Pete Hegseth, Doug Wilson, & a Christian Nationalist Link to Hindu Nationalism

Speaking at The Riverside Church in New York City

My name is Peter Friedrich. I'm an independent journalist, I'm an author and for the past 20ish years, I have specialized in covering issues related to human rights in India especially, in the past seven or eight years, issues related to Hindu nationalism. But I'm also speaking to you as somebody who — I really don't want to be here right now — as somebody who was raised in an explicitly Christian nationalist household.

You see as, as Trump has been picking cabinet nominees for the past couple of weeks, there was a name that really popped out to me. It is not actually Pete Hegseth, the nominee for the Secretary of Defense. It is the pastor who leads the church that Pete Hegseth goes to — or the network of churches: Doug Wilson in Idaho.

Doug Wilson in Idaho is an explicitly Christian nationalist pastor, who leads a network of churches, who is extremely influential. When I was growing up I thought he was a fringe figure. His books were on the bookshelves in my home, but I thought he was fringe.

This year he was on Tucker Carlson. This year he's now the pastor that heads this network of churches that the Secretary of Defense comes from and this year — wow, I really don't want to be here. And this year, Doug Wilson has that level of influence over the government.

Doug Wilson, when I was growing up, I thought he was a fringe figure. His books were on the bookshelf in my house.

He believes — and he and the network of people that he's linked to believed — in things that I was taught growing up. That homosexuals should be stoned. That women should only ever wear dresses. That women should not go to college. Probably men shouldn't either, but definitely not women. That women should be under the authority of their fathers until that authority is transferred over to their husbands.

That that we should establish the country — “reestablish” the country — on the Torah. On Biblical law. And that. in retrospect looking back on it, that we should preserve “American Heritage” which, in retrospect, I I grew up in a house where all of this was taught. In retrospect, looking back on it, I came to realize how deeply it was rooted in white supremacy

I’m from California and yet, somehow, growing up in the country, we flew a Confederate flag in my house. The people the people that we were connected with, that we listened to, that were speaking at my church were coming from South Africa, having fought in Rhodesia on the Rhodesian side in favor of white supremacy.

I hadn't thought about Doug Wilson for for decades, probably about 20 years, but then his name came across my radar earlier this year — and it was before I saw that Pete Hegseth, the nominee for the Secretary of Defense, goes to a Doug Wilson affiliated church.

In July 2024, Doug Wilson's name came across my radar because I’ve spent the past 20ish years working on issues related to human rights in India, including exposing how the current government in India is massacring Christians in India. And I saw, in July at the National Conservatism conference, how Doug Wilson — once I thought he was a fringe figure, now he’s apparently in the mainstream — was there as a major, primary speaker and he was speaking alongside a speaker from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS, which is a paramilitary in India which espouses a Hindu nationalist ideology which, very much like Doug Wilson's Christian nationalist ideology, seeks to transform India into an exclusively Hindu Nation. He was also speaking alongside a speaker from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political wing of that RSS paramilitary, which currently rules India, and has ruled India for the past 10 years, and which also espouses a Hindu nationalist ideology.

I realized, having grown up in a Christian nationalist household — the thing is, I walked away from that 20 years ago because I met people from India, I met people from another culture, from other religions, I met people who are attracted to the same gender — and I realized, 20 years ago, that those meetings mean that I have to abandon that ideology and adopt the teachings of Jesus. That we are supposed to “do unto others,” we are supposed to love “the least of these,” we're going to be judged according to how we treat the least of these, etc, etc.

And hell no, we're not mandated to establish a theocracy on Earth, which is what I was raised to do, I was raised to establish a theocracy on Earth. We're not mandated to do that. We’re mandated to work for the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not of this Earth. And I learned that from meeting Indian people, especially.

Now, today, 20 years later, I'm standing here because all of these figures: their books were on my bookshelves. This gentleman, Doug Wilson, he wasn't in my home, but many of the other figures who were, at the time, leaders — and have now fallen into scandal — of this theocratic movement in America were in my home. And now, 20 years later, I'm looking at this and, as a journalist and an activist working on issues related to Hindu nationalism, I'm disappointed but beginning to realize that the fight against Christian nationalism and the fight against Hindu nationalism have become one and the same.

Our mandate as believers, as people who want to follow Jesus, is to fight against the twisting of our faith and the combination of our faith with politics.