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Pentagon cuts recognized military faith codes from ~211 to 31, dropping minority faiths

A May 20, 2026 Defense Department memorandum signed by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata cut the military's list of officially recognized religious affiliation codes from roughly 211 to 31, dropping an estimated 180 minority faiths and worldviews — including atheists, humanists, pagans, Wiccans, Druids, Heathens/Asatru, deists, Unitarian Universalists, and spiritualists. The reduction, directed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, preserves majority faiths while removing the de-recognized groups' access to formal chaplain support.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

A May 20, 2026 memorandum signed by Anthony Tata, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, sharply reduced the number of religions the U.S. military officially recognizes, cutting the list of "religious affiliation codes" from roughly 211 to 31. First reported by Military.com on June 4, 2026 and corroborated by Religion News Service, the change is the first revision since a March 2017 expansion that grew the list to about 211 codes. The memo directs that the revised codes take effect within 60 days and states that service members will not be limited to the listed codes when selecting information for their dog tags.

The reduction drops an estimated 180 minority faiths and worldviews, among them atheists, Asatru, deists, Druids, Eckankar, Heathens, humanists, New Age churches, pagans, Rosicrucians, shamans, spiritualists, members of The Troth, Unitarian Universalists, and various Wiccan traditions, while retaining agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and a wide range of Christian denominations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who directed the change as part of a broader chaplain-corps overhaul previewed in March 2026, described the prior system as having "ballooned to well over 200 faith codes" that were "impractical and unusable," noting that most religious service members use only a handful of codes.

Critics, including chaplains and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, warned that de-recognizing minority and non-theistic beliefs undermines the free-exercise guarantee and the availability of chaplain support to affected service members, since adherents left categorized as "other" can struggle to obtain pastoral care. By collapsing the recognized-faith list in a way that burdens specific minority religions and non-theistic groups while preserving majority faiths, the policy fits religious-favoritism-in-policy, with a secondary discriminatory-policy dimension because religion is a protected characteristic. It sits alongside the administration's other religion-in-government actions, including Hegseth's Christian prayer services at the Pentagon.

Why we recorded this

The Constitution bars the government from establishing or favoring particular religions and protects each person's free exercise of faith -- a duty that applies with special force to service members, who depend on the military to accommodate their beliefs. Cutting the list of officially recognized faiths from roughly 211 to 31, while retaining majority religions and dropping some 180 minority and non-theistic worldviews, withdraws formal recognition and chaplain support from the groups removed. We record this because government drawing official lines between favored and disfavored beliefs -- deciding which faiths count -- is precisely the religious favoritism the establishment and free- exercise guarantees were written to prevent.

Sources

  1. DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military's Recognized Religion List — Military.com primary accessed June 5, 2026
  2. Defense Department to drop atheists, pagans, 175 others from list of military faiths — Religion News Service primary accessed June 5, 2026
  3. Pentagon Cuts Religious Affiliation Codes, Dropping Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, and Asatru Designations Among Others — The Wild Hunt secondary accessed June 5, 2026

See also