What Does Doug Wilson Believe?

Who he is

Who is Doug Wilson?

Douglas Wilson would like you to know that he is the humble pastor of a church in Moscow, Idaho. He would also like Moscow, Idaho. And Idaho. And, in due course, everything else: “I’d like to see the town be a Christian town. I’d like to see the state be a Christian state. I’d like to see the nation be a Christian nation. I’d like to see the world be a Christian world.” He estimates the project will take about 250 years, so there’s no need to panic yet. What follows is a brief introduction to the man, with sources, from someone who lives in the town in question.

Last updated November 10, 2026

On this page
  1. Who is Pastor Doug Wilson?
  2. Where did Doug Wilson go to seminary?
  3. How did Doug Wilson get so influential?
  4. What does Doug Wilson want for Moscow, Idaho?
  5. What does Doug Wilson actually believe?
  6. Why is Doug Wilson so nasty?
  7. Doug Wilson’s greatest hits in Moscow
  8. Stickergate: Doug Wilson’s grandsons vs. the City of Moscow
  9. Doug Wilson and the Steven Sitler wedding
  10. Doug Wilson and the Jim Nance abuse case at Logos School
  11. Why is Doug Wilson in the news now?
  12. Is this the hockey player Doug Wilson?
  13. A few of his worst, in full
  14. Common questions
  15. Sources

Who is Pastor Doug Wilson?

In 1977, a 24-year-old Navy veteran was playing guitar and leading worship at a two-year-old congregation when its preacher left unexpectedly. Rather than let the moment go to waste, Wilson stepped up to the pulpit, and he has graciously remained there ever since (Religion News Service).

That congregation is now Christ Church, or Christ Kirk, for those who prefer their churches slightly more Scottish. By RNS’s count, about 3,000 of Moscow’s roughly 25,000 residents are part of its community.

Where did Doug Wilson go to seminary?

He didn’t. Seminary is for people who need someone else to explain the Bible to them. Wilson’s degrees are in philosophy and classics from the University of Idaho (per his own college’s bio).

His ordination is listed through the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a denomination he co-founded in 1998 by linking his own church with two others (AP). It’s a bit like getting your driver’s license from a DMV you opened in your garage. But you can’t argue with results.

How did Doug Wilson get so influential?

Rather than wait around for anyone else’s institutions to recognize his gifts, Wilson built his own:

  • Logos School, a K-12 classical Christian school in Moscow (1981)
  • Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning (1991), the book that helped launch the Association of Classical Christian Schools (1993)
  • New Saint Andrews College (1994)
  • Canon Press, which publishes his books
  • Greyfriars Hall, which trains his pastors in-house
  • The CREC, now somewhere between 130 and 170 churches, depending on who’s counting (AP, RNS)

As a result, nearly every institution that vouches for Doug Wilson was founded by Doug Wilson. Some would call that a conflict of interest. I prefer to think of it as efficiency.

What does Doug Wilson want for Moscow, Idaho?

To make it a Christian town, and he has been admirably transparent about it:

  • “Our mission is ‘All of Christ for all of life’ and if you drill that down, then for all of Moscow.” (Religion News Service, 2019)
  • “We do want Moscow to become a Christian town, but we want it all to happen voluntarily, by people moving here and being converted and bringing up their children here. […] Pride parades absolutely would be illegal.” (NPR’s Extremely American, 2024)
  • “We could have Bovill for Jesus in two weeks,” he joked, “but that wouldn’t be strategic.” (RNS, 2019)

So it will all be voluntary. Except the Pride parades. Those of us who have lived here a while and haven’t gotten around to converting are grateful for his patience. All of his statements on Moscow, with sources.

What does Doug Wilson actually believe?

Wilson assures us his positions come straight from the Bible. A sampler, in his own words:

  • Women shouldn’t vote as individuals. The household should vote, and the husband will handle it. Sources
  • On slavery: “I’m simply saying it was not awful stuff across the board.” Sources
  • “HIV does not cause AIDS. […] The virus is a perfectly harmless passenger virus.” (1996) Sources
  • America should become a Christian theocracy. Asked by NPR what that would look like: “fluffy clouds and unicorns.” Sources
  • Anybody who voted for New York mayor Zohran Mamdani should lose their citizenship. Sources

All of this, he says, is simply what scripture teaches. It’s strange that so many people who have read the same book, including a great many with actual degrees in it, keep failing to notice. Here are a few of them.

Why is Doug Wilson so nasty?

Because mockery, in Wilson’s view, is a Christian virtue. He wrote a whole book about it, A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking (2010). And he practices what he preaches. Feminists are “small-breasted biddies.” Women pastors are “the feminist ministrix.” Two women he disagrees with are, in his words, “a couple of cunts.” We’ve collected more than 130 of his insults, each word-for-word and sourced.

Some might find it unusual for a 73-year-old pastor to spend so much of his day calling people names on the internet. Those people are clearly unfamiliar with Trinitarian skylarking.

Doug Wilson’s greatest hits in Moscow

The slavery booklet (1996). Wilson co-wrote Southern Slavery, As It Was, which made the case that American slavery has gotten something of a bad rap. A historian later noticed that parts of it had been copied, without credit, from another book, and Canon Press stopped printing it (SPLC). Undeterred, Wilson reworked the material into Black & Tan (2005) and has defended it ever since. A man of conviction. His statements on slavery.

The psalm sing (2020). On September 23, 2020, Christ Church members gathered in front of City Hall to sing hymns in protest of Moscow’s pandemic mask order, and police arrested three people (Moscow-Pullman Daily News). The charges were dropped and the city later paid to settle a lawsuit. So in fairness, the hymns worked.

The Tri-State shopping trip (2020). Three months later, Wilson hit on a novel way to support local business. He urged his congregation and a Facebook group called De-Mask Moscow to go Christmas shopping at Tri-State Outfitters on December 10, between 11 and 1, as long as nobody wore a mask. He’d heard the store was struggling, and he had reason to believe the visit “would not be unwelcome.” Twenty-five to thirty unmasked shoppers arrived. The store closed, locked its doors and posted staff at the entrance for the rest of the day (The Argonaut, AP).

Tri-State’s president, Joe Power, was not as grateful as one might have hoped: “If it were an act of support to Tri-State Outfitters in Moscow, Idaho, the request would not have been for maskless shoppers.” One of the shoppers, a Christ Church member, summed up the outing as an “utter failure.” Still, it’s the thought that counts.

For context: December 2020 was, to that point, the deadliest month of the pandemic in the United States. About 77,000 Americans died of COVID that month (NBC News).

Stickergate: Doug Wilson’s grandsons vs. the City of Moscow

On October 6, 2020, two of Wilson’s grandsons, ages 18 and 14, went around Moscow putting stickers on light poles and street signs. The stickers, which their father helped make, read “SOVIET MOSCOW: ENFORCED BECAUSE WE CARE,” a parody of the city’s pandemic slogan, in protest of the psalm-sing arrests (federal court record). Moscow has a rule against posting things on public property without permission, and the city charged the boys and their father with one misdemeanor each (Moscow-Pullman Daily News).

Some grandparents, on learning their grandsons had been caught stickering city property, might suggest an apology and a putty knife. Wilson saw something darker at work. The city’s response was “thin-skinned and authoritarian,” a “selective prosecution” run by “martinets who are not very competent,” and it was “threatening our people with up to six years in jail” (Blog & Mablog, March 2021). The boys, he explained, had simply been “stickering like good Americans,” and had been “arrested, separated, and questioned without being Mirandized.” Their legal defense fund was paid for, naturally, by selling stickers (Blog & Mablog).

Here is how the reign of terror ended. The 14-year-old’s charge was dropped after he agreed to write a paper about civil disobedience. The father’s charge was dropped. The 18-year-old went to trial and was convicted of one misdemeanor: $257.50 in fines and fees, $186.80 in restitution, 90 days of unsupervised probation, and an essay (Daily News). The Soviet Union has been accused of many things, but rarely of assigning homework.

In 2025 a state court set aside the 18-year-old’s conviction, and a federal judge let parts of the family’s lawsuit against the city go forward, noting they appear to be the only people ever charged under that city rule (federal court record).

Doug Wilson and the Steven Sitler wedding

Not everything about Wilson is funny. These next two parts aren’t.

In 2005, Steven Sitler, a freshman at New Saint Andrews, the college Wilson’s church founded, was caught molesting a child. He was expelled, Wilson counseled him, and Sitler went on to confess to more. Wilson puts it at “something like 13” cases. The denomination’s own 2017 review says he confessed to molesting 15 or more children in several states. According to his own defense attorney, most were under 12, and one family told the court their child was two years old (CREC report, 2017; Wilson, 2022; Christ Church minutes). Sitler pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with a child under 16 and was sentenced to life in prison with retained jurisdiction, then released on probation after about two years. Wilson wrote to the judge asking that “the civil penalties applied would be measured and limited” (his letter).

In June 2011, Wilson performed Sitler’s wedding to a young woman in his congregation. “I officiated at the wedding and was glad to do so,” he wrote. A judge approved the marriage (Wilson’s open letter, 2015). Vice later reported that Sitler’s parole officer had objected (Vice, 2021).

The couple had a son. In 2015, after new polygraph disclosures, the county prosecutor told the court that Sitler “has had contact with his child that resulted in actual sexual stimulation,” and that it happened while he was chaperoned. “He is a serial child sexual abuser,” the prosecutor said. The judge required a chaperone in direct line of sight whenever Sitler was with his son. Sitler’s wife was disqualified as a chaperone for failing to report disclosures, and Sitler had to move out (Moscow-Pullman Daily News, 2015). A year later, he still wasn’t allowed to live with his family (Daily News, 2016).

Wilson has never wavered. In 2015 he called the criticism of his church “simply slander” (open letter). In 2022, seven years after the polygraph, he explained why he did the wedding: “he’s repentant, he’s walked clean for years,” and “one of the aids and helps that God has given in this fallen world to guard against sexual immorality is lawful sexual relations.” Asked whether he would give his own daughter away to Sitler, he said no. Then he added: “Not only did I conduct that wedding, but I would do it again tomorrow” (All My Friends Are Heretics, 2022). Asked by CNN in 2025 why he would marry off a pedophile: “Because it was legal.” His words, with sources.

Doug Wilson and the Jim Nance abuse case at Logos School

Jim Nance, a 53-year-old married teacher at Logos School, which Wilson co-founded, was also an elder in Wilson’s church. A former student says he groomed her from her junior year and sexually abused her during her senior year. A chaperone reported concerns. When the school fired Nance in 2014 for what Wilson told the Wall Street Journal was “being flirty,” nobody asked her whether he had touched her, the superintendent told her to lie if anyone asked what happened, and nobody called the police (her account).

It didn’t stop there. She says Nance kept contacting and sexually assaulting her for more than a year after she graduated, until she cut him off in 2016. That year, she says, Wilson learned Nance was still in touch with her and emailed him: he called it “folly,” warned Nance he was risking his career, and worried about what would happen if his enemies found out (her account, part 2). In January 2017 Nance confessed to “about 7 or 8 instances of overt immorality” and Wilson reported him. Police took no action; Wilson says she was eighteen when “the immoral behavior began” (Wilson’s timeline).

Wilson’s position is that there were two people in that sin. “There was in fact a cover-up,” he wrote, “but it was a cover-up conducted by the two people involved in the sin” (Wilson’s timeline). He still says it: “There was an attempted cover-up, but [she] was the one doing it” (Wall Street Journal, 2025). She did deny it when police contacted her, and told the Journal why: she felt equally culpable.

When Wilson posted his timeline of the case, he backdated it on purpose, “simply to keep it off the front page of my blog,” so that visitors “don’t get gunked with the lies people are telling about us” (his timeline).

A teacher persuading a student that she is his accomplice is what grooming is. Wilson took it as a confession. “They absolutely failed to protect me,” she told the Journal. Her own account puts it more plainly: “What happened at that school was covered up, but not by me” (her account).

His summary: “I was accused of covering up a sexual assault against [her], when I did no such thing” (Controversy Library). Nance stayed in his church. Wilson’s explanation: “shepherds don’t throw mangled sheep to the wolves” (2024). In Wilson’s view, the mangled sheep is the teacher.

Why is Doug Wilson in the news now?

Partly because he built his own megaphone. Canon Press, the publishing house his church started in 1988, is now a full media operation: a streaming app, Canon+, with talk shows, documentaries and audiobooks; a YouTube channel with about 130,000 subscribers and 2,500 videos; his own show, Man Rampant; and a steady output of slick videos, like the one where he sets his own boat on fire to make a point about Christian nationalism (Wall Street Journal). He describes his own style as “winsome tartness.”

And partly because everyone else wants him now. Lately he has sat down with CNN, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times’s Ross Douthat, Tucker Carlson, Sam Harris, Michael Knowles and The Young Turks, and traded appearances with Charlie Kirk. Carlson called him “the person most closely identified with that phrase, Christian nationalism.” In 2025 he spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, the same conference that drew Tom Homan, Russell Vought and Tulsi Gabbard (WSJ).

And because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth goes to church in Wilson’s denomination, shared a CNN video of Wilson’s pastors explaining why women shouldn’t vote, and invited Wilson to preach at the Pentagon. The whole story.

Wilson also opened a church in Washington, D.C. in 2025, and he says 10 to 20 people who work for the federal government attend. So a worship guitarist from a college town in Idaho now has a congregation inside the federal government. The rest of us will have to make do with voting. Some of us more than others.

Is this the hockey player Doug Wilson?

No. Not the hockey player, and not the designer from Trading Spaces. Those Doug Wilsons seem like perfectly nice people.

A few of his worst, in full

Individual Women Should Not Have The Right to VoteWomen & Domesticity2026Blog · Interview · Article · Video

Over the last year or so, from time to time you may have wondered to yourself why I have taken it into my head to go around talking about the 19th Amendment so much. This, along with my supposed interest in repealing the right of women to vote. Why on earth would I ever do something like that? Well, you can’t expect me to talk about slavery all the time, can you?

— Douglas Wilson, “Why I Don’t Mind Talking About the 19th Amendment”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), July 15, 2026 Source ↗

What I envision is a system we have practiced in our church here for four decades, and that is household voting in our polity, in our church system. About 7% of the votes are cast by women because we have a number of women who are heads of their households.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Leila Fadel, “Pastor Doug Wilson on Why He Believes the U.S. Should Be a Christian Theocracy”, NPR Morning Edition, Transcript, July 7, 2026 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

In the civic realm, the 19th Amendment, by giving the franchise to women as individuals, transformed male voters into mere individuals, and wound up disenfranchising the household. So the issue for me is not who got the franchise, but rather who lost it.

— Douglas Wilson, quoted by Bonnie Kristian, “Doug Wilson’s Household Voting Plan Could Empower Democrats for Decades”, Christianity Today, July 13, 2026 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

[Leila Fadel: “And you’ve called for repealing women’s right to vote, which is protected by the 19th Amendment. Why?”] Because it’s a good idea... I don’t want women voting as individuals because I don’t want men voting as individuals. So what I envision is a system that we have practiced in our church here for four decades, and that is household voting... The vote would be cast by the head of the household.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Leila Fadel, “The Pastor Who Wants to Repeal Voting Rights for Women Is Becoming More Mainstream”, NPR (Newsmakers), Timestamp 26:42, July 7, 2026 Source ↗

Her husband wouldn’t vote instead of her; her husband would cast the vote... representing the whole household. [Sam Harris: “But presumably he would have the power to simply decide what the household should be voting, right?”] Yes, if they disagreed, he would break the tie... Under the current system where the husband and wife both go vote, if they agree with each other, all you’re doing is multiplying the total tally by two. And if they disagree with each other, then they’re just canceling each other out. They might as well just save the gas money and stay home and have a nice steak dinner.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Sam Harris, “Sam Harris & Christian Nationalist Doug Wilson (Making Sense Episode 443)”, Making Sense with Sam Harris, Timestamp 01:06:56, November 12, 2025 Source ↗

If you say I think men should vote and not women, snip, then that's going to be inflammatory, and actually rightly so. [Host: "Mhm."] But if you say that our concern is the disenfranchisement of households, why are households not represented in America's political system?... And so I just absolutely want to see the household represented in American polity.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed on On the Line, “Doug Wilson Addresses Viral CNN Interview | Christian Nationalism, Feminism, & Restoring Sanity”, On the Line, at 6:42, September 8, 2025 Source ↗

There are plenty of unqualified, inflammatory things I could say this month. Some might even be true. Millennials are betas. Women are bad at voting. Men are bad at leading women. Empire's great. Hamas got what it deserved. Abolitionists are silly. White people are the worst. Black people are the worst. People are the worst. I could spend my entire month triggering simpletons.

— Douglas Wilson, “Douglas Wilson's Sofa Emporium | No Quarter November 2026”, Canon Press, at 3:43, October 31, 2026 Source ↗

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Moscow, Idaho Should Be Governed By a TheocracyTheocracy & Civil Law2025Blog · Interview

One of the things that has disturbed our local secularists is that they have heard us saying things like “all of Christ for all of life for all of Moscow.” This seems to them as though we want to get control by earthly means. But we are talking about spiritual warfare. At the same time, spiritual warfare is not ethereal warfare, or some form of make-believe warfare. It is not as though there are no results. Of course there are results—God intends the result of a saved world.

— Douglas Wilson, “Postmill Worship”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), August 9, 2025 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

We believe that Jesus is Lord, Christ is Lord, and a lot of churches have been willing to sort of subsume their faith under the big tent of America. Right? We’ll just take our little corner here and think our religious thoughts inside our head, inside this room. But we think the Christian faith is public, and I think that unsettles people. [...] And we do want Moscow to become a Christian town, but we want it all to happen voluntarily, by people moving here and being converted and bringing up their children here. [...] So theocracy is an inescapable concept. Pride parades absolutely would be illegal.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Heath Druzin & James Dawson, “Onward Christian Soldiers, Episode 1: Make It a Christian Town”, NPR / Boise State Public Radio, Extremely American Season 2, June 26, 2024 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

I want the authority of the Lord Jesus to be confessed by the House and the Senate, and I want the president to sign it.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Heath Druzin & James Dawson, “Onward Christian Soldiers, Episode 8: Inside the Christian Nationalist Movement”, NPR / Boise State Public Radio, Extremely American Season 2, August 7, 2024 Source ↗

“Basically this is a blue dot in a very, very red state and the blue dotters are pleased,” Wilson told Religion News Service in an interview. “Our mission is ‘All of Christ for all of life’ and if you drill that down, then for all of Moscow.” [...] “We could have Bovill for Jesus in two weeks,” Wilson joked, “but that wouldn’t be strategic.”

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Religion News Service, “Douglas Wilson’s ‘Spiritual Takeover’ Plan Roils Idaho College Town”, Religion News Service, November 5, 2019 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

But then again, I’m a theocrat, not a secularist.

— Douglas Wilson, “Theocracy and the Tijuana Brass”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), January 17, 2018 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

First, theocracy is inescapable. Every society is theocratic, every society has a god of the system. The ethical expectations governing the members of that society are generated by the god of the system, and dissenters are clubbed in accordance with the divine will. In Islamic republics, this god is Allah, in secular democracies it is Demos, in Alabama it is Football. [...] In a Christian republic, the church would be a separate and distinct institution from the state. But the separation of church and state (an honored Christian position) is not the same thing as separating God and state, or morality and state, or ultimate questions from state.

— Douglas Wilson, “A Primer on Theocracies”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), January 10, 2018 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

I’d like to see the town be a Christian town. I’d like to see the state be a Christian state. I’d like to see the nation be a Christian nation. I’d like to see the world be a Christian world... Every society is theocratic. The only question is who’s the theo. In a secular democracy, it would be demos, the people.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Pamela Brown, “He Thinks America Should Adopt a Christian Theocracy. And He’s Finding a New Audience Under Trump”, CNN (The Situation Room), Timestamp 00:35, August 13, 2025 Source ↗

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Slavery Wasn’t That BadRace & Slavery2025Book · Interview

The “peculiar institution” of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories, which are often nothing more than a hackneyed reworking of abolitionist propaganda. […] Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it 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.

— Steve Wilkins & Douglas Wilson, Southern Slavery: As It Was, Canon Press, 1996, “The True Nature of Slavery in the South”, pp. 9–10

The [Works Progress Administration] 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.

— Douglas Wilson, Southern Slavery: As It Was (with Steve Wilkins), Canon Press, 1996, “The True Nature of Slavery in the South”

[Cenk Uygur: "Do you get why if you're an African-American in this country this talk of like, were some of the slave owners not so bad, is deeply disconcerting?"] No. [Cenk Uygur: "...can you not see how that would trouble people?"] I can understand why it's happening, but as a pastor, I've done a lot of marriage counseling over the years and I've seen marriages that are frankly a helicopter crash... But the fact remains that some marriages are not like that, right? So the issue is I want to say that evil slave owners were evil... There's no argument for me about all the awful stuff. I'm simply saying it was not awful stuff across the board.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Cenk Uygur, “FULL 90 MIN INTERVIEW With MAGA Pastor Doug Wilson”, The Young Turks, at 22:56, October 6, 2025 Source ↗

The high consumption of meat, sweet potatoes, and peas made the slave diet not only adequate, but it actually exceeded modern recommended daily levels of the chief nutrients. […] Many slaves had far better clothes than poor whites. […] Comments of observers suggest that the most typical slave houses of the late antebellum period were cabins about eighteen by twenty feet. […] Such housing may sound mean by modern standards but actually compared well with the homes of free workers in the ante bellum era. […] The medical care was good. Generally, the slaves received the same medical care the family received.

— Steve Wilkins & Douglas Wilson, Southern Slavery: As It Was, Canon Press, 1996, “The Abolitionists”, p. 16

Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since. Whatever its failures, slavery produced in the South a degree of mutual affection between the races which will never be achieved through any federally-mandated efforts.

— Steve Wilkins & Douglas Wilson, Southern Slavery: As It Was, Canon Press, 1996, “Unexpected Blessings”, p. 18

[Pamela Brown: “Do you still believe what you said back in the ’90s, that there’s a mutual affection between master and slave?”] Yeah. Well, yes, it depends on which master and which slave you’re talking about. 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.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Pamela Brown, “Extended CNN Interview: Inside Doug Wilson’s Crusade for Christian Domination in the Age of Trump”, CNN, Timestamp 31:15, August 12, 2025 Source ↗

There were other descriptions of slavery times from former slaves where they looked back on that time wistfully, they loved their masters, they had a great relationship, and that quote, I would apply to relationships like that.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Aaron Zitner, “The Man Leading Christian Nationalism’s Rise Under Trump”, The Wall Street Journal, Timestamp 08:16, September 26, 2025 Source ↗

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Democracy Should Be Replaced With TheocracyTheocracy & Civil Law2026Blog · Interview · Book

Secularism: we need to abandon the idea of secularism, and replace it with the biblical doctrine of three distinct governments—family, church, and state, all of them under the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ.

— Douglas Wilson, “White Boy Summer, or How Republics Rot”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), May 30, 2022 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

Can someone committed to the long-term mission of the Christian church, which is in fact to disciple all the nations of men (Matt. 28:19-20), with the end result of that process being the obedience of all those same nations, be genuinely committed to a robust doctrine of free speech? […] Our mission remains the same, which is to bring every thought captive. The mission assigned to the church in the Great Commission is the eradication of idolatry in the entire world. […] What I am arguing for is not a secular libertarian ideal, where any man can blaspheme if he wants to. Rather, in its long war against blaspheming idols, the Christian church started by attacking the biggest blasphemers, the central blasphemers, the blasphemers with the power of coercion. […] So what I am arguing for here is a Christocentric theonomy—theonomy as though the Christ had come. It is not a question of whether the law of God is just, but rather a matter of how that standard of justice is to be implemented throughout the world. It will eventually show up in the law, but it will not be implement(sic) through the law. […] This is why my ideal Christian republic, set sometime in the future, would not have a law requiring a parapet around the roofs of houses, but would nevertheless hold a home owner liable for damages if a guest fell off a second-story deck that had no rail and broke his arm. You look at a situation, discern the principle, and apply it to a new situation. […] This means that as we teach the nations and tribes to obey every one of the Lord’s commands, and to submit to all of His teachings, this would include His teaching that Old Testament Scripture cannot be broken, and that He did not come to abolish the law but rather to fulfill it.

— Douglas Wilson, “Free Speech in a Christian Theocracy”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), May 24, 2021 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

[Leila Fadel: "Now, you've made it clear that you want a Christian theocracy."] Yes. [Leila Fadel: "In this country. You've declared yourself a Christian nationalist. What would that look like in the United States?"] It would look like fluffy clouds and unicorns and everybody would be happy. That's my vision.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Leila Fadel, “The pastor who wants to repeal voting rights for women is becoming more mainstream | Newsmakers”, NPR, at 15:40, July 7, 2026 Source ↗

[Pamela Brown: "How far off do you see a [Christian nation?], like a full-on Christian [theocracy?]?"] Oh, 250 years. [Pamela Brown: "250 years?"] Yeah... [Pamela Brown: "But you do think it will happen?"] Yes, I do. We're not going to usher in anything ourselves. We're really, genuinely pioneers.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Pamela Brown, “He thinks America should adopt a Christian theocracy. And he's finding a new audience under Trump”, CNN, at 7:02, August 13, 2025 Source ↗

Transcribed from the video’s automatic captions. Words in [brackets?] are our best reading of unclear audio. Watch the clip to hear it for yourself.

As we continue to fulfill this obligation, the goal is to have civilization and the kingdom of God become more and more synonymous and harder and harder to tell apart.

— Douglas Wilson, Why Children Matter, Canon Press, 2018, Chapter 9: Principles and Methods

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Anyone Who Voted for Mamdani Should Lose Their CitizenshipPolitics & The State2026Interview

If I have a right to be a citizen, then someone has an obligation to make me a citizen. Does anybody in the world have a right to come here and become a citizen? So, it, in that sense, is not a human right... But citizenship is more of a privilege dependent upon ancestry, background, how long you've been here, whether you meet the qualifications or not. And if America is a creedal nation, then you have to have creedal standards, and [another panelist: "Acknowledgement."] acknowledgement. So anybody who voted for Mamdani should lose their citizenship. [applause]

— Douglas Wilson, speaking at a panel debate (moderator: Jared Longshore), “DEBATE : Which Way America? Albert Mohler, Doug Wilson, Joe Rigney, Paul D. Miller”, Canon Press, at 2:27:50, August 20, 2026 Source ↗

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Common questions

What church is Doug Wilson the pastor of?
Christ Church (also called Christ Kirk) in Moscow, Idaho, where he has preached since 1977. It belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a denomination he co-founded in 1998.
Did Doug Wilson go to seminary?
No. His degrees are in philosophy and classics from the University of Idaho. His ordination is listed through the CREC, the denomination he co-founded.
Does Doug Wilson think women should vote?
Not as individuals. He has called the 19th Amendment “a bad idea” and wants households to vote, with the husband casting the vote. His words, with sources.
Does Doug Wilson want to make Moscow, Idaho a Christian town?
Yes, in his own words: “we do want Moscow to become a Christian town.” His words, with sources.
Is Doug Wilson a Christian nationalist?
Yes, by his own description. His words, with sources.
What is Doug Wilson’s connection to Pete Hegseth?
Hegseth attends church in Wilson’s denomination, shared a CNN video about Wilson’s church in 2025, and invited Wilson to preach at the Pentagon in 2026. Full details.

Sources

  1. Religion News Service via MinistryWatch, “Christ Church at 50” (Dec 12, 2025)
  2. AP via PBS NewsHour, “What to know about the archconservative church Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends” (Aug 12, 2025)
  3. New Saint Andrews College, faculty bio of Douglas Wilson
  4. The Argonaut, “Tri-State Outfitters refuses service to influx of unmasked shoppers” (Dec 10, 2020)
  5. AP via Spokesman-Review, “Idaho store closes after group of mask-less customers enter” (Dec 11, 2020)
  6. Moscow-Pullman Daily News, psalm sing arrests (Sept 23, 2020)
  7. Southern Poverty Law Center on the Southern Slavery plagiarism (2004)
  8. CREC Presiding Ministers’ Report on the Sitler and Wight cases (Aug 15, 2017)
  9. CNN via NewsChannel 5, Wilson at the Pentagon (Feb 2026)
  10. Moscow-Pullman Daily News, “Prosecutor: New disclosures of conduct by Moscow sex offender are ‘state’s worst fears’” (Sept 2, 2015)
  11. Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Sitler cannot live with family (Aug 18, 2016)
  12. Douglas Wilson, “An Open Letter from Christ Church on Steven Sitler” (Sept 5, 2015)
  13. Christ Church, Sitler timeline from elder minutes (2016)
  14. All My Friends Are Heretics, Episode 1: Douglas Wilson, “Pedophiles, Justice, and the Gospel” (March 25, 2022)
  15. Vice, “Inside the Church That Preaches ‘Wives Need to Be Led with a Firm Hand’” (Sept 28, 2021)
  16. Wilson v. City of Moscow, U.S. District Court for Idaho, memorandum decision (Nov 20, 2025)
  17. Moscow-Pullman Daily News via Yahoo, “Soviet Moscow” sticker trial (May 18, 2022)
  18. Douglas Wilson, “Sticklers Stamping Out Stickers” (March 3, 2021) and “FAQs on Stickergate” (March 11, 2021)