Revised Pentagon religious codes drop pagans and other minority faiths. Here's what to know

The Pentagon recently cut the number of "faith and belief" codes it uses to identify members of the military from more than 200 to 31.

Most of the cuts affect various pagan faiths, atheists and Unitarian Universalists. Those groups, and folks in other minority faiths, will be included under the codes for “other” or “no religion.”

It's especially noteworthy in the greater Tampa Bay region, with MacDill Air Force Base and the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital both in Tampa and many enlisted service personnel and veterans living in the area.

The recent memo from the Department of War

On May 20, the Department of Defense — renamed the Department of War by President Donald Trump and his administration — issued a memo updating religious affiliation codes and signed by Anthony Tata, undersecretary for personnel and readiness.

In it, he writes that the list of “Religious Affiliation” codes is replacing the previous “Faith and Belief” codes and will be “used exclusively to inform DoW’s provision of religious support activities.”

This caused a flurry of reaction on social media among pagan groups across Florida and the nation, and others impacted by the change.

Four days later, department Secretary Pete Hegseth took to social media to address the change, writing, “We are (still) making the Chaplain Corps Great Again.”

"The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes. … It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all," Hegseth said, adding that a significant majority of service members — 82% of whom identify as being religious — use only six of the codes.

Military chaplains will also have the rank insignia on their uniforms replaced with their religious insignia.

Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, both Republicans and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, challenged the Pentagon’s exclusion of their Morman faith from its list of Christian religions. 

On June 8, the “DOW Rapid Response” account on X announced an update, saying the new simplified list “included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed,” and saying “the Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”

Why these Tampa-area residents are concerned

Hegseth says the changes to the religious codes won't affect chaplain services, or the dog tag designations that help chaplains identify bodies and respond appropriately within that individual’s belief system.

But Largo resident Colin Nelson, a Marine Corps veteran and a Wiccan priest, is still concerned about losing the right to appropriate religious rites and services, and headstone markers.

"I'm honestly scared that that's going to go away now. ... Is that the next domino to fall, who knows? It could well be," Nelson said.. "It's just plain unconstitutional on its face to try and regulate the government away from equal opportunity for representation. Whether actual, equal numbers are there or not is irrelevant.”

While the Department of Veterans Affairs has not released a public statement addressing the issue, it does oversee those sorts of changes and is not expected to alter the religious accommodations it offers veterans.

The Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister and chaplaincy endorser with Circle Sanctuary, has been working with the U.S. military's branches for decades. She says she's grateful they have been "providing religious accommodation for nature religion practitioners for more than 50 years."

She is concerned, though, about the repercussions of the new codes for chaplain services outside of the military.

"One misconception is that this is just a bureaucratic process, and it's just about record keeping. It is more than that," Fox said. "Yes, there's a need to have information about those who are serving in the military, but when you eliminate data and you eliminate categories, you're creating a two-tiered system regarding religious accommodation, and I think there needs to be more understanding. Not only about the implications of that, not only amongst chaplains, but amongst the armed forces as a whole.

The religious code cuts also include Unitarian Universalists, a merger of two Christian denominations in the 1960s. The current iteration of the church does not adhere to a certain creed or doctrine, but many members identify as Christians. And the church has long opened its doors to marginalized communities.

“This administration has this view that a very narrow group of people are legitimate, and everybody else is here with their permission,” said attorney Robert Shaw Jr., member of the Board of Trustees for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa. “So the removal of all of these religious groups from the official list of the Department of Defense-recognized religions was just a way to remind you that we don't take you seriously.”

A brief history of paganism in the military

It’s hard to know just how many enlisted service members and veterans identify under one of the terminated or consolidated religious codes. The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t directly ask people about their specific religious beliefs, and neither do most branches of the military, outside of the expanded faith and belief codes presented in 2017.

In an article on the official U.S. Army webpage, published in 2008, Staff Sgt. Joy Pariante estimated about 4,300 pagans were serving in the military at that time, although other pagan advocates estimated it to be closer to 10,000 to 20,000.

Fox — who's worked closely with military officials and chaplains — said one estimate provided through her network suggests there are more than 35,000 nature religion practitioners across the branches of service.

"One of the real problems with eliminating the nature religion, the pagan, the Wiccan, those codes, is that there's no way to track that anymore," Fox said. "Being given 'other religion' as an option really doesn't provide the kind of detailed information to track the numbers and to provide the religious accommodation."

In 2005, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, a Wiccan veteran of the Gulf War, was killed while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. His widow, Roberta Stewart, also Wiccan, joined with Circle Sanctuary to ask the VA to approve engraving a pentacle on his headstone. The five-pointed star inside a circle symbolizes the elements of air, earth, fire, water and spirit and is used by many modern pagans as symbol of protection.

In 2007, the pentacle was added to the VA's list of emblems of belief that can be included on government-issued markers, headstones and plaques honoring deceased veterans.

Since then, the VA has revised its procedures for getting additional symbols authorized for inclusion on grave markers it issues, and over 30 more symbols were added.

In 2017, Lernes Hebert, then-acting deputy assistant secretary of military personnel policy at the Department of Defense, issued a memo about the Armed Forces Chaplains Board’s recent review of recognized faith groups.

In it, he said the board recommended expanding the list of faith groups to “better align with the language and intent of Section 533, Protection of rights of conscience of members of the Armed Forces and chaplains of such members.”

What’s next?

Could there be legal challenges?

Shaw said it’s difficult to know whether the change will be — or even can be — challenged legally because it’s not an official list of religions recognized by the federal government.

“The Department of Defense recognizes that you can have ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’ that are not on this list. This is just something that's for the administrative convenience of the chaplains, so I don't know that anyone's going to challenge it or that the success is going to be challenged," Shaw said. "It's just a little insult that we have to endure.”

Nelson said the code changes are just another step toward the “Christian nationalism that is very evidently being put forward by this action and others that the administration has taken previously,” calling it “one more step in the Project 2025 agenda.”

And Fox, one of the biggest advocates for Wiccans and pagans in the United States, recommends those impacted by the changes to the codes — and anyone else with concerns — should reach out to their state and federal representatives to make their voices heard.

"I had been talking with officials and leaders, as well as chaplains and chaplain endorsers in a variety of different faith traditions," Fox said, "and I think it's important to find ways to learn, have conversations and collaborate, and to reach out to find solutions when problems have been identified."