Podcast host Joshua Haymes voices range of extreme views and says liberalism a greater threat to US than neo-Nazism

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.

  • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    Go for it. If the American public keeps sitting on their ass for public beheadings, then I guess we can consider them all complicit.

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    I would be morbidly fascinated to understand the logic. Like it has to fall apart on any kind of examination. But nobody just asks for clarity about internal contradictions? Religion is so weird to me.

    • khannie@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There is no logic unfortunately. The Bible was used to justify slavery by slavers. You can twist the book into any view you want once you don’t care about others.

      If there’s a hell they’re going there though. 🔥

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The Bible was used to justify slavery by slavers.

        I always laughed about the xtians that argued that the slaves were freed by xtians because of “the” bible. I always have to laugh at that attempt. Sure, some people maybe read the red-letter stuff and started asking questions and couched their arguments in biblical terms since it’s basically a Rorschach blot.

        I then ask them to explain the history of the Southern Baptists. Also explain to me how it would take centuries to arrive at this supposed xtian conclusion regarding slavery?

  • blattrules@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    In like five more years, I’m sure there are going to be a bunch of churches that don’t even preach religion anymore, you just go there and hear the pastor parrot right wing news outlets. That whole “be nice to others” is inconvenient so they’ll just do away with it and still go to church to seem morally superior to everyone else.

    • turmacar@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I mean it is a religion, and they are zealots. There have been schisms before over both more and less (purgatory / indulgences, ‘not my pope’) than “is empathy important to Christianity”.

      “Religious” is not a synonym for “good” or “kind”. It’s about adherence to a belief system, which may conditionally include aspects of those attributes.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        In my anecdotal experience, it’s been a lot longer than that. They didn’t have Faux until 30 years ago, but they had pamphlets and John Birch meetings and other ways to spread the crazy.

  • don@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Then line up the freshly sharpened guillotines and line up the traitorous degenerate Republicans right behind ‘em. They’re free to bring their bibles with ‘em.

  • compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    The man in charge of the largest military in the world (who is currently testing the limits of his ability to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement) thinks I should be publicly executed for being a gender traitor. How fun and cool.

    • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      And there are people who still thinking standing on the street corner with a sign, or voting in the midterms is going to stop it.

      • compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 months ago

        I’d sure like us to stop it one way or the other. I’m less concerned with exactly how we get there, as long as I don’t end up publicly executed.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I cannot tell you how many people, most especially people from the Enlightened Center, who said it was being so very mean and how people like me should mind my tone when I talked of Gilead states in the immediate aftermath of the corrupted conservatives on the corrupted “supreme” court overturning 50 years of law.

      They said the same thing about the risks of letting the cons back into power, including Taco. That it was ridiculous and that he was only trying to help America, and same for his supporters.

      BULL.

      SHIT.

  • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    Obama’s old pastor said “god damn America” for exactly this sort of thing. Republicans threw a fit.

  • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Leviticus 19:33-34

    When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God

    Exodus 22:21

    Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

    Deuteronomy 4:2

    Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

    Seems pretty straightforward to me.

    • Geobloke@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      Surprised you didn’t mention Jesus and his family fleeing Judea to save him when Herod ordered all male children killed

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Matthew 5:17-20

        17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

        Jesus himself literally says follow the law (of Moses, OT shit) until heaven and earth fucking die, and anyone that doesn’t follow it won’t see heaven.

          • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Check out Deconstruction zone and DZDebates on YouTube. Guy was a Christian for 20 years, went to seminary, learned greek and biblical Hebrew so he could read the Bible in the original languages, and through his study became an atheist. He is the least “debate-lord” atheist I’ve seen and has genuinely engaging conversations with people when they’re polite. When they’re belligerent though he roasts them with Bible verses.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I always remember the “jot and tittle” thing.

            Especially when some xtian starts up with me about a vegetarian diet based on that Matthew quote about “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” as if I give two flying fucks what “the” bible says about morality or diet anyway…but I’ll ask them about why they eat pork and shellfish and they’ll use the “but that’s the OT” thing.

            If they know a thing or two about old worn out chestnuts, they’ll claim they have some “new covenant” with their god and that things like that are only “rabbinical law”. But, whoops, his character is made to say that entire “jot and tittle” business! Uh-oh, sorry, no pork chops, guys. And no cheeseburgers! Hey, it’s YOUR holy text, not mine…

            I’ve had two conversations like this where the xtian pulled out that dumb Matthew quote when they find out I’m vegetarian (IRL, I don’t really share this unless necessary in group settings, and I definitely don’t proselytize) - not sure how they started applying that to vegetarians, but it seems to be a thing? I don’t run in evangelical circles, but I imagine one of their thought leaders started with that…anyway, they didn’t like me pointing out the jot and tittle thing. Doesn’t really leave much wiggle room despite the claims of the “new covenant” and jacking your jaw about “rabbinical law”.

          • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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            8 months ago

            I imagine a family dinner where a heated discussion is going on and suddenly you stand up and point at your weird uncle that isn’t really your uncle but some guy they told you to call uncle and just rattle this whole paragraph down on him. Everyone is quiet, the dinner continues.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I love how they pull that nonsense, when it’s convenient. But then want the “ten commandments” put up on public land, etc…derrrrrrrp.

        • WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          It’s almost as if they don’t have any actual beliefs and the rest of you should stop treating them like they do.

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I enjoy asking people to name all ten commandments whenever they bring that shit up - they can never do it. “Uhhhhhh … do not cover thy ass?”

      • Rekhyt@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’d respond that the parable of the Good Samaritan is specifically showing a “foreigner” (eh, nuance is hard) as the only person who helped the injured man, but that requires critical thinking and some historical context, so basically useless…

    • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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      8 months ago

      It’s quite a leap to assume that any of these people have actually read the bible.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

    So by the transitive property of conservative accusations to conservative confessions, we can safely assume that this guy is a violent, NAZI adulterer who has paid for multiple abortions and also likes sucking the occasional immigrant cock.

  • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    They cry “Jesus!” and “Lord!” So that all can hear them, but they long ago took the devil’s offer of all the cities of the world, if they only bow down and worship him. They have never had Jesus. His teachings died with him.