Wilson denied being a White nationalist, a fascist, a racist, or a misogynist, saying, “Those are the names that usually get thrown at me.” As for Christian nationalist, he said, “I can work with that [label].” Wilson added, “My views on a number of things have become steadily more mainstream…without me moving at all.”
Douglas Wilson and his followers take heat for their views on women, homosexuality, and slavery. They support the repeal of the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, and teach that men should lead households and churches. Wilson denied that his beliefs promote abuse, saying he has intervened to help women exit violent relationships.
RELATED: Douglas Wilson Urges Husbands To Repent of ‘The Sin of Servant Leadership’
After Wilson characterized women as “the kind of people that people come out of,” Brown asked, “They’re just a vessel?” The pastor responded, “It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically,” adding, “The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls.”
When Brown, a working mother of three, asked Wilson if he took issue with her professional role, he responded, “No, it’s not automatically an issue.”
As for homosexuality, Wilson said sodomy should be illegal again, like back in the 1970s, when America “was not a totalitarian hellhole.”
Asked about slavery and whether “genuine affection” was present between slave and master, Wilson said it depends. “Slavery was overseen and conducted by fallen human beings, and there were horrendous abuses and there were also people who owned slaves who were decent human beings and didn’t mistreat them,” he told CNN. “I think that system of chattel slavery was an unbiblical system, and I’m grateful it’s gone.”
Critics Warn About the Influence of Douglas Wilson
CNN also spoke with people who think Douglas Wilson is dangerous. Progressive faith leader Jen Butler, founder of Faith in Public Life, warned that Wilson and his followers “actually literally want to take over towns and cities, and so they’re building a grassroots infrastructure to do that. And they have access to this [presidential] administration.”
Pastor Butler added, “If you are Jewish, if you’re a Muslim, if you’re a woman, if you’re gay—they want to criminalize LGBTQ people—you don’t belong in this society.”
Religious studies professor Julie Ingersoll said although a theocratic government would infringe less on individual liberties, “certainly the church would have a ton more authority, and families would be tiny little patriarchies.”
Matthew Taylor, senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies, described Wilson as the “the avatar or ringleader” of the “Theobros” crowd. Members, Taylor said, are usually “male, online-influencer types. Pastors, usually with a big beard, preaching hardline Calvinist theology.”
Reactions to Douglas Wilson’s CNN Interview
After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted CNN’s coverage of Douglas Wilson, commentator Keith Olbermann called Hegseth a “hypocritical coward.” Another person, referencing Hegseth’s checkered past, asked:
But what happens when your husband is a cheating drunk who left his first wife for his second wife but then got his mistress pregnant and then divorced the second wife to marry the third wife? Like at what point are you no longer qualified to lead the head of the household?
Southern Baptist pastor and Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers responded to Hegseth on X, writing, “AMEN! Of the increase of [Jesus Christ’s] government and peace there shall be no end…to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. Isa 9:7 KJV.”
