Z+ (subscription-only content); Pete Hegseth: As if Quentin Tarantino had foreseen it

Imagine a high-ranking Pentagon officer quoting a Bible verse during a church service in front of the assembled troops—and in reality, the verse comes from Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction. That's exactly what happened to Pete Hegseth: In the heat of a turbulent day at war, between rescue operations codenamed Sandy One and bombings in Iran, Hegseth reached for a quick source of inspiration. Instead of a genuine Bible quote, he uses the famous pseudo-Bible passage recited by Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction. The audience is supposed to join in, but the words are pure cinematic fiction, not Holy Scripture. Normally, we think that the military, especially at the Pentagon, maintains absolute seriousness during religious rituals—and that Bible verses are sacrosanct. But that very image is wrong. The reality is that, at the world's center of power, the line between sacred solemnity and Hollywood theatrics is much more porous than we think. Hegseth, known as the war minister and always on a confrontational path internally, demonstrates through his actions that even at the Pentagon, the pressure is sometimes so great that an iconic film quote has to serve as a substitute for the Bible. And he's not the only one: The regular services at the Pentagon are full of rituals that blend religious and cultural symbols in a colorful mix. The scene sounds like something out of a script, but it actually happened. Hegseth stands there, the Sandy One rescue mission still fresh in his mind, and lets Tarantino's words echo through the halls of the Pentagon. Anyone familiar with the line knows that it is almost entirely made up. Nevertheless, everyone in the room feels the power of the words—it's as if fiction and reality merge for a moment. What is remarkable is that, for many of those present, the quote is convincing; no one questions it. It shows just how much our need for meaning and heroic narratives makes us vulnerable—even within the most seemingly unemotional power structures. Anyone who still believes today that at the heart of power, only hard facts and genuine traditions matter should ask themselves how often fiction passes as truth if it merely sounds convincing. One thought that is missing: What if the boundary between religion and pop culture has long since ceased to exist—especially in the very place where decisions about life and death are made? In the end, the bottom line is this: At the Pentagon, a Tarantino script can, for a moment, become sacred scripture. If you now think that this changes your view of power rituals, Lara Notes offers the “I'm In” feature for that—it's like saying: I want to hold onto this insight, not just let it flash by. And the next time you tell someone at dinner that a Bible verse at the Pentagon is actually from Pulp Fiction, you can tag that person with Shared Offline on Lara Notes—this way, your conversation about this absurd scene will be captured. This came from DIE ZEIT, and it took you about four minutes instead of a long article.