What do we do when the person who says, “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark [Jesus’] return to Earth” is not a street preacher in Times Square but, instead, is a commander in the U.S. military in a combat readiness briefing addressing his subordinates?

There are at least two ways to respond.

First, members of the military can speak out about what the Constitution says about religious freedom. This is what at least 200 enlisted people did in filing formal complaints to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in the three weeks since President Trump began bombing Iran.

One noncommissioned officer identified as Christian but said he was writing to MRFF on “behalf of 15 other troops . . including nine other Christians, a Jew and a Muslim.” He reported that his commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

There was power in this response — in the troops themselves exercising their rights. As a result of their complaints, two dozen members of Congress asked for an investigation — based on both the Constitution and the Department of Defense’ own regulations about religious neutrality and the professional obligations and standards expected of military leadership.

This is not the only recourse, however. For those with the appetite for it, there is an internal American Christian conversation to be had. Not so much about the nature and timing of the Second Coming and Day of Judgement — what theologians call “eschatology” — but rather about the use of religion in amassing political power and the violence that props it up.

When Emperor Constantine declared victory against his rivals at the Milvian Bridge near Rome in 312 AD under a revealed cross called the “Chi Rho,” he ushered in a period of many centuries when Christianity was the religion of the Empire. During that time, there were five crusades resulting in the deaths of millions of Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

The 16th and 17th century wars of religion saw reformers like Martin Luther painting the Roman Catholic Church in apocalyptic terms resulting in much bloodshed and likely persuading the Founding Fathers to include the disestablishment clause in the  Constitution.

In more recent times, political leaders before Pete Hegseth have invoked the end-time as way of rallying the troops. George W. Bush characterized the War on Terror as a “crusade” on Sept. 16, 2001. And in a 1980 interview on Jim Bakker’s PTL television network, Ronald Reagan said, “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.” In his second term, however, some speculate that Nancy Reagan later persuaded him to move away from the Christian Right’s view that nuclear war was inevitable. This change of approach was evident in his 1987 disarmament success: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The late Harvard University Chaplain Rev. Peter Gomes used to opine that there were two doctrinal errors committed by two different sorts of Christians. The first error was believing you knew exactly when the end-time was coming. The second was believing that the end-time wasn’t coming at all. For those of us who identify as mainline Protestant Christians — and are thus more likely to hold the second mistaken belief than the first one — we must still ask our evangelical neighbors to speak up.

The fear and promise of the end-time — whenever it gets here — should not be hijacked by political leaders bent on waging war.

Breyer, an Episcopal priest, is the executive director at the Interfaith Center of New York.

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