Annual ‘religious liberty training’ for troops could be on the way

Annual “religious liberty training” may soon be required for troops and commanders if the Pentagon adopts recommendations from a White House-directed commission of faith leaders and military advocates.

The recommendations, which Pentagon leaders said Tuesday they “welcome,” come from the Religious Liberty Commission, a 12-person committee established by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to develop policies across the federal government to “secure domestic religious liberty.”

Some of the witnesses who testified at commission meetings in 2025 and 2026 included former military chaplains and veterans. The commission’s primary members include a mix of activists, faith leaders and politicians. Chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and former Trump cabinet member Ben Carson, the committee includes four Christian clergy, a Rabbi, several prominent figures in Christian activist and legal circles, and talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw.

The commission’s review of Pentagon policies emphasized expanding the presence of religion across the Defense Department.

“The more authority the military exercises over the lives of service members, the greater its obligation to ensure that those individuals can live in accordance with their sincerely held beliefs,” the commission wrote in its final report released last week.

The commission said the Pentagon should “standardize” so-called “religious liberty training” for “all levels” of the military, including commanders, judge advocate generals and recruiters.

The commission also suggested the military increase enforcement of existing federal religious freedom laws, endorsed legislation that would allow chaplains to advise on policy and command decisions, and called for military logos and emblems to be allowed for use on religious texts like the Bible.

The report also said the Pentagon should take another crack at producing a so-called spiritual fitness guide. A 2025 Army effort was scrapped by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just five months after it was launched. Hegseth noted the guide “mentions ‘God’ one time,” but “mentions ‘feelings’ 11 times.”

Recommendations but no immediate training changes

Left unclear was what annual religious freedom training regime would entail, but the report noted recent Supreme Court cases on religious expression and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Passed in 1993, that law prohibits government rules that “substantially burden” the exercise of religion. Critics of the law have argued that it has sometimes been used to “discriminate or to impose” religious beliefs onto others.

Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer who heads the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said that the commission’s recommendations violate laws separating church and state. He cited a clause in the Constitution which prohibits the enforcement of religion tests for holding public office.

“Whenever you get into the business of trying to have a guide or a test, once again, you’re going back to clause three, article six,” Weinstein said. Military leaders, he said, have “no business in any way, shape, or form guiding anyone to figure out how they should view the metaphysical. Where do we come from? What are we doing here? Where do we go when we die? That is not anything that we should be doing.”

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Another commission recommendation calls for the Pentagon to “restore the use of military emblems on religious texts and materials,” like Bibles and dog tags — an issue that has long sparked debates over trademark laws and church and state separations. Pentagon policy restricts the use of trademarked logos to promote “ideological movements” or “specific interpretations of morality.”

At one point, base exchanges sold Holman Bibles featuring logos from the services, Weinstein said. In 2012, the foundation took credit for the Pentagon pulling the Bible publishing company’s trademark authorization. Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the plan “[conveyed] a message of endorsement of religion.”

“The whole idea is that it’s simply trying to make [religion] such a fundamental aspect, so inextricably intertwined into the mind of our military,” Weinstein said.

Pentagon officials did not immediately say what changes, if any, troops can expect from the report, but they signaled that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth supports the commission’s recommendations.

“From day one, Secretary Hegseth has been a continuous and fervent protector of religious freedom and a vocal advocate for First Amendment rights,” Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez told Task & Purpose in a statement. “We welcome the recommendations and insights that the [commission] has provided to us.”