Doug Wilson is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, a professor at New Saint Andrews College, and former editor of Credenda Agenda magazine. Back when I was a Calvinist with theocratic leanings, I read Credenda Agenda religiously.
A friend of mine sent me a quote from Doug Wilson’s book, Southern Slavery, As it Was. (his co-author was Steve Wilkins) Here’s what Wilson had to say:
Sodomites parade in the streets, claiming that if we do not appropriate more money to study why people with foul sexual habits get sick, we are somehow violating their civil rights. Feminists, in rebellion against God, invert the order of the home established by God. They do so in a way that seeks to rob women of their beauty in submission and their security in being loved. For two decades, we have seen millions of unborn children slaughtered in abortion clinics. How did we get here, and what is the way out? The question cannot be answered fully without careful study of the War Between the States and the controversies surrounding it. Slavery was one of those controversies.
Let this quote serve as a reminder that this kind of thinking is not the exclusive domain of groups such as Westboro Baptist Church, the Phelps clan, and Steven Anderson. Bigots can be found in almost every sect; with the number of bigots growing increasingly larger as the sect leans in a more conservative direction.
Wilson asks, which morality will it be, but same-sex marriage has nothing to do with morality. Allowing same-sex couples to marry affords them equal protection under the law and grants them the same civil rights as heterosexuals. Each of us have a right to privacy. Consenting adults have the right to engage in whatever sexual conduct that floats their boat without the government regulating the behavior. Theocrats such as Wilson desire and demand that their interpretation of the laws found in the Bible be codified and made the standard for everyone.
I find it hard to see how this is any different from Muslims who want to institute Sharia law. As the quotes below will show, Wilson is quite willing to use the power of the state to enforce his version of Biblical law. Wilson also thinks that there may be instances when execution is the rightful punishment for someone breaking the Evangelical God’s law.
Such thinking should cause all of us to shudder. While Islam is center stage in our culture, proponents of God rule are working behind the scenes to destroy America’s secular foundation and legislate and enact a Christian version of Sharia Law.
Here’s a Wilson quote I found on The Wartburg Watch:
“You might exile some homosexuals, depending on the circumstances and the age of the victim. There are circumstances where I’d be in favor of execution for adultery.
….
I’m not proposing legislation. All I’m doing is refusing to apologize for certain parts of the Bible.”
Here’s a Doug Wilson quote about rape and marriage I found on the Love, Joy, Feminism blog:
A final aspect of rape that should be briefly mentioned is perhaps closer to home. Because we have forgotten the biblical concepts of true authority and submission, or more accurately, have rebelled against them, we have created a climate in which caricatures of authority and submission intrude upon our lives with violence.
When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.
This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
But we cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual “bondage and submission games,” along with very common rape fantasies. Men dream of being rapists, and women find themselves wistfully reading novels in which someone ravishes the “soon to be made willing” heroine. Those who deny they have any need for water at all will soon find themselves lusting after polluted water, but water nonetheless.
True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity. When authority is honored according to the word of God it serves and protects — and gives enormous pleasure. When it is denied, the result is not “no authority,” but an authority which devours.
Here’s a Doug Wilson quote about slavery I found on the Are Women Human blog (link no longer active):
Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, [slavery] was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. The credit for this must go to the predominance of Christianity. The gospel enabled men who were distinct in nearly every way, to live and work together, to be friends and often intimates…
The [WPA Slave] Narratives consistently portray an amazingly benign picture of Southern plantation life. Affection for former masters and mistresses is expressed in terms of unmistakable devotion. Testimony to the good treatment, kindness, and gentleness of many so-called “heartless slave holders” abounds. Many of the old slaves express a wistful desire to be back at the plantation.
Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish.. abuses came from a distinct and very small minority.
And finally, here’s Wilson’s take on the Boy Scouts allowing gay scouts:
I believe that certain unspeakable things will be going on in Boy Scout tents within about five years — with our current tolerance pimps making it all happen — and they will be things that could best be addressed by a judicious use of the strongest form of disapproval a culture has. While I believe that the judicial law of Moses ceased when the nation of Israel ceased, as the Westminster Confession teaches, I also believe the general equity of the law remains. I believe that the general equity of the law includes this strong rejection of homosexual behavior. I also believe that the law of the Old Testament was the model for our common law system, and our system should work in the same way.
By the way, no need for any comments saying that I have confounded homosexuality and pedophilia. I haven’t, and am just giving an example of the kind of same-sex behavior I could see supporting the death penalty for.
But look what I just did. I cited an application of Leviticus 20:13 that could still have broad societal consensus, even in these jaded days. This being the case, what you will have to do is bookmark this page, wait about ten years, and send your outraged cries up to the skies then. By that point, a large number of boys will have been ushered into the fellowship of these men, and there will have been at least two HBO series exalting the lifelong friendships that resulted, and it will then be obvious and apparent to all (in 2023) that I am an incorrigible hater.
Imagine living in a world ruled by Doug Wilson and his merry band of Fundamentalists. No thanks. And that’s why we must continue to fight against those who continue to clamor for and work towards the establishment of an Evangelical Christian theocracy. We must not rest until we have metaphorically driven a stake through the hearts of those who want to enslave the world with their anti-human beliefs.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Shudder.
One thing that always comes to my mind that many people seem to forget is that same-sex marriage isn’t about SEX, it’s about MARRIAGE. Why would we want to discourage anyone from such a profound commitment? (Of course, assuming both parties are fully consenting adults.) These are two people who have promised to love, support, and care for each other for the rest of their lives. Who cares what happens when the blinds are closed? It seems so unimportant considering the bigger picture. And, a whole lot of straight people do consensual things in the bedroom that some people would consider to be morally reprehensible, but no one polices that.
Yeah, I can mess up my own marriage, I don’t need the evil gay people to do it.
Doug Wilson is off his fucking rocker. Certifiably looney, batshit crazy, missing a chunk of attic insulation, wheel’s- spinning-but-the-hamster’s-dead NUTS.
Slavery.
“Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish.. abuses came from a distinct and very small minority.”
Refer to the above paragraph about batshit crazy.
Worst thing? There are THOUSANDS of Doug Wilsons.
Oh Ami, you had me spluttering into my coffee here in the UK. Our family saying is ‘He’s one sandwich short of a picnic.’ Never heard the attic one or the hamster saying but both will now enter the vocabulary of this family (DH chuckled for 5 minutes over the hamster saying) Thanks!
I am a professional anthropologist/archaeologist, among other things, and the above statement is dead wrong on one account. Multiple zooarchaeological studies of early 1800s southern plantation slave cabins show that the Old White Massahs were protein-starving their slaves. It was so bad that the male members of slave families were forced to use any spare time they had to forage far afield for multiple sources of protein. The garbage pits associated with slave cabins on many plantations contain high quantities of bones from all sorts of game animals.
That is helpful information. Do you have any suggested reading material for further understanding of the Southern situation?
Doug Wilson is a rather disturbing character. Fortunately he is so far out there that no would take him seriously except his own band of weirdoes. His views of sex are twisted. I do believe women find sex to be very pleasurable…. except perhaps Doug Wilsons wife .
Mr. Wilson’s views of slavery appear to mirror his view of marriage, and, I assure you, most women find the sort of marriage he touts just as enjoyable as most slaves found slavery to be.
Sadly, though, he’s still promoted by at least one conglomerate of very well-known evangelical voices: The Gospel Coalition. Ask any reformed or Calvinist believer if they’ve heard of TGC and you’ll likely get a resounding yes. In fact, I’m neither reformed nor Calvinist and I’ve still heard of TGC. As long as TGC continues to promote Doug’s stuff, he’ll stay close (in proximity) to the mainstream.
I’d love to see some respected, respectful theologians take him to task publicly. I worry that it won’t ever happen until, unfortunately, Doug and his group have spiraled so far down the rabbit hole — they’re already far down it, as it is — that very bad things could happen, which is exactly where I believe they’re headed if left unchecked. In my opinion, it is the natural trajectory of such things.
It would not work Sara. Christian Reconstructionists have a mutually agreed upon standard answer to anyone who criticizes their beliefs. That answer is “I read your criticism. It is plain to me that you do not understand the true tenets and nature of Christian Reconstruction. If you did, you would have never made a silly criticism such as that.” End of story.
Quite frankly, if Doug Wilson and I were the last two people left on earth, he’d be dead in a matter of days. Based on his sociopathy, it would literally be me or him.
So he’s obsessively bigoted against gays, to the extent he thinks they should perhaps be executed.
He effectively says rape is okay because men are allowed to exercise authority and women should be submissive.
And slavery is good because some slave owners were quite kind in the way they treated their slaves. No matter that there was no relationship between the two, other than one of ownership.
Wow! The guy is sick, but what’s frightening is that he is totally incapable of any form of empathy with those who disagree with him. He is clearly psychotic.
What’s really scary is that I can read all of this by Doug Wilson and not be overly perturbed but think, “he’s slightly more extreme than I was, but I was probably on my way there.” Yikes! That’s diving without a snorkel on the deep end of the Crazy pool. Any crazier, and you would need a submarine and a bigger pool.
Yep, that’s what I’ve said about my time as pastor of Community Baptist in Texas. When the whole thing fell apart, it forced me to take a hard look at my life and the path I was on. I can only imagine where I might be today had I not changed the course of my life and adopted a kinder, friendlier set of beliefs.
Mr Wilson says: “By the way, no need for any comments saying that I have confounded homosexuality and pedophilia. I haven’t, and am just giving an example of the kind of same-sex behavior I could see supporting the death penalty for.”
Aside from horrible grammar, he equates pedophilia with homosexuality. Several issues with this but the person who has said it the best said it here:
http://holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com/
The document I’m thinking about is titled How They See Us
I’ve heard Mr Wilson’s rhetoric before and the big huge issue he ignores is consent. There are people, shoot some who will pay, who identify as a slave. There are even more who identify as submissive (in the bedroom only). The community I speak of was around before 50 Shades hit the bookstore. Shoot, we have lectures and classes on how to negotiate consensual non-consent.
He doesn’t care about consent. Women are always to serve and place themselves in the submissive role. That doesn’t work if you want to empower a person. And therein lies the rub. Mr Wilson doesn’t want to empower anyone else but himself.
Anyway, it offends me beyond belief that Mr Wilson insists that non-consensual slavery wasn’t all that bad. I’m pretty sure Mr Wilson can discount all the horror, suffering, and harm inflicted by forced slavery because it didn’t happen to him. His lack of empathy is clear and I do hope it will be his undoing.
Connie
PS – I already have you bookmarked but found you through Infidel753. I am happy your knowledge is being shared.
I couldn’t read everything. His sexual “philosophy” is so disturbing to me, that I have to wonder what he actually does away from prying eyes. Good grief, he almost comes out and says rape is just an extension of man’s sexual nature! This is not a safe person to be around.
I think authority and submission are involved to varying degrees any time you interact with at least one other person.
I don’t understand the fear that anybody has re Doug Wilson’s ideas. His ideas have not carried the day.
Adolph Hitler and the Nazis haven’t carried the day either. Should we not fear those who follow in his steps. Ideas/beliefs have consequences,. Wilson’s most certainly does: just ask feminists, saves, and homosexual .
Doug Wilson does mostly untold harm in his work, daily, for Jesus. He is a cult force in Moscow and if you do some personal research I am sure you will withdraw your generic statement regarding authority and submission. Southern Lady, have you read at all about Natalie Greenfield’s abuse?
Doug Wilson is a smiling, rabid evangelical. He makes my skin crawl.
My best friend was beaten and raped by her husband. He raped her orally, vaginally, and anally. I think she could tell you all about the authority/submission fantasies you seem to have embraced.
This guy’s views are the epitome of Christian nationalist white male supremacy. He would like for women and minorities to revert to the property of Christian white males who should rule the USA (if not the entire world).
This is appalling.
Probably all you need to know about Doug Wilson is that he has protected multiple pedophiles in his congregation. He kept one of them out of prison (just a short jail sentence), trashed the marriage and business of an outspoken victim’s father and has provided cover for a third. Who knows how many others have been covered up.
MoscowID.net keeps an archive of the awfulness that is Doug Wilson. The Wight and Sitler tabs tell the worst of it. Doug Wilson’s kirk is in Moscow, ID.
Diane, I haven’t embraced any authoritarian/submission fantasies.
Brian, I wasn’t talking about abuse.
Bruce, no, I don’t think we need to fear them.
I’m speechless.
Sensible people may fear them. However, the most important thing to do is marginalize them in American culture and keep them marginalized by frequently and regularly telling/showing the American public what they are really like and what utterly cruel nutjobs they are. Never allow them any dark place or shadow in which to hide and thrive. Keep a public spotlight on them and state the truth about what they actually believe and how awful it is. Or as Sheriff John Brown said in the famous song, “kill it before it can grow,” meaning the philosophy—not the people.
Two things:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.” — Doug Wilson
Why not? Because Doug Wilson is only capable of getting, not giving? I’m sorry for his wife.
Sure. The 1930’s WPA Slave Narratives were mostly about happy people and happy times, because most of the narrators were children when they were slaves. No doubt their parents did their best to shield them from the worst of slavery’s excesses, just as parents try to shield their children from the worst in their world today. Children got the best of what slavery had to offer. Their duties, if they had any, were nothing like their parents’ work, and they were often indulged by their masters and mistresses in ways their parents were not. It’s not surprising that ex-slaves remembered their childhoods fondly. Most people do.
This Wilson guy is a pompous ass just like Rushdoony and all the other Christian Reconstructionists. It has been my experience that the very worst individuals who dwell in Fundieland have their roots deeply planted in the Calvinist/Reformed Church tradition. I am not sure why that is the case—but it is. My only hypothesis is that the Calvinist can do any evil he wishes to do and then quietly walk away without any sense of humanity or remorse because said evil was “just part of God’s Plan” and “I was the chosen instrument to do God’s evil on his behalf. It was all God—and not any evil in me.”
I have never liked Calvinism, and it has nothing to do with my United Methodist Church (UMC) background. I have never been in any UMC church where a pastor in the pulpit or a Sunday school teacher attacked, low-rated, or even mentioned Calvinism. My opinion about Calvinism was independently developed, and it is purely my own.
Bruce, thank you for reposting this. Wilson is disgusting, and he needs repeated airing just to remind people what Reconstructionists are really like. We currently have our federal executive branch full of these repulsive creatures, and many states’ governments are infested with them. They need to be voted into irrelevance, over and over again, until our children’s children’s children can finally say that they ARE irrelevant.
this man is a vile human being. he engineered a marriage between a pedophile and a young lady in his church. after the baby, he has now ruined three lives as the resulting baby cannot be alone with this pedo. however, i have a feeling this kid is alreay abused as the mother must submit the pedo. somehow, the courts in the area seem to be allowing mr wilson and and cult to do these things w/o consequence.
Doug Wilson: “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
Zoe: He is a dangerous man just on this statement alone.
A man full of empathy, love, acceptance and understanding would not speak this way about his partner or women. To those traumatized by men such as this, he just raped them again.
To him a woman is not a human. She is to obey, receive, surrender and accept . . . but trust me Doug Wilson, you can rape her again and again and she may receive because you overpower her, she may surrender because who will take care of her babies if she does not, she may accept because she is a slave and sees no hope for salvation . . . but she will never. ever. love. you.
You are a patriarchal, misogynistic bullshitter. You are a narcissist. You are sick and you are feared everyday by those who have been verbally, financially, socially, culturally, religiously, mentally and physically raped by men like you and faith-based systems like yours. You have traumatized their minds and their bodies and often if any hope is left in them it is the hope of being able to give voice and warn those who are in danger.
Well and truly expressed, thank-you Zoe….
Doug Wilson: “Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish.. abuses came from a distinct and very small minority.”
Zoe: Ignorance. Sadly so many follow him as though he is someone who knows what he’s talking about.
And now Dougie’s spreading something more than just The Good News…
“Christ Church service draws 1,000 people.”
“Christ Church Pastor Doug Wilson, who preached at the service and provided the 1,000-person estimate, said he considered the gathering safe.”
“ ‘We wouldn’t be there if we didn’t think it was safe,’ Wilson said.”
https://dnews.com/coronavirus/christ-church-service-draws-1-000-people/article_7ecbcf3c-7ce6-5b8e-a5c3-f4bc43553e0e.html
“ ‘We wouldn’t be there if we didn’t think it was safe,’ Wilson said.”
And to hell with Science, with all informed requests regarding social distancing. Doug Wilson is blindly faithful to harming others. I first heard of him regarding his disdain for a parishoner’s abuse, his efforts to wreck Natalie Green field and her family with ‘Christian love’ (sic). The man is a disgusting but imporatant relic of Christian times. He hates everybody for Jesus and is a consummate chef: Word Salad at its most vile.
This religious fanatic and dangerous theocrat has no idea about decent human relationships. His comments makes me want to puke.
What a bad man. Disgusting. Revolting. The tide will turn, and when it does i wonder what he will say then? I used to feel sorry for people like this. Not anymore.
What a bad man. Disgusting. Revolting. The tide will turn, and when it does i wonder what he will say then? I used to feel sorry for people like this. Not anymore.
And i forgot to say, he sounds like a pervert . Only a disturbed person could come up with this. Shocked, stunned disbelief that we are even forced to talk with him.
I like his comments about slavery. The small minority that didn’t enjoy it. Sounds more like a politburo member fantasizing about communism/ Marxism. Yah! What about that tiny minority that GOT AWAY OVER THE WALL !!!!!
I have never met any apologist for slavery that is willing to volunteer for it.