A prominent group of conservative Christians is denouncing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump's top military official, for ordering that Nidal Malik Hasan — the convicted terrorist and mass murderer behind the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that left 13 people dead and 32 wounded — be executed publicly by firing squad. Hasan, then an Army major serving as a psychiatrist, carried out the November 2009 attack at the Texas Army post and was sentenced to death by a military court-martial in 2013; he has since been held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The decision would mark the first public execution in modern American history — no one has been executed in public in the United States since 1936, and the U.S. military has not carried out an execution of any kind since 1961.

"The National Association of Evangelicals (along with several other religious groups) are now joining the USCCB in condemning Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth's plans to publicly execute Nidal Malik Hasan, also saying doing so promotes a 'culture of death,'" journalist Jack Jenkins of the religious news outlet RNS reported on Friday on X.

In an excerpt from his report, Jenkins wrote that Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told RNS that while he affirms the "need for justice" regarding Hasan's crime, "at the same time, a live-streamed execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state's most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being." The National Association of Evangelicals is an umbrella body for evangelical denominations, churches, and ministries across the country, while the USCCB cited in the report is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — meaning the religious opposition now spans both evangelical and Catholic traditions.

Evangelical Christian organizations are not alone in slamming Trump and Hegseth for choosing to publicly execute Hasan. On the social media platform X, prominent commentators from across the political spectrum expressed disgust with the decision.

Billy Binion, a reporter for the libertarian magazine Reason, posted: "This is sick. You can support justice for Nidal Hasan's victims without making his execution a source of entertainment. This administration so often governs for the online mob. It's depraved."

Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept and ideologically heterodox, argued: "There are a very small number of countries that still carry out public executions. Those are the countries we are constantly told are uniquely primitive, barbaric, sick and evil. It's revealing that Pete Hegseth wants the US to join that group but also entirely unsurprising."

Wajahat Ali of the liberal Substack The Left Hook stated: "Public lynchings will be next."

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a death sentence imposed by court-martial cannot be carried out until appellate review is complete and the president grants approval — a process Hasan's case has been navigating for more than a decade since his sentencing.

Pentagon Purge Draws Separate Criticism

Trump and Hegseth are also under fire for terminating dozens of top staff at the Pentagon — amounting to more than 900 years of combined experience — and replacing them with partisan loyalists.

"Since January 2025," Michael N. Schmitt, a law professor at New York University, wrote for Just Security in June, "the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. Among them are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Army, and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, who concurrently serves as director of the National Security Agency. Most recently, Gen. Christopher Donahue, one of the most decorated and combat-experienced officers of his generation, has been forced out as commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, in his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) role, as commander of Allied Land Command. Public explanations have been sparse and, to the extent they have been offered, largely general."

Schmitt added: "The question regarding these departures is not whether the president and secretary of defense have broad lawful authority to reshape the senior officer corps. They unequivocally do. Nor is it a question of whether personnel decisions of this kind are ever warranted. Sometimes, they certainly are. Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces."

Even Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth's senior military aide, indirectly acknowledged that the mass firings could become a problem.

"Every shortcut in training and lapse in discipline will be paid for in blood," LaNeve wrote.