Recognized religions and faith codes are a precursor to persecution
Pete Hegseth cut some of the extraneous nonsense down to size
“Religio licita” in the Army
DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military’s Recognized Religion List
Defense Secretary Hegseth previously announced the change due to an “impractical” system.
Nick Mordowanec
It's not entirely clear whether Hegseth played a direct role in reducing the number of recognized faiths from 211 to 31, but as the Religion News Service report noted, as recently as March, the secretary said, "The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes. It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all."
There's no need to identify or "code" individuals as Pagans, Wiccans or Heathens etc. etc. unless there's an intention to hold a "witch trial" of sorts.
The vast majority of U.S. soldiers are Christians of some denomination or other. "Identifying" as Christians in coded databases is becoming less and less a confession of faith and more and more a prelude to persecution.
However, members of certain large and politically powerful religious establishments do need to be identified for that very reason.