Pentagon Cuts 180 Religious Identities From Military Personnel Records; New York Times, June 5, 2026

John IsmayAlexandra E. Petri and Aimee Ortiz, The New York Times; Pentagon Cuts 180 Religious Identities From Military Personnel Records

The new policy, which the Pentagon framed as a largely administrative action, leaves just 31 religious categories to choose from, 22 of which are Christian.

"The Defense Department will no longer allow military service members to claim roughly 180 different religious traditions in their personnel records, leaving just 31 to choose from — 22 of which are Christian denominations.

The change, which was reported earlier by Military.com, was announced on Friday afternoon in a statement posted to social media by Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, who called it “a long overdue move.”

Mr. Parnell framed the change as a largely administrative exercise, intended to simplify data collection for military leaders and chaplains...

Aside from the Christian faiths, the newly consolidated “religious affiliation codes” will allow soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard and Space Force personnel to identify in their records as agnostic, Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Sikh. Wicca, paganism, humanism and atheism are among those that were removed from the list.

Those who had identified with one of the 180 eliminated faith groups will have just two options under the new policy: “no religion” or “other religions...

In response to the policy change, Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit religious freedom advocacy organization, said in a statement that Mr. Hegseth “can’t erase the religion of service members whose belief systems he finds less worthy without failing to honor his oath to support and defend the Constitution.”"