(RNS) — Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist pastor with a talent for turning his controversial positions into literal hot takes — see his burning sofa videos and other flamethrower stunts — has built a media empire larger than might be expected for a bearded, 71-year-old Reformed Christian theologian based in remote Moscow, Idaho.
But his anti-LGTBQ+ rhetoric, his discussion of the Bible as condoning benevolent slavery and his traditionalist ideas about gender have attracted just the right kind of criticism to boost his audience among a certain set of conservative Christians. Wilson logs it all in a self-curated “Controversy Library” of dustups attributed to him over the last few decades.
But according to the creators of the new podcast “The Sons of Patriarchy,” it’s not just Wilson’s culture war provocations that are cause for concern, but what people take from his theology and politics. “Abuse in churches, in marriages, in families, under clergy, is part and parcel of this movement,” claimed the podcast’s host, Peter Bell. “It’s undergirded by the patriarchal submission, authority, obedience.”
In response to questions about the podcast, Wilson pointed RNS to a letter from his attorneys that the pastor said was “generated in an earlier inning of this same baseball game.”
Wilson said in a separate email to RNS, “Given the tone, the topic, and the familiar voices, I expect that “Sons of Patriarchy” will consist of recycled (and refuted) defamation and slander.”
According to Bell, the podcast plans to feature roughly 50 stories involving abuse allegations, most of which he said will be made public for the first time. The podcast’s creators don’t accuse Wilson personally of any physical or sexual abuse but maintain that abuse is routinely mishandled in churches that Wilson has led or influenced, as well as other Reformed and Baptist churches that have been shaped by his teachings.
For the new podcast, Bell has teamed with Examining Doug Wilson & Moscow, a group of anonymous researchers that has kept up a social media campaign critical of Wilson for the past decade. “They’re credited as assistant producers of the series, and the ones who fed me all the interviews and have extensive connections to almost all the survivors that I talked to,” said Bell, who didn’t disclose the group members’ names, citing safety reasons.
The podcast will include input from a range of theologians, historians and religious figures, including Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore, New York Times columnist David French, historians Kristin Kobes Du Mez and Beth Allison Barr, as well as Rachael Denhollander, an attorney and anti-abuse activist who was among the victims of Gymnastics USA doctor Larry Nassar.
A Reformed Christian himself, Bell is a writer and podcaster who said he first “drank the Kool-Aid” of masculine Christianity as a member of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Huntington Beach campus in the early 2010s. Years later, as an intern at a Reformed church in eastern Washington state, a two-hour drive from Moscow, he said he encountered accounts of abuse from former members of Wilson’s Christ Church.
As Bell met more people from the schools and churches linked to Wilson, he said he began to hear reports of marital rape, child abuse, pedophilia, spiritual abuse and grooming. According to Bell, allegations also came from other churches in Wilson’s denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, and Reformed churches in other denominations that had adopted his thought.
“I didn’t know how big it was in these circles,” said Bell. “But I’d get emailed, texted or called almost daily by someone else who wanted to talk.”