Russell Moore: Douglas Wilson Isn’t Shaping ‘Responsible, Faithful Men’
CT Media Director Mike Cosper said it shouldn’t be surprising that Pastor Douglas Wilson’s teachings resonate with American men “when progressive ideology has denigrated masculinity.”
Russell Moore said he’s “had to deal pastorally with a lot of young men” who started following Wilson. He continued:
They do not become responsible, faithful men. They become losers who are finding a way somehow to blame women for their own lack of responsibility and are able to somehow supplement the normal, ordinary 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus vision of what it means to be a responsible man with making sarcastic comments while drinking bourbon and smoking cigars…If you throw in some racist comments and call women derogatory terms, that makes it even better.
“That does not work,” Moore said, adding that you can’t “argue with the results,” which are “terrifying, they’re awful.”
When asked if Wilson’s teachings are “really just Christian nationalism laid bare for us,” Moore replied, “Yes, because it’s a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which says that external conformity is not enough.”
“This is a vision of a kind of authoritarian, external conformity that says, ‘If you’re Jewish, you can be here, but you’re not allowed to be publicly Jewish’” and that “Muslims…should be deported,” said Moore.
Wilson’s “cruel, hierarchical model” goes back to his arguments about slavery, said Moore, that enslaved people received better treatment on plantations than they might have received elsewhere. “The argument is insidious, and the argument is satanic, ultimately,” Moore said.
How Should Christians Respond?
When asked how Christians should respond to Douglas Wilson, Russell Moore acknowledged that “really grounded, discipled people” might be tempted to ignore those teachings because they sound so “crazy.” But silence results in young people thinking Wilson’s ways are correct, Moore said, so “we have to model something different.”
Mike Cosper encouraged Christians to “put yourself in the shoes of the people who are on the receiving end of these bad ideas. In doing so, you understand the way that it’s dehumanizing, demeaning, [and] it ought to empower you to speak up.”
Moore advised, “Whatever wording you’re hearing, imagine it coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ…and it will be impossible to do that. Which ought to tell you what is the Spirit of the Lord and what’s the spirit of, as John would put it, the anti-Christ.”
After that episode aired, Canon Press, the publishing arm of Wilson’s ministry, posted a clip of Moore describing Wilson’s effect on young men. User Scott Barber replied, “This is pretty solid analysis.” But someone else replied, “I can’t imagine any person who was involved with Wilson going to Moore for advice. This never happened. Not once.”
About the clip, Pastor Trey Ferguson wrote, “Russell Moore is wrong here. These young men do not become losers after encountering Doug Wilson’s ministry. They were already losers.”
“Wilson just provides the validation they were seeking so they don’t ever have to look in the mirror and have that [come-to-Jesus] moment,” said Ferguson.
