A chaplain who served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Chaplain Corps during President Donald Trump’s first term warned on Friday that Americans must reject the Trump administration’s “religious tyranny.” Leigh Larson, a theologian writing for Baptist News Global, said Trump and his Christian nationalist allies seek to “illegitimize” any religion other than their own.

Larson drew on her own service in making the case. “I served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Chaplain Corps as a chaplain candidate during Donald Trump’s first term as president,” she wrote. “I was endorsed through the Disciples of Christ denomination and under their faith code, ‘GE.’ That faith code is now gone.”

The code’s disappearance stems from a decision made earlier this year, when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had the number of faith codes recognized by the department cut from more than 200 to 31. Larson argued that these codes are about far more than bureaucracy. “Not only do they allow for religious accommodations such as diet and appearance, but the code tells a commander who to call when someone is dying, guidance on holy days, burial and which chaplain gets matched to the soldier for spiritual care,” she wrote. “As a chaplain candidate, I understood the faith listed on a dog tag to be the last bit of human freedom a soldier can enjoy in the military. While they are still free to list whatever faith on the dog tag, the bureaucratic paperwork used for advocating for accommodations now will be much narrower.”

Under the new system, Christian denominations are lumped under a single label, with “Catholic,” “Methodist,” or “Lutheran” identified as the same regardless of their ideological nuances. Another glaring example: the Southern Baptist Convention and the Progressive National Baptist Convention — two radically divergent denominations — now both fall under “Baptist,” along with the nearly 30 other Baptist-related bodies that appeared on the list before the trimming.

The overhaul also initially gave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a code separate from “Christian,” prompting objections from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who told the Pentagon to “not just reconsider it but undo it.” He urged Hegseth to “tear down that wall. This is not cool. Get rid of it — get rid of it now.” The following day, the code list was revised to include Latter-day Saints as “Christian.”

To Larson, the changes make clear that “the state is serving as a theologian and magistrate, defining who is and who is not Christian. Baptists should buck at this notion.” She pointed to an essay published just after the code changes — Bill Leonard’s “First They Came for the Mormons” — in which he argued that the government should not define a group’s religious identity.

Larson placed the dispute in historical context, explaining that “Baptists once were the unrecognized minority in America, forming their own haven of dissenters in Rhode Island, with the first Baptist church in America coming shortly after.” She cited theologian and Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, who argued in 1644 that the state had no business sorting true faiths from false ones, urging that “a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all Nations.” For Larson, the stakes extend beyond any single denomination: “This is about soul freedom and soul competency. Every individual has the competency of soul and the freedom to develop their own conscience.”

While some have claimed that the code eliminations are mere acts of administrative consolidation, Larson noted that the change bureaucratically erased scores of religions. “They folded my code (Christian – Other), and yours (Christian – Baptist),” she warned her Baptist audience. “Non-Christians, including Wiccan, Unitarian Universalist and Humanist are folded into ‘Other Religions,’ and atheists are now no religion. It is concerning that a government that can erase recognition by memo can illegitimize anyone’s.”

There is, however, a proposed remedy. According to Larson, ensuring that the commonwealth protects everyone’s conscience — regardless of which theology defines it — will require congressional oversight of the office through the National Defense Authorization Act, regular and accurate auditing of the chaplaincy and the force’s beliefs, and institutional policies that reflect the needs of the force.

After urging her readers to join the fight, she concluded, “Protecting religious liberties from religious tyranny and state theological abstraction is about as American, and as Baptist, as it gets.”