Ex-pastor at Pete Hegseth's church calls for public executions and says Bible backs Ice raids [View all]

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/22/pastor-joshua-haymes-pete-hegseth

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has repeatedly endorsed the Reformation Red Pill podcast, and has appeared on four episodes. But the former pastor who hosts the show, and who attends Hegseth’s theocratic church, has voiced a range of extreme positions in recent months on issues including Ice raids, capital punishment, the racist “great replacement” theory, adultery and neo-Nazism.

The revelations come on top of recent media reports focused on Hegseth also boosting a video of Douglas Wilson and other Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) pastors arguing that women should lose the vote in the United States. They also follow previous revelations about Hegseth’s links to or apparent sympathies for Christian nationalist positions.

Joshua Haymes is a member of the CREC-aligned Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship (PHRF), and his podcasts advocate for the CREC’s moral and theological positions. As the Guardian previously reported, he once served as a pastoral intern at the church. Online he has claimed that liberalism is a greater threat to the US than neo-Nazism, and that the Bible is “pro-Ice raids”. On X, he has also advocated for capital punishment for adultery and abortion, and appeared to call for the drowning of LGBTQ+ Pride marchers.
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In a 17 July podcast, Haymes reacted to a podcast by the New Evangelicals, a Christian non-profit critical of Christian nationalism, in order to argue the case that Ice immigration raids have a biblical basis, and went on to link his claims with a version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theories.