‘Secularist of the Week’ atheist activist demolishes Hegseth’s calls for a crusade
The FFRF Action Fund honors Jason Benell, Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers president, as its “Secularist of the Week” for his recent op-ed refuting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dangerous calls for an “American Crusade” and claims about the nonreligious.
The Des Moines Register has published an op-ed penned by Benell, titled “I fought for our Constitution, not for a crusade.” In the piece, Benell details his experience as a combat veteran and an atheist in response to Hegseth’s blatant Christian nationalism and erasure of the nonreligious in the U.S. military. Since joining the Trump administration, Hegseth has consistently centered a warrior brand of Christianity in his authority over the U.S. military, promoting his extremist religious beliefs and calling for an “American Crusade.” And he has repeatedly professed that “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
“The defense secretary’s rhetoric is a disservice to soldiers of all faiths and none, who swore to defend a godless and secular Constitution,” Benell writes. “Time and again, Hegseth chooses to use divisive language that dishonors the brave soldiers who risk everything to protect our great nation, the world’s first secular republic, a democratic republic of, by, and for the people.”
Benell explains that the United States has always been a “religiously pluralistic nation,” asserting that the “Founding Fathers recognized the danger in mixing faith and politics, so they forbade it in the First Amendment and promised the government wouldn’t interfere with our right to believe (or not).”
“Hegseth is the figure they feared, an ideologue who admits he is more dedicated to his own dogma than he is to our democracy,” Benell continues. “He speaks of our military as a force for retribution and rage, not for peace and altruism.”
Benell asserts that Hegseth’s guidance of the U.S. military “undermines the sacrifices of countless veterans of all faiths and none who gave everything in defense of a nation’s Constitution, not one man’s Crusade.” Benell explains to the defense secretary that “our military fights in service of democracy — not theocracy,” and that “being nonreligious or belonging to a minority faith doesn’t make us any less American or patriotic.”
“Just as our freethinking forefathers did, American atheists advocate for evidence-based policies and secular governance that upholds the will of the people, not sectarian faith based adventurism,” Benell concludes. “We hold leaders to account whenever they place religion above reason and wherever they choose dogma over human decency. We show up; we vote; and, yes, we fight in foxholes.”
Read Benell’s full op-ed here.
In a 2025 essay featured in the fall issue of the American Atheist magazine, Benell explains his motivation for being an atheist activist. “Here in Iowa, being an atheist, humanist or secular person is still seen as an anomaly,” Benell said. “I like showing folks what Being Good Without God looks like.”
Benell is a first-time “Secularist of the Week,” though FFRF Action Fund’s parent organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, awarded Benell its Nothing Fails Like Prayer Award in 2022 for delivering a secular invocation in front of the Iowa Legislature. Benell is a prominent atheist activist in Iowa and has supported FFRF Action Fund’s model legislation to keep religious proselytizing out of public schools. We thank him for his stellar work in safeguarding our nation’s secular democracy in his state.
