America's Liturgy of Mercury
And Mars
Sometimes the spiritual reality of our moment is laid bare not in abstract theology, but in the sheer, undeniable timeline of a week’s events. We are currently watching a collision of two entirely different kingdoms, playing out in public over the span of just a few days.
It started when Trump’s newly named Department of War posted an image that perfectly encapsulated the native ethos of earthly power. It was a photograph of a Tomahawk missile firing, stamped with a chilling, two-word directive: “No mercy.” This is, and always has been, the language of the state.
Shortly after that, a fellow pastor in an overwhelmingly Trump-supporting denomination posted a quote from the Sermon on the Mount:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ~Jesus Christ” (Matthew 5:7)
The cognitive dissonance was already heavy. In a spiritually healthy church, the sheer contradiction between the state’s rallying cry and the manifesto of Christ would be enough to give any believer pause. But today, the dissonance became absolutely deafening.
Pete Hegseth stood at the Pentagon and led his first monthly “Christian” worship service since the war with Iran began. Standing before the architects of the state’s military force, he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” He prayed further, asking God to “let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”
Read those words again, and then read the words of Christ. We are being asked to look at the violent, coercive machinery of a nation-state and call it holy. But a religion that echoes the state’s demand for “no mercy” and actively prays for “overwhelming violence” is fundamentally disconnected from the Jesus of Nazareth. When the church aligns itself with this kind of rhetoric, it isn’t bringing God to the Pentagon; it is allowing the spirit of empire to masquerade as the Kingdom of God.
When a claiming Christian can stand before the machinery of war and pray for 'no mercy' in the name of Jesus, we are witnessing the tragic triumph of a counterfeit faith. The church has accepted a violent simulation of the Gospel, mistaking the coercive roar of the nation-state for the voice of God. You cannot serve the Lamb while praying for the beast to bare its teeth.
It is no small irony that this Pentagon prayer service—this invocation of overwhelming violence—took place today, on a Wednesday.
In the ancient world, Wednesday was dies Mercurii—the day of Mercury. To the Romans, Mercury was the patron god of commerce, of thieves, and of trickery. How devastatingly appropriate that a liturgy demanding merciless war was offered on a day dedicated to such things.
The military-industrial complex is, at its core, a massive machinery of commerce. It is an economy of death sustained by the staggering taking of our resources. We are watching billions of tax dollars be funneled into the creation of Tomahawk missiles and the machinery of “overwhelming violence,” stolen directly from the hands of the vulnerable to fund the state. We are feeding the empire’s war machine while actively starving the very people Jesus called the “least of these.” War is immensely profitable for the state, and the altar of Mercury always demands its sacrifice.
But Mercury is also the god of trickery, and this is our greatest tragedy: the American church has been profoundly tricked. We have allowed ourselves to be duped by the intoxicating power of empire. Through fear-mongering and the seductive promise of proximity to earthly power, millions of Christians were duped into voting for an administration that operates entirely contrary to the God of Grace that we claim. The trickery is so complete that segments of the church now actively cheer for the very empire they were called to prophetically witness against. We have been deceived into believing that the empire’s wars are God’s wars, mistaking the inherently antichrist spirit of a “no mercy” administration for the righteous will of heaven.
To understand how complete this trickery is, we have to recognize the true nature of the powers we are dealing with. When we look closely at the machinery of earthly governments, we have to admit that their animating spirit is fundamentally opposed to the way of Christ. The way of empire is always coercion, dominance, and the preservation of power through violence. The empire secures its borders with the threat of death and demands ultimate allegiance.
Yet, the church has allowed itself to be seduced by the intoxicating allure of Washington. We have crowned ourselves the “righteous ones,” assuming the moral high ground while we baptize our bombs and anoint our war machines with holy water. We confidently declare that God is on our side, completely blind to the fact that supporting a merciless military apparatus is the very definition of being un-Christlike.
We cannot serve a God who blesses the merciful while simultaneously shouting “amen” to Pentagon prayers for “overwhelming violence.” When we align our faith with an unmerciful war machine, we do not make the war holy; we simply make our religion unrecognizable to Christ.
We have traded the cross for the sword.
We have mistaken the violent, coercive roar of empire for the triumphant song of the Lamb. If we want to know what God is like, we have to look at Jesus. God is exactly like Jesus, and Jesus did not come to execute overwhelming violence against His enemies—He forgave them from a Roman execution stake. To call a prayer for merciless violence “Christian” is to strip the name of Christ of its entire meaning. We have to decide if we are going to follow a crucified savior, or if we are going to worship the beast of empire disguised in Christian clothing.
What happened at the Pentagon today was absolutely a worship service, but we must boldly confess that it was not done in worship of the God revealed in Jesus Christ. It was the worship of empire, the worship of Mercury, and the worship of Mars.
We have settled for a simulation of Christianity—a hyperreal religion where the symbols of our faith have been hollowed out and filled with the antichrist spirit of the state. The cross has been replaced by the missile, the Beatitudes replaced by the battle cry, and the actual Jesus replaced by a militant mascot created in our own nationalistic image.
If we genuinely want to find Jesus in the midst of this global conflict, we must remember that He is never found in the Situation Room or the Pentagon. Matthew 25 makes it abundantly clear where Christ dwells. He is exactly where the empire’s missiles fall: among the broken, the bleeding, the displaced, and the “least of these.”
To bless the merciful is to stand with Christ. To pray for “no mercy” is to stand with the empire.
We cannot serve the Prince of Peace while shouting “amen” to prayers for overwhelming violence. It is time to wake up from the trickery of Mercury, step out of this violent illusion, and decide which kingdom we actually belong to.