For decades, Doug Wilson Idaho’s relatively strange pastor, demoted to the brink of evangelicalism due to his radical doctrine.
Now, he is an influential voice in Christian rights. This shift in influence has been evident over the past week as he won the victory circle in Washington, shared a stage with Trump administration officials and preached at the new church of his denomination.
“This is the first time we have connected with as many people in the national government as we are now.” Wilson told the Associated Press in August.
Wilson During the exchanges of the reformed evangelical churches, his assistant still taught that empathy could be a sin, that the United States is a Christian nation and that giving women the right to vote is a bad idea. But because evangelicalism is closer to President Donald Trump’s Republican agenda, these doctrines have a larger, more acceptable audience.
“No matter he was, he was not on the edge now,” said Baptist minister Brian Kaylor. Wilson The critics wrote the forthcoming book The Bible of the Christian Nationalists.
Wilson’s Christian Church in Moscow, Idaho opened a church from the U.S. Capitol this summer. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Crec The Tennessee church attended the opening ceremony.
Photo: A former Christian leader is warmly welcomed in Trump’s Washington
On Saturday, the fledgling congregation gathered at its first church meeting. Over the weekend, it rented a larger space in Virginia to accommodate 350 people Wilsontheir usual Sunday attendance rate has more than doubled.
Wilson They said they started the congregation, serving church members who relocated to work in the Trump administration.
“We didn’t come to meet important people.” Wilson Tell the party. “We are here because we want to create opportunities for people who matter and others to meet with God.”
At the National Conservatism Conference a few days ago Wilson He is a member of Congress and Trump’s cabinet, including Border Czar Tom Homan, budget director Russell Vought and Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley. The other two Crec Ministers are planning to conduct opening prayers and speak on the panel.
From the podium in him and the amiable baritone, Wilson It gives a comprehensive recognition of Christian nationalism.
“The United States is Christian, Christian, and Christian’s achievement,” he said, acknowledging that numerous “qualified” historians have objected to this idea, “this should tell you something about our certificate system.”
He spoke with a sympathetic crowd filled with conservatives who support populism, nationalists and major Christian America. like Wilson,Their movement has motivation as Trump returns to the White House.
Wilson’s A new vision for Christianity calls for the end of same-sex marriage, abortion and pride parades. He advocates restriction on pornography and immigration.
“The immigration policy of opposing people who want to turn the Michigan-Ohio border into an Indian-Pakistan border is not xenophobia,” he said on the stage.
He particularly questioned the ability of Muslim assimilation: “There is only so much white sand that can be placed in a sugar bowl and then no longer a sugar bowl.”
Wilson and CrecHe co-founded a strict version of theology of Reformation – rooted in the tradition of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin of the 16th century – with a strong emphasis on an almighty God and ruled throughout society.
Since the 1970s Wilson’s The ministry and influence have developed into the associations of Christian Classical Schools and the New St Andrew College in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson is a prolific writer and content creator, and he and his work have a strong media profile, including the publishing department Canon Publishing House.
His extensive catalog of books and blog posts provides a lot of feed for his critics. In one notorious example, he co-authored a 1996 book that downplayed the horrors of slavery, no different from the recent Trump administration’s efforts to revise museum exhibitions.
today Wilson Said he made some points more clearly in “Southern slavery”. When he condemned slavery, he still argued that some slave owners and the enslaved people “have a good relationship with each other.”
“On the one hand there is terrible abuse, and then there are other stories that also appear in Disney’s “Song of the South,”” Wilson Telling the Associated Press, referring to the 1946 film, which has not been released for decades because it portrays the sunshine of plantation life in racist stereotypes.
Wilson’s Hardline theology and the tactical spirit of happiness attracted a group of young, savvy internet people to his ministry. They help to circulate delicate hype videos online, e.g. Wilson Use Flame Shooter to get the torch cardboard cutout of Disney Princess.
Crec Leaders like to laugh at their reputation with humor.
“We want our wife to be barefoot, pregnant, and make sour tastes in the kitchen,” Joe Rigney joked Wilson’s Idaho pastor, at church meeting.
“Of course, it’s a serious slander,” Rigney said. “We are glad that my wife wears shoes while making sourdough.”
Crec Practical Complementaryism – Men and women have different patriarchal concepts of God-given roles. Inside women Crec The church cannot hold a leadership position in the church, and married women should obey their husbands.
Christian churches only allow family principals (usually men) to vote in church elections. although Wilson His wife and daughter voted in non-church elections, and he wanted the United States to take family voting as an example.
The commotion to the critics, Wilson Having argued that sex requires male authority and female submission, he acknowledged that it was “offensive to all fair people.”
“Sexual behavior cannot be an equal and pleasurable party,” he wrote in “Loyalty.” “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman accepts, surrenders, accepts.”
The previous one Crec Members are charged Wilson and sectual maturity that cultivates theological environment to maltreat maltreatment with women and children.
“I’ve seen how much it hurts people,” said journalist Sarah Stankorb. Crec For VICE and her 2023 book “Disobedient Woman”.
In 2024’s memoir, “The Trained Wife”, Crec Members say Wilson’s writings on marriage and patriarchy provided theological reasons for her ex-husband’s violence against her.
“I call it church-approved domestic abuse,” Levis told the Associated Press.
Wilson Denied tolerate abuse or approve the wife’s physical discipline.
“Our teaching must be in a whole,” he said. He stressed that wives should submit, but husbands must love them in the way of Christ.
“Beating a wife or spanking is a call situation,” he told reporters Saturday after his church meeting.
Crec There are more than 150 churches in the United States and abroad. Wilson Say its goal is to have thousands of churches, so most Americans can be within one driving distance.
Wilson It is often said that his move is in a long game and its efforts will not be achieved in two centuries.
“Doug Love playing modesty,” Levis said, “it will take 250 years to show his vision. When we look at the results of his ministry, it is not actually the case. ”
After all, it only took him decades to get close to the White House.
