Douglas Wilson’s America – The Dispatch

In today’s Dispatch Faith, Institute on Religion & Democracy President Mark Tooley dives into Wilson’s views on theology and government—which include women losing their right to vote—while explaining why Wilson and his camp may be attracting congregants.

Self-professed Christian nationalist Douglas Wilson is a rising star in the American evangelical firmament. He recently planted a new church on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attending, which is attracting national attention from outlets like CNN. 

Wilson, a religious entrepreneur based in Moscow, Idaho, has created a denomination, a publishing house, a college, and a theological/cultural thought movement that appeals to postliberal Protestant intellectual young men. His role in creating the Christian classical school network has also added to his luster. 

“Christian nationalist” is a common pejorative epithet from critics on the left aimed at politically active conservative Christians. But Wilson is among a small but growing group of Calvinists who embrace the term. Wilson, with his followers and kindred spirits, advocates a Christian confessional state in which Christianity is the official national religion. The most important work advocating this view is the book The Case for Christian Nationalism, written by Stephen Wolfe and published in 2022 by Canon Press, founded by Wilson.

Wilson’s movement is dogmatically Calvinist, unapologetically patriarchal, and proudly nonegalitarian. A recent CNN story, circulated by Canon Press and retweeted by Hegseth, featured clergy from Wilson’s church disdaining the 19^th Amendment of 1920 that granted voting rights to women. These Christian nationalists believe only men as heads of household should vote in civil society, representing their families. Some unmarried women possibly also would have voting rights. Wilson’s disciples are typically bearded, intense young men who in their media come across as harsh. But Wilson himself, age 72, presents himself as grandfatherly, avuncular even when provocative, matter-of-fact, and wryly humorous. 

For the second time, Wilson will speak at the annual National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., on September 2-5, along with many other postliberal conservative thought leaders. National Conservatism, founded by Israeli thinker Yoram Hazony, has endorsed Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism. Wolfe, in his book, suggests a Christian state could execute heretics and apostates, though he hopes the state would choose other alternatives. Wolfe has flirted with ethno-nationalism and collaborated with online influencers with unsavory racial views. And, as the U.S. worked with Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Wolfe tweeted that “2% of the population demand 100% of the wars,” which he later deleted. Other self-professed Christian nationalists from Wilson’s community are even more outspoken. Austin, Texas, pastor/podcaster Joel Webbon, at whose annual “Right Response” event Wilson spoke last year, has suggested that Jews are more susceptible to pornography and usury, and he advocates banning synagogues in America, along with mosques. Wilson mostly stays away from this nastiness, but he could be faulted for not creating distance between himself and the nasties. In years past, he’s celebrated the Confederacy.

Wilson’s denomination is the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which he helped found in 1998. It has 130 congregations, including the new plant in Washington, D.C., Christ Church, which meets at the Conservative Partnership Institute on Capitol Hill. About 200 reportedly attended the first service in July. It’s the first church in Washington openly friendly with Christian nationalism as defined by support for a Christian confessional state. Realizing its potential influence, the denomination, which had about 15,000 members in 2020, plans to bring its leading preachers and theologians to the new Washington church. 

But Wilson’s reach is hardly confined to his small denomination. And his ascendancy illustrates the wider decline of denominations in America. He has become a familiar personality through the institutions he has helped found and through his unique online persona. Mainline Protestant denominations began their membership collapse 60 years ago, leading to cultural irrelevance. Evangelical denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention displaced them in numbers and influence in the 1970s. But now, with a few exceptions, they are declining. American religion has entered its post-denominational phase. The only major growing segment of Christianity in America is nondenominational. And even worshippers in denominational churches, if they are not old, are increasingly indifferent to and often even unaware of their denominations. A young Episcopal priest who rebuilt his church after the pandemic recently told me that only about one quarter of his now young congregation, which includes many Southern Baptists, cares about the denomination. Vibrant denominational congregations, including Southern Baptists, often disguise their denominational affiliation.

If you asked an American Christian 40 years ago who his or her favorite public preacher or Christian commentator was, he or she would say Billy Graham or some nationally recognizable television evangelist. Twenty years ago, responses would include megachurch preacher/author Rick Warren, who wrote best-selling books like The Purpose Driven Life. When I ask today, the answers I invariably get are names usually unrecognizable to me, even as the president of a Christian think tank that studies these issues. American Christianity, like much of American politics and journalism, has become siloed. A favorite preacher or Christian writer today will be a personality who has a million followers on YouTube or for his podcast, but is not well known outside his own constituency. Wilson has fit that category for years, occupying a special niche of contrarian, very conservative evangelicalism. But recent publicity and controversies have elevated him to a new level.

Postliberal America is the ideal field for Wilson and his followers. His Washington church will not likely grow into the thousands. Nor will his denomination grow into the millions. But he is a suitable chaplain to a growing segment on the right that disdains classical liberalism as a failure, if not flawed from the start, and wants to completely rebuild America into a new postliberal order, where Christianity is not just central, but ideally legally privileged. 

Wilson and his theological kindred spirits are postmillennial, broadly believing God’s kingdom emerges before Christ’s return, which gives them confidence about their efforts to Christianize society. Most U.S. evangelicals over the last century have been premillennial, expecting the world to decline until Christ returns, making them more politically and culturally pessimistic. While the latter perspective is typically more affirming of religious freedom, Wilson’s movement sees religious freedom more suspiciously.

The National Conservatism Statement of Principles of 2022, signed by many prominent conservatives, points in this direction, saying Christianity “should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private,” while “Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions,” with “Adult individuals” “protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.”

This is very different from the traditional American vision of all citizens equal regardless of religion and equally free to promote their views in public space. Recent complaints about a large Hindu statue in Sugar Land, Texas, evince a wider concern about non-Christian religion in America, even though only 7 percent of Americans practice a non-Christian religion. In his recent CNN interview, Wilson says, “One of the reasons why we have such problems with assimilating Muslims and Hindus is that there are so many of them,” even though only about 1 percent of Americans are Hindu, and not many more are Muslim. Postliberalism and its Christian chaplains fret with little evidence that immigration is leading America away from Christianity, so Wilson and his followers offer state establishment of Christianity as a solution. Some on the right who are not themselves particularly religious likely see this solution as a cultural guardrail—and, perhaps more importantly, it’s anti-woke. 

But the chief challenge to Christianity in America, and perhaps even to the broader unity of our democracy and civil society, is the stunning decline in religious affiliation. Only several decades ago, 90 percent of Americans identified as Christian, and now just about 60 percent do. Nearly 30 percent identify with no religion. Americans are not bewitched by Hindu statues or other religions; they are less interested in institutional religion. The fault can lie only with America’s Christian churches, which no longer command transgenerational loyalty. Yet few postliberals, religious or not, talk about the imperative of reviving churches and their affiliated institutions in America, absent which there can be no “Christian America.” Many postliberals celebrate Hungary under Viktor Orbán, who stresses his nation’s Christian identity. Recent data shows that church attendance in Massachusetts is 50 percent higher than in “Christian” Hungary, where the regime, despite its rhetoric and state-controlled media, has not increased religious observance. No government can.

Christianity can survive and thrive in America, as everywhere else, only through evangelism—making new converts—and discipling—strengthening its adherents in the faith. An agenda of state promotion of Christianity may rhetorically scratch itching ears eager to attack liberalism and its principles of religious freedom and legal equality for all. But it almost certainly will have no effect on rejuvenating Christian influence. At least Wilson, unlike most of the rhetoricians and social influencers touting Christian nationalism of some sort, is a pastor who plants churches and builds Christian institutions. Many of his ideas are offensive, unhelpful, or implausible. The company he keeps and the followers he attracts are often disturbing.

But the Wilson model should inspire others on some level. Increasing Christian vitality, and consequently reinvigorating American civil society, plus restoring social harmony, requires doing what he has done: planting churches, founding schools, publishing serious books, creating networks of influence and encouragement. America will never become a Christian confessional state—religious freedom is central to our democratic DNA. But America would not be America without a Christianity that’s constantly adapting and building, replacing old stuff that no longer works with new messaging and institutions, always winning new hearts to the mission.

While Protestants have often been divided over theological or doctrinal issues of various sorts, today politics seems to be the biggest source of division, according to Napp Nazworth. He’s the executive director of the American Values Coalition, which seeks to help Americans bridge such divides and includes the J29 Coalition—a network of “theologically conservative” pastors trying to help their congregants work through their political divisions. For our website today, Nazworth writes about how such divisions manifest themselves, including earlier this summer when evangelical influencer Megan Basham targeted his organization.

Basham complains that “the leaders of both groups are exclusively Never Trump” and “none of the teachers associated with J29 and AVC share the outlook of the typical Christian conservative.” What outlook is that? Is it these teachers’ views on the virgin birth? The resurrection? Miracles? Biblical authority? No, none of those. The outlook she’s referring to can be found in the next sentence: “Even its least partisan coach posts exclusively negative or neutral comments regarding the president.” Basham’s formulation comes down to this: They don’t support Trump so they can’t be conservative Christians.

Basham and her fellow influencers are not alone. You don’t support Trump, so you must: not understand the Bible … not be a true Christian … have Trump Derangement Syndrome … and more. I’ve heard this more times than I can count. Most of the time it’s thrown at me as a convenient way to avoid engaging with my arguments. I know many other conservative Christians who’ve experienced the same.

For the Jewish Review of Books, Shai Secunda penned an essay explaining why visiting the graves of departed saints is so meaningful—and in places like Israel, so difficult. “It’s easy for modern people to mock the cult of saints, with its irrational fears, childish hopes, and profane economy,” Secunda wrote. “Yet, one cannot deny that these places continue to draw sincere worshippers who stand humbly in prayer with hearts open. A few years ago, I went to Tiberias and visited the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes, who is the patron saint of people who’ve lost things or who feel lost. His large shrine sits on a hill above the Sea of Galilee, a few steps away from a gourmet ice cream parlor. After ducking in to see the place, I stood in the sun outside, listening to an impromptu lecture from a visiting cynic who described the establishment of the tomb as a fundraising ploy by nineteenth-century rabbis. But then, turning back to face the building, I noticed a young woman standing alone, swaying rhythmically in prayer and holding a prayerbook tight to her chest, as tears—real and copious—streamed down her face. It is a scene that repeats itself at places like Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem, where barren women gather to pray for children, the grave of Jonathan ben Uzziel in Amuka, where single people go to beseech God for a suitable husband or wife, and, of course, at the graves of relatives, where the feeling of the site as a numinous borderland between the living and the dead is palpable for the mourners.”

Sorry for the shameless company promotion (OK, not that sorry), but if you haven’t already, you should really give Jonah Goldberg’s recent Remnant interview with historian Barry Strauss a listen. Strauss, the author of Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire, discussed his book but also touched on more general Middle Eastern history and Christianity’s role in shaping Western thought.