U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited controversial Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist whose church doesn’t believe women should vote, to lead the Pentagon’s prayer service on Tuesday.

“Thank you for your leadership, your mentorship for the things you’ve started, the truth you’ve told, the willingness to be bold,” Hegseth told Wilson on stage as service members and government employees looked on. “It’s the type of thing we are trying to exercise here.”

Wilson is the founder of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He has faced massive backlash there for claiming enslaved people in the south had an “affectionate” relationship with their owners, for his perspective on barring same-sex marriage and his church’s belief about repealing the 19th Amendment, told The Spokesman-Review that Hegseth invited him to address the monthly prayer meeting. Hegseth started the Pentagon’s monthly prayer meeting in May.

Wilson was planning to be in town to preach at a service that Christ Church started in Washington, D.C., he said, that’s met every Sunday for about eight months. Christ Church’s D.C. service doesn’t have an on-site pastor yet, Wilson said, so the church has to fly leaders back and forth.

Wilson’s prayer message Tuesday largely revolved around the protection and promises of God and the power God has over people’s hearts and minds.

“We must always remember: God is God,” Wilson said, “and we are not.”

When Hegseth invited him to the prayer service on Tuesday, Wilson was “honored” to do it.

“The church service was great. Bursting at the seams,” Wilson said. “And the prayer meeting at the Pentagon was a great blessing. Really good.”

The U.S. Department of Defense — known as the Department of War by President Donald Trump and Hegseth — posted on its rapid response team’s X account Tuesday the photos of Hegseth and Wilson together with the caption, “We are One Nation Under God.”

Hegesth is a member of the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was co-founded by Wilson in 1998. Known as CREC, it is a traditionally conservative denomination that oversees Christ Church. The CREC services have “a lot in common with what visitors might call a ‘traditional worship service,’ ” according to an informational pamphlet from the church. Other information about CREC the congregation has posted online states the denomination is “uniformly hostile” to abortion, gay marriage, “the leftist agenda” and women participating in combat.

Hegseth ordered a six-month review in December of women in combat roles, National Public Radio reported in January.

While the ties between the Idaho pastor and the Trump administration’s defense secretary haven’t been that clear, Hegseth said during Tuesday’s prayer service that he was introduced to Wilson through David Goodwin, a Christian conservative and Boise-based author. While Hegseth was still a Fox News co-host, Goodwin helped him write the “Battle for the American Mind,” a book that places blame on progressive ideals for “indoctrinating” children in K-12 schools by teaching them about gender identity, race and other topics; and as a solution to the perceived problem, proposes turning to a Christian-like education instead.

Hegseth said during the prayer meeting Goodwin thought it would be “prudent” for him and Wilson to establish some sort of partnership.

Although the two used to appear loosely affiliated, the ties between Hegseth and Wilson have become clearer in the last year — most notably when Hegseth faced criticism for reposting a video on social media of a CNN interview with Wilson. In the interview, Wilson said that “women are the kind of people that people come out of.”

The repost led to former service members to call for Hegseth’s resignation, like U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both of her legs in combat while stationed in Iraq.

“These views are antiquated, flat out wrong and — more dangerously — designed to justify discrimination and mistreatment of women, including those who sacrifice in uniform to defend Americans,” she told the Military Times. Asked whether Hegseth shares Wilson’s beliefs about barring same-sex marriage or repealing a woman’s right to vote, Wilson told The Spokesman-Review, “that would need to be a question for him.”

The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond for comment Wednesday.

Wilson’s views don’t just reach the Pentagon. In Moscow, a small college town where Christ Church was established, Wilson’s public comments frequently draw protest. In 2020, he referred to a Super Bowl performance as a “skankfest” during a talk at the school.

The pastor has numerous posts discussing his disdain of women’s liberation, calling it a “false flag operation.” Some of these posts involve talking about women’s breasts in graphic language, comparing a woman leaving her husband to a slave owner and their slave, and saying “wives are to be submissive to their own husbands in everything.”

In 2021, Vice News published an investigation into alleged abuse within the church — one woman came forward asserting she was being raped and abused by her husband, also a church member, but that when she went to seek advice, pastors told her she wasn’t allowed to tell her husband no.

Boise State Public Radio’s podcast “Extremely American” also details the ins and outs of the church, with one episode featuring a woman who alleges she was sexually abused within Christ Church and believes it was swept under the rug.

During the service, Hegseth claimed many different religions were worshiped inside the Pentagon’s auditorium, but now people like him “get a chance to worship Jesus Christ openly and in public.”

Hegseth then closed out the service in prayer with his left arm on Wilson’s shoulder.

“Heavenly Father, thank you for this service, these people, this auditorium, this pastor, our great nation founded 250 years ago on truth,” Hegseth said, “Lord God, if we can keep it.”