Justin Overbaugh, left, and Doug WilsonMother Jones illustration; Department of War; Geoff Crimmins/ZUMA; Canon Press
I’ve written before about how US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has ties to an ascendant Christian nationalist movement. Specifically, he attends a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a denomination founded by Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, who has said that women’s suffrage was “a mistake” and suggested that homosexuality should be considered a crime. Hegseth invited Wilson to preach at the Pentagon earlier this year, where he exhorted the troops to renew their focus on Christ.
A senior defense official in Hegseth’s department appears to share these ties—and has expressed Christian nationalist and far-right views on social media. Justin Overbaugh, a retired US Army colonel, currently serves as Deputy Under Secretary of War for Intelligence and Security. According to Overbaugh’s Department of War profile, he is responsible for “overseeing defense intelligence and security agencies and shaping policy to advance national security and military operations.” In other words, the role comes with considerable responsibility and visibility. After being hand-picked by Hegseth, Overbaugh was confirmed with little controversy last September.
Overbaugh is a decorated veteran who led intelligence operations in the Middle East as well as in the United States and Europe for 25 years. Yet despite this extensive experience in sensitive communications, his social media presence has a freewheeling quality about it. Machismo is a central theme: On his personal X account, he frequently posts a black-and-white image of an AR-15, accompanied by the text “Come and Take It.” Another favorite refrain is the phrase, “Weak men create hard times.” In response to a tweet showing a child’s drawing of a soldier killing someone along with the words “I hope you kill a lot of people in the war,” Overbaugh asked in a reply if the child was “old enough to join the Army? If so, have we got an opportunity for him!” He has advocated for people to carry weapons to attend church and referred to lax immigration policies as “suicidal empathy.”
He has advocated for people to carry weapons to attend church and referred to lax immigration policies as “suicidal empathy.”
Overbaugh rails frequently against immigration, sometimes veering into unapologetic extreme nationalism. In February 2025, Overbaugh tweeted, “I love Germany and Germans. I hope Germany remains German.” He included a link to the website of the far-right populist political party in Germany, Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), some factions of which have ties to neo-Nazi movements. He has also tweeted in support of Tommy Robinson, the British far-right, anti-Islam activist who has crusaded against Muslim immigrants in England.
Overbaugh regularly hypes Wilson’s CREC denomination and posts about going to Christ Church DC, which Wilson planted last year in the nation’s capital. He has tweeted links to sermons given by leaders at Wilson’s church in Moscow, Idaho. In keeping with Wilson’s CREC ethos, Overbaugh sometimes advocates for government-endorsed Christianity. In response to a tweet about Texas’ new law that requires Bible stories and verses in public schools, for instance, he tweeted a quote from the Old Testament book of Proverbs: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Overbaugh’s enthusiasm for Christian nationalist ideals is also apparent in his endorsement of Stephen Wolfe, author of the 2022 book The Case for Christian Nationalism, published by Canon Press, which Wilson founded in the 1980s. In this book, Wolfe argued in favor of a “civil magistrate” to govern the United States, who “must restrain and punish the public expression of false religion, blasphemy, and heresy.” At a conference a few years back, he argued, “If we say that America is a Judeo-Christian country, then it can’t be a Christian country, okay?”
Last week, Wolfe announced a new project called The Institute of Christian Politics, a training program based in North Carolina “to help lay the intellectual foundation for a renewal of serious Protestant leadership and to prepare gifted young men for responsible service in American institutions and public life,” according to its website. In a video announcing the project, Wolfe tells viewers that Christians “are making real progress in electoral politics and the practical work of government. We have office holders, staffers, organizers, writers, and institutions that train people in the practical art of politics.” But, he says, there is more to be done in connecting “talented young Christians” to “the institutions that shape public thought and national leadership.” That, he says, is where his new project comes in. In response to Wolfe’s tweet announcing the project, Overbaugh replied, “How can I help?”
Outside of social media, Overbaugh has been busy at the Pentagon. In a February hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he vowed to transform the agency “from a cumbersome bureaucracy to an agile organization that can serve as a model for the rest of the government.” A major focus has been a modernization of the National Background Investigation Services, including an expansion of a program that allows agencies to onboard employees “with an interim clearance while awaiting a full investigation.”
Jacob Bliss, a Pentagon deputy press secretary, did not answer any of the questions Mother Jones emailed for this story; instead, he called Overbaugh “a qualified, patriotic professional” and said the agency was “proud to have him as a political appointee at the Department of War.” In June, the Pentagon declined to comment on my colleague Anna Merlan’s reporting on the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering posting references to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Last year, the department also didn’t respond to Merlan’s request for comment on the hiring of deputy press secretary Kingsley Wilson, who has also expressed extremist beliefs, including support for Germany’s AFD party.
Correction, August 6: An earlier version of this post misidentified the weapon in the image that Justin Overbaugh regularly posts on X. It is an AR-15, not an AK-47.
