Chicago Faith Leaders Slam Trump’s War Rhetoric Cloaked in Religion

As tensions with Iran escalate, Chicago’s top faith leaders are pushing back hard against the Trump administration’s weaponization of religion to justify war. Cardinal Blase Cupich, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, told WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times that peace “can’t be imposed by force” and condemned the president’s inflammatory social media threats as “truly unacceptable.”

Trump’s Easter message demanded Iran open the Strait of Hormuz under threat of annihilation, invoking Allah in a profanity-laced warning that Cardinal Cupich and others say distorts faith for political ends. “It’s not the first time political leaders have tried to compromise scripture and the Word of God for their own purposes,” Cupich said. “Most people see through that.”

This critique extends beyond Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon briefing praised military strikes as acts of “divine providence” and compared a pilot’s rescue to Jesus’s resurrection. Yet local pastors like Jon Herr of Christ Covenant Church and Rev. Quincy Worthington of Highland Park Presbyterian see this as a dangerous fusion of Christian nationalism and militarism.

Herr, representing a conservative evangelical tradition, emphasized that true biblical warfare principles reject aggression and terrorism, calling Trump’s message “ill-timed and unhelpful.” Worthington condemned the rhetoric of wiping out entire civilizations as “abhorrent” and contrary to Christian ethics.

These faith leaders stress that religion should be a force for peace and justice, not a tool for justifying violence and authoritarian overreach. Their voices add to growing concerns that the Trump administration’s religious rhetoric masks dangerous nationalist ambitions under the guise of divine sanction.

In a world rife with conflict—from Iran to Ukraine—Cardinal Cupich and his peers urge a return to diplomacy and dialogue. Their message is clear: faith should not be hijacked to sell war. As Cupich bluntly puts it, “Peace never works when imposed by force.”