instinct of a nation that has always understood that some moments call for more than a press release.<\/span><\/p>\nThe critics sputtering this week would have you believe that a cabinet secretary expressing his Christian faith in public is somehow a threat. To whom, exactly \u2014 to me? I am one of the people they\u2019d presumably be defending. I am a Jew in a country that is, by any honest accounting, a majority-Christian nation with a majority-Christian culture and a majority-Christian history. I have known this every day of my life. It has never made me feel like a second-class citizen, because that is not what minority rights actually mean.<\/span><\/p>\nMinority rights mean the government cannot compel me to convert. They mean I cannot be prosecuted for my religion, fired from a federal job because I observe Shabbat, or told to leave the country because I don\u2019t accept the Nicene Creed. They mean I have the full protection of the law and the full dignity of citizenship regardless of my faith. That is the promise of America, and it is a magnificent one \u2014 imperfectly but genuinely kept.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat it does not mean is that we all must pretend America has no religious character. It does not mean a Christian official must sand his faith down to a fine, inoffensive powder before speaking in public. It does not mean that mentioning Jesus at a press conference is an act of aggression against anyone.<\/span><\/p>\nThe conflation of those two things \u2014 genuine religious persecution versus a majoritarian culture expressing itself \u2014 is doing serious damage to our civic life. Every time a Christian politician prays in public, a certain class of commentator treats it as a prelude to theocracy. This is not only dishonest. It is, as a Jew, a little insulting. It flattens my actual history \u2014 a history of pogroms and inquisitions and gas chambers \u2014 and asks me to treat a Pentagon official\u2019s invocation of Christ as a comparable offense. I decline.<\/span><\/p>\nThere is something else worth saying here. Every Saturday morning, in synagogues across America \u2014 certainly in mine \u2014 we recite a prayer for the safety of the United States Armed Forces. We do this whether American troops are in active combat or not. We do this because we understand, in the marrow of our tradition, that the soldiers who stand between a free society and its enemies deserve our gratitude and our supplication before God. Pete Hegseth was asking the American people to do what Jews have been doing in shul every week for generations. I recognize the impulse. I share it.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd this: if the worst my government is guilty of is asking faithful Americans to bend their knee in prayer and petition God for the safety of our troops, I will recommit myself to that government every day, and twice on Saturday. More Americans engaging in prayer can only be a positive movement for the nation.<\/span><\/p>\nThe faith Hegseth expressed \u2014 one that asks its adherents to appeal to God on behalf of soldiers who may not come home \u2014 is not my enemy. It never has been.<\/span><\/p>\nAmerica is a country where Christians pray, where Christian faith shapes public life, where references to Jesus are woven into the culture from the Pledge to the presidency. That is not a grievance. It is simply what a majority-Christian democracy looks like. A proud, observant Jew \u2014 or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an atheist \u2014 can accept that reality without feeling diminished by it. In fact, intellectual honesty requires it.<\/span><\/p>\nThe capacity to hold both things at once \u2014 to cherish the legal protections that shield the minority while accepting the cultural reality of the majority \u2014 is one of the more demanding things American pluralism asks of us. It is also non-negotiable. It is the deal.<\/span><\/p>\nHegseth asked people to pray for our troops. I hope they do. I will be saying my own prayers for those soldiers \u2014 in my own tradition, as I do each day.<\/span><\/p>\n* * *<\/p>\n
Daniella Greenbaum Davis is an Emmy-award winning producer and communications strategist. Follow her on X: @DGreenbaum<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nThe views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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