Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Epic Fury in the End-Times: Exploring Pentecostal War Ethics

Epic Fury in the End-Times: Exploring Pentecostal War Ethics

Last updated on: March 18, 2026 at 4:54 pm by Alex Mayfield

0 Comments

Epic Fury in the End-Times: Exploring Pentecostal War Ethics 2026-03-18T16:54:26-04:00 Alex Mayfield

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Since its inception, the ongoing Iran conflict has been awash in religious rhetoric. Secretary of War Hegseth recently closed a press conference by quoting Psalm 144, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,” and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported that over 200 service members submitted complaints about the overt religious rhetoric being used by superiors. One officer recalled that he was told that “ President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

This sort of rhetoric has a clear origin in end-time prophecy watchers of the Charismatic movement. On March 2 of this year, for example, Greg Laurie—of Jesus Revolution fame—connected the conflict explicitly to Ezekiel 38, explaining that” modern-day Iran is ancient Persia.” A day earlier, John Hagee—of end-time chart fame—preached a sermon titled “God’s Coming…Operation ‘Epic Fury.’” The title says it all.

USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. fires a Missile during operations in support of Operation Epic Fury. Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, the tradition of interpreting current events in light of end-time prophecy has a storied history within the American church. Yet, what seems most striking in today’s stream is its corralling into a particular bundle of political ideas. As Richard G Kyle observed in his 2012 book Apocalyptic Fever, this sort of apocalyptic tradition is now imbued with the politics of the Christian Right, Christian Reconstructionism, and Christian Zionism. Today, this bundle of ideas has found a home in the New Apostolic Reformation and wed itself particularly to the person of Trump in fulfilling end-time prophecy (see Matthew Taylor’s 2024 The Violent Take it By Force).

So, if the conflicts in the Middle East are signs of the end, then the United States—and particularly Trump—is God’s hammer smashing the narrative forward. As the head of the White House Faith Office, Paula White-Cain, prayed in 2020, the United States must strike “And strike, and strike, and strike and strike” until it has victory. It is God’s will.

Has it always been thus?

Pentecostal Pacifism in ‘The Great War’

Modern-day doomsday interpretations by charismatic pastors find an easy parallel in early Pentecostal literature. Almost every early issue of Pentecostal papers included sections of the paper outlining some element of society, political event, or conflict as “signs of the times.” Yet, it is hard to ascertain a clear political perspective or interpretive framework. The outbreak of War War I is a case in point.

Writing a few months after the outbreak of the War, the British periodical Confidence dedicated a section to the conflict, arguing that “We British Pentecostal people should pray very earnestly that ‘Militarism’ may come to an end through this war.” Frank Bartleman’s account, a year later, was clear on the nature of the war.

“In London, everything seemed covered with blood. Even the taxicabs were boycotted if they refused to. plaster the vehicle with exhortations to the young men to enlist. Business houses were covered with the mottoes: “Death to German trade.” London seemed to live with but one purpose, and that purpose was to murder Germans. In Germany today they know little else but to kill the English. I turned away from London with a shudder of horror. Even Pentecostal Missionary candidates were persuaded to enlist, and at least one P.M.U. young man, who was to have gone to Africa in December to preach the Gospel, lies at the bottom of the North Sea today. He joined the navy at the outbreak of the war. I tried to stem this tide of “Christian patriotism” while in England, but found little encouragement on that line. May God have mercy!”

The war, at least to Bartleman, had rendered Britain and Germany nations of butchers and corrupted the church through a pied-piper-esque call to patriotic fervor. He was not alone in his assessment of the war or its relationship to Christianity. During the first years of the war, Pentecostals on both sides of the Atlantic were prone to reflect on the nature of patriotic duty. In a sermon at the historic Stone Church in 1915, W. H. Cossum connected patriotism with the “spirit of aggression” and ultimately concluded that patriotism “is a natural thing but it is a childish thing. There is something bigger than that and Jesus is coming to show us that larger thing.” Similarly, a 1915 sermon on Jeremiah concluded that the prophet of tears “would not be regarded as patriotic” if he lived during their time. Patriotism was secondary to Gospel convictions.

Many pentecostals seemed content to live this out in trying times. In 1917, The Pentecostal Evangel published a lengthy testimony by a British conscientious objector, just months after the United States entered the war and enacted its first federal draft. The objector wrote confidently that he and his whole family were convinced “from New Testament teaching that a Christian could not go to war.” Famously, one of the first uses of the 1917 Federal Espionage Act ended in the trial and conviction of a Pentecostal pastor in Vermont, Clarence H. Waldron. Trial testimony made it clear that Waldron’s pacifist preaching and refusal to host a Liberty Loan Sunday were used as pretexts to resolve a church squabble over Pentecostal identity. He received 15 years, but his sentence was commuted a year later by President Wilson.

Taken alone, the above accounts suggest a radical pacifism at work among early Pentecostals. They were clear about what the New Testament said. They saw war as a moral indictment on their society, participation in it as a betrayal of Christian values, and the overall conflict as a reproach of militarism and at least certain forms of empire.

When Pentecostal sources are read more broadly, however, this approach is far from the dominant one. Even many of the above examples are flooded with ambiguity. On the same page decrying militarism, Confidence encouraged all to pray for “decisive victories” and included letters from a British Pentecostal soldier and a German Pentecostal Pastor who was convinced that “true Christianity and true patriotism” were not mutually exclusive. Likewise, while Waldron’s case was national news, Pentecostal periodicals only commented on the case after his sentence was commuted. It was the only reference to the incident. Even the Pentecostal Evangel’s endorsement of the “testimony” of a conscience objector was offset by the publication of a letter by the first superintendent of the Assemblies of God, E. N. Bell. He reminded readers that the denomination’s “General Council has always stood for law and order” and that “it is none of our business to push our faith as to war on others or on the Government.” Bell then encouraged all ministers to lawfully register for the draft, for “it is not time or place for Slackers towards our country or our God.”

In other Pentecostal periodicals, there was implied—and even outright—support for the war. For example, in a typical Pentecostal Holiness screed against movie watching in 1917, one author opted for a surprising nationalistic turn. After decrying the number of dollars wasted annually on the immoral movies, he then calculated that if all those funds were used towards the war fund, “it would only take a little over eleven years to raise the $7,000,000,000” needed. Similarly, the November 1915 issue of Confidence published a poem called “Secret Service” which celebrated the unseen power of prayer in wartime. Any proceeds gained from purchased copies of the poem were being applied to the war fund.

Missions, Manhood, and the Ethics of Piety

It is hard to reconcile the various accounts above. How can radical pacifists be part of the same movement as “law and order” types who urge people to register for the draft and contribute to war funds?

I cannot provide a definitive answer, but I think there may be a clue hiding in Bartleman’s anti-war tirade. The climactic moment of betrayal was the tragic story of the would-be missionary who “lies at the bottom of the North Sea.” The contrast is a stark and specific one. The missionary is ready to risk danger for the sake of the gospel, the soldier for war. One sacrifice is meaningful, the other a waste. Interestingly, Bartleman was not the only Pentecostal to tease at this distinction. In 1918, the Canadian evangelist A. B. Cox was jailed for alleged inflammatory anti-government rhetoric after he refused a request to contribute to the war fund. Cox denied the rhetoric, but he did explain his rationale, stating that he had been paying more than 10% of his income to missionaries and that “I did not feel I could afford any more. I felt it my duty to give all the support I could to our missionaries.” It was soldiers or missionaries.

Remarkably, a sermon by the Englishman Arthur Booth-Clibborn picked up the same contrast in his description of conscientious objection. After dismissing political pacifist movements as “corporate semi-revolutionary things,” he described what true conscientious objection looked like. “The true conscientious objector is the sort of Christian who is gladly willing to go un-armed among savage heathen, far beyond the “protecting” reach of a six-inch shell. He is equally ready to dispense with all the “protection” in “civilized” lands.” In short, pacifism was not a rejection of sacrifice or danger or the threat of violence. Rather, it was a willingness to die for the sake of the Gospel.

The missionary, as an idealized type, represented at least two things for early Pentecostals—and most radical evangelicals, more broadly.

First, missionaries represented the highest form of Christian piety. Within the faith mission milieu of the turn of the century, the missionary was a person who had radically dedicated themselves to God, someone who sacrificed everything for the sake of sharing the gospel. Each individual represented the corporate call of the Church to “go and make disciples.” As such, they did not just signal personal piety; they became subjects of others’ piety. Unrelenting support for missionaries, for the work of the Gospel, was the highest good possible for the average lay person or minister on the “home front.” Why save a penny for war when that penny might save a soul?

Second, as Barnhart, Cleall, Semple, and Manktelow have all pointed out, missionaries were pivotal figures in shaping evangelical conceptions of masculinity. They helped shape a “muscular Christianity of sea-faring and evangelical dynamism,” but that dynamism was often tied up in colonial and imperial imaginaries of domination. For young men at the time, it might not be so easy to demarcate the masculine vigor, sacrifice, and strength of mission work from that of the soldiers. Indeed, soldier imagery was a favorite way to describe the work of the missionary.

This is, I admit, not the place I imagined ending up when I started this piece. Pentecostals of the past could compete with the best end-time-chart-making prophets out there. I wanted to talk about that—it’s fun! Instead, what stood out was the interpretive ambiguity of their ethical visions. Pentecostals of the past were likely to see God at work in the wars of the world, but they were not likely to pray for a government to “strike and strike and strike” until victory. Many did in fact enlist, but they seemed far less willing to see themselves as God’s end-time army. Perhaps the missionary loomed too large as an ever-present reminder that the best sacrifice was for the Gospel. Then again, perhaps the missionary loomed too large in another way, cultivating the same traits that made for good soldiers. As a model for manliness and sacrifice, the missionary is just too vague a starting place.

This is all guesswork to a degree, but I think it might be a clue to understanding the role of personal piety in early Pentecostal ethics. What I can say for certain, however, is that the political imaginations of our present-day prophetic prognosticators seem far less ambiguous than those of their predecessors.

Politics and Religion

History and Religion

About Alex Mayfield

Alex Mayfield is Assistant Professor of History at Asbury University and a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University. His research utilizes digital methodologies that enable the reconstruction of historical networks and movements within global Christianity. His research and teaching interests include global history, Pentecostal/Charismatic movements, mission history in East Asia, and the history of colonial Latin America. Much of his research is dedicated to collaborative digital projects. Currently, he is a principal investigator for the China Historical Christian Database, an NEH-funded, international collaborative project that seeks to identify Christian people, events, and institutions in China between 1550 and 1950. With his help, the project has become the largest collection of data on Christian actors in China’s past, and it continues to grow. Beyond this project, he continues to serve as a technical advisor to the Chinese Christian Posters projects and the Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Most recently, he began leading a team of scholars to produce a digital documentary edition of the correspondence of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China. In his research, he explores the transnational dimensions of the early Pentecostal movement. His latest book, The Kaleidoscopic City, explores how changes in the structural and conceptual frameworks of foreign Pentecostals had a dramatic impact on the shape of Hong Kong Pentecostalism. Currently, he is researching how early Pentecostals theologized, utilized, and transformed network technologies in the 20th century. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

March 17, 2026

Mothers of the Church: Syncletica of Alexandria

Next Post

March 19, 2026 The Laboratories of American Religion

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"The Scottish author George MacDonald integrated fairy world into his fiction in a way that ..."

Terry

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"I like the idea that we can have different streams. The coffee analogy is genius."

Lisa Clark Diller

How Do You Take Your Evangelicalism?

"Geography lesson: Southern California is actually in North Texas. I've lived her for 40 years, ..."

Terry

How Do You Take Your Evangelicalism?

"So much Rush love going on in the 90s and Obama Antichrist in the 00s. ..."

Terry

A Casserole is Not a Counterpoint

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "Here I am, send me!"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Moses Elijah Peter Isaiah