On the Aug. 15 episode of “The Bulletin” podcast, Dr. Russell Moore said Pastor Douglas Wilson presents a “really dark and non-Christian view of who God is fundamentally”—and that young men who embrace Wilson’s teachings “become losers” instead of “responsible, faithful men.”
Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today (CT), talked with podcast moderator Clarissa Moll and CT media director Mike Cosper about Wilson’s recent interview with CNN. In that interview, Wilson, a 72-year-old Idaho pastor and self-described Christian nationalist, discussed his views on women, slavery, and transforming America into a Christian country.
Wilson, founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), recently planted a congregation in Washington, D.C., and one influential attendee is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
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Russell Moore: Young People Are Vulnerable to Authoritarianism
To begin their discussion, Mike Cosper provided a recap of Douglas Wilson’s transformation from a “fairly mainstream” traditional church leader to someone whose patriarchal and theocratic views grew increasingly “problematic.”
Behind that, Moore said, is “a really dark and non-Christian view” of God and Jesus, plus “some weird, unexplorable psychological stuff about women.” Young people who are just getting married and starting a family “are especially vulnerable to an authoritarian, distant leader,” Moore said, “because nobody knows what he or she’s doing when you first start out. You feel powerless.”
When somebody like Wilson claims to know “how to do [family life] in a way that’s going to keep all the bad things from happening to you later on,” Moore said, “that puts people in a really vulnerable sort of place.”
Over time, Moore noted, authoritarian leaders consistently expand the Overton window, or the range of societal views that most people consider mainstream. “We go from there to ‘Let’s repeal the vote for women,’” Moore said of Wilson’s teachings.
Douglas Wilson Is Not Speaking for Jesus, Warns Russell Moore
On the Aug. 15 episode of “The Bulletin,” Russell Moore said, “There’s no excuse for anybody not recognizing what [Douglas Wilson] was about, from the very beginning.” The pastor’s teachings have long been evident in his books and sermons, so people had “no excuse not to see that.”
Moore continued, “One of the things that really enraged me about this CNN interview is the fact that there are so many non-Christians who are going to watch this and think that this is Christianity.” He mentioned that Wilson once performed a marriage between a woman and a convicted pedophile.
“We are…exiling out of Christianity people who commit the sin of—let me check my notes here—empathy, but when it comes to a question of whether or not you’re putting children in jeopardy, your answer is no,” said Moore. “There’s no pastor I know who’s ever done anything like that who’s still in ministry.”
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“Then this picture of God and of women,” Moore added. “The fact that people can hear that and think, ‘This is somebody who’s speaking for Jesus,’ that’s enraging and tragic.”
