Planned Military Execution Livestream Sparks Biblical Debate Among Southern Baptist Leaders

For the record, I support this — because the Bible says so.” That’s what Christian Nationalist activist William Wolfe declared on Elon Musk’s X platform in response to a news headline noting that the “Pentagon says firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed.” Wolfe, who served in the first Trump administration and now leads a group trying to make the Southern Baptist Convention more Trumpian, is not alone in his praise for the controversial decision to livestream the first military execution by firing squad since World War II.

“I support the Pentagon’s decision to livestream the execution of mass-murderer Nidal Hassan,” Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist pastor in Texas and a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, wrote on X. “Capital punishment is commanded by God in Genesis 9:6 to remind people of the sanctity of human life. The more people that can see that truth illustrated through a public execution, the better.”

Trump later affirmingly shared the statement by Jeffress on social media, although it remains to be seen if the execution of Nidal Hasan on Dec. 3 will actually be livestreamed. And while many Catholic, mainline Protestant, and even evangelical leaders quickly condemned the Pentagon’s announcement, a vocal and connected group of Christian Nationalist voices joined Wolfe and Jeffress in praising the idea as supposedly “biblical.” Brooks Potteiger, the longtime pastor of Pete Hegseth (and who has preached three times at Hegseth’s Pentagon worship services), even offered his support for Hegseth having a pastor preach an “execution sermon” to the condemned man before the soldiers open fire.

“I like this idea. I think I will,” Potteiger wrote on X in response to someone making the suggestion, though it’s unclear if Hegseth will actually invite him to do it in person at Hasan’s execution.

A court room sketch of Nidal Hasan during his court-martial trial in Fort Hood, Texas, on Aug. 6, 2013. (Brigitte Woosley/Associated Press)Potteiger, who pastors a church in Washington, D.C., that is part of Doug Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, also criticized a rightwing anti-abortion activist for opposing the livestreaming plan. Potteiger insisted that anyone opposing it is “claiming to be wiser than God — and 95% of the history of western civilization.”

Putting aside the theological debates about capital punishment in general, the invoking of the Bible and God to justify livestreaming a firing squad is worth closer consideration. That’s why some people who support the death penalty oppose livestreaming it, like Southern Baptist theologians who emphasize the importance of mercy and the sanctity of life in ways that extend beyond legal or punitive frameworks.

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