Image Courtesy of Jim Burklo
Special to United Methodist Insight | April 16, 2026
Dr. Kendra Gorlitsky is my hero.
We met about 15 years ago when we were paired up as a teaching team for the “Professionalism in the Practice of Medicine” course at the USC medical school. Our job was to lead a class of about 20 medical students in cultivating good “bedside manner.” I served as the interfaith chaplain for the medical school, and she was a medical doctor who has spent her career working in subsidized health care clinics in Los Angeles.
In addition to her paid job, she volunteered at Homeboy Industries, removing tattoos from ex-convicts and gang members. She is the medical director for a program assisting immigrants who were victims of torture. She is the “Scout-mistress” of a Scout troop in the Macarthur Park neighborhood, the very poorest section of LA, taking kids on outdoor adventures that they could never have imagined.
And, by the way, she is a progressive Christian. Her faith motivates her to do what she does. She doesn’t advertise her spirituality. She doesn’t make a big deal about it.
She just does it.
Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense (temporarily re-named “War”). His list of accomplishments, so far, include demoting a lot of Black and female high-ranking officers, ordering the illegal summary execution of suspected drug-smugglers on boats in international waters, and openly advocating for war crimes.
He has an enormous tattoo of a cross emblazoned on his chest – the cross of the medieval Crusaders who led mad, bloody quests against the Muslim rulers of Palestine. In violation of the non-establishment clause of the Constitution, he hosts exclusively fundamentalist Christian worship services for his staff during work hours in the Pentagon.
He wants everyone to know that he is a Christian. He makes a very big deal about it.
But does he do Christianity?
In my college years, I was attracted to the “Jesus People” movement – long-haired, bell-bottomed young folks who saw Jesus as a fellow hippie. They sang soulful, plaintive songs around campfires at the beach. I thought the scene was beautiful, but I was put off by the dogmatic form of the faith that it expressed. One of these Jesus People, a full-bearded guy with a huge wood cross on a leather thong around his neck, asked me: “Why don’t you wear a cross?” I surprised myself with my answer: “I don’t wear the cross. The cross wears me!”
All these years later, those words have gained a deeper meaning for me. The cross wears me when I go to the place that St Paul described so poetically in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” When I live for others and serve them with my selfish-self set aside, then the cross is wearing me. The cross wears Dr Kendra Gorlitsky every day as she washes the feet of unhoused diabetics. In this crucified humility, it makes no sense for us to brashly brandish our Christian identity. (If somebody asks me if I’m a Christian, I say, “Don’t ask me! Ask my wife.”)
If I could have a word with Pete Hegseth, I’d suggest he contact my beloved friend Kendra and ask her to remove that cross tattoo on his chest. I am sure she’d do it for free, and wouldn’t tell a soul that she had done it. I’d then suggest to Pete that he consider letting the cross wear him for a while, and see what kind of deeds might follow.
Jim Burklo 2022
The Rev. Jim Burklo
The Rev. Jim Burklo is pastor of Simi Valley United Church of Christ in Simi Valley, Calif. He retired in 2022 as senior associate dean of religious life at the University of Southern California. This post is republished from his Substack blog, Musings.