The pastor who wants to repeal voting rights for women is becoming more mainstream — Newsmakers

[0:00] What is your view of the Iran War? Is it a religious war? [0:05] In a very broad sense, it is a civilizational collision, and there are religious elements mixed up in it. [0:12] You don't support forever wars? [0:14] No, I don't. [0:15] Has this gone on too long? [0:17] Yep. [0:19] You've called for repealing women's right to vote, which is protected by the 19th Amendment. [0:24] Right. [0:25] Why? [0:26] Because it's a good idea. [0:28] I wouldn't just impose a Christian hard theocracy on the country as it now is. [0:37] You can't do that. [0:38] Politics is the art of the possible. [0:40] You do what you can with what you have. [0:42] Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited Pastor Doug Wilson to give a sermon at the Pentagon. [0:49] Wilson was invited as part of Hegseth's monthly Christian worship service. [0:53] The pastor's appearance was controversial. [0:55] Wilson is a self-described Christian nationalist, and not long ago, his beliefs were seen as extreme, French. [1:03] Today, even though Wilson's church network and followers are still few in number, his teachings, according to religious studies scholars, are entering the mainstream. [1:12] And that's why we sat down with Doug Wilson here at Christ Church Hall in his church community in Moscow, Idaho. [1:21] Doug Wilson, thank you so much for having us here in Moscow, Idaho. [1:25] Great to have you here. [1:26] Thanks for coming. [1:26] You know, part of the reason we came is because you've shown up a lot in the national spotlight lately, in part because of your association with the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. [1:37] Right. [1:37] You were invited to the Pentagon to lead a monthly worship service earlier this year. [1:42] And I just wondered what that was like to do that service in this hall of power. [1:47] So there's a certain element of it that is kind of trippy. [1:51] So I'm a pastor in North Idaho. [1:55] Yeah. [1:55] Right. [1:56] And that is not the normal thing you would expect. [2:00] So there have been some twists and turns along the way. [2:03] So, yes, trippy is a good way of putting it. [2:06] When you say that, but did you expect, you said, I didn't expect, what was it like? [2:11] Well, it was a very well-run service, about 300 people there that came. [2:19] I noticed that the morale in the Pentagon, the people that I'd interacted with, was very high, very exuberant group. [2:29] The message was very well received. [2:32] It was just a good event. [2:35] It was very hard to, Pentagon's a very hard place to get into, to find your way. [2:41] But I did it. [2:43] Secretary Hegseth attends a chapter of your network of churches that you co-founded. [2:49] What about the church and your teachings appeal to Secretary Hegseth, do you think? [2:55] So there's a little bit of history there. [2:59] When Pete Hegseth was still with Fox News as a correspondent anchor, he did a documentary on the state of American education [3:11] and was so impressed at what he saw about this classical Christian school movement [3:18] that he moved to Tennessee to put his kids in a school like that. [3:24] He was still a correspondent with Fox. [3:26] So he was flying in and out of Nashville because of his job. [3:32] And he would fly in to Nashville on Sunday and not in time for church. [3:37] There was one church in the area that was meeting in the afternoon because they didn't have a facility. [3:42] And that was Pilgrim Hill Church, which is pastored by my friend Brooks Puttiger. [3:48] And he's part of our denomination, the CREC. [3:52] And there are connections between the classical school movement and the CREC, the denomination. [3:59] And it was there that he made all the connections before he was the Secretary of War. [4:06] He knew about me because I was one of the founders of the resurgence of classical Christian education. [4:12] So he was familiar with my work because of that as well, I think. [4:19] So after he moved to Washington and was the Secretary of War, we started the church service in D.C. [4:31] You opened a church. [4:32] We opened a church service, yeah. [4:34] And it was under the authority of the church here. [4:38] And we didn't have a pastor. [4:40] We just had an opportunity. [4:42] And so we raised enough money to fly pulpit supply in for like a year. [4:49] And we had different men from here and other places around the country who would come into D.C. [4:54] and preach and lead the service. [4:56] And so Secretary Hegseth began attending that service, which was a CREC church like the one he had joined in Tennessee. [5:07] So it was a natural place for him to attend. [5:11] When you say we had an opportunity, what do you mean? [5:14] So if Kamala had won the presidency, there would have been basically zero evangelicals in the White House administration. [5:24] It wouldn't. [5:25] And although Donald Trump is not an evangelical by any stretch, he's a professing Christian, but he's not an evangelical. [5:38] That's probably the best way to put it. [5:40] Even though that's the case, his administration is full of them. [5:45] There are Christians everywhere. [5:47] And in D.C., there are other fine Christian churches, Reformed evangelical churches. [5:57] But our movement has a couple of distinctives that made it necessary for us to think about putting a church service there. [6:08] And that's because with all the Christians, all the evangelical Christians in the administration, that included a number of our people from around the country, CREC people. [6:19] And one of the distinctives that we have is we are Presbyterian, Paedo-Baptist, baptized infants. [6:28] But a distinctive feature that we have that a lot of Reformed churches don't have is that we commune children. [6:35] We practice weekly communion at the culmination of every service, and we commune our children, right? [6:42] And as you can see from the spots on the floor, so it's a war zone. [6:47] So you're giving a little cup of wine to the kids included. [6:53] Now, if you're a CREC family man and you've been offered a job in the administration, you don't want to move to D.C. [7:03] and have to join a church where basically your kids are going to be excommunicated, right? [7:08] So we're the only Reformed church in the area that serves the children in that way. [7:17] So that was one doctrinal distinctive. [7:21] The other distinctive is what the writer Kevin DeYoung called the Moscow Mood, which is basically a particular approach to cultural engagement where it's more exuberant than what you often get from Christians. [7:39] Now, I want to come back to the church in D.C., but I also have a couple more questions about your relationship with the Secretary of Defense before we get into your broader views. [7:51] How often do you talk to him now? [7:54] Not a lot. [7:55] I've communicated with him some. [7:58] He obviously invited me to do the Pentagon service. [8:02] I met with him when I was there. [8:03] I've communicated. [8:05] I've met him a few times at church, once in Tennessee and once or twice in D.C., and we've texted some, but that's not a lot. [8:18] Does he ever seek your advice or the advice of other pastors within your church network on policy matters? [8:25] Not to my knowledge. [8:26] Certainly not for me. [8:27] And there's a fine distinction, an important distinction to be made here. [8:37] I think it is crucial for pastors when it comes to situations like this to stay in their lane. [8:45] You know, let's say I've got thoughts on the straight-up-form moves. [8:50] I don't have security clearances. [8:52] I wasn't elected to anything. [8:54] I don't have the information that I'm sure he has. [9:00] Now, there are certain—so, no, I want to stay in my lane and not do anything. [9:05] At the same time, I'm a pastor and a writer, and I will write columns, and I will talk. [9:13] I'm happy to talk about the Straits of Hormuz and different things for the public. [9:18] And if I were to say something there, and Pete Hexeth read it and said, [9:24] I think that's a good point, that's his business. [9:27] But in terms of it's not my business to take a position of a spiritual pastor and muddle the categories. [9:38] Now, having said that, there are certain areas where spiritual issues and political issues overlap. [9:46] So, let's say—this is not real, but let's say President Trump said, let's nuke them all and let God sort it out. [9:58] I mean, he did at some point say, we're going to end a civilization. [10:02] He has said things around that. [10:04] Yeah, he said that, but he didn't do that. [10:07] He didn't do it, but he did say it. [10:08] But let's say—and one of the things that's interesting is you're looking at the things the president says, [10:14] and you're thinking, okay, is this just New York bluster? [10:16] Is this the art of the deal? [10:18] Is this a serious threat? [10:20] When Donald Trump talks, he often doesn't do what he says, but he usually does something, and something's going on. [10:28] But let's say I had reason to believe that—I'm not accusing or anything like that, [10:32] but let's say I had reason to believe that I thought the president was going to commit a war crime [10:37] and require people under him to be complicit in the war crime. [10:41] I think that pastors there have an obligation to say, you may not. [10:48] Do you think the U.S. has committed war crimes in Iran? [10:50] No, I don't, no. [10:52] Not the school? [10:52] Well, there's a difference. [10:55] If we had said, see that school? [10:57] We're going to kill the kids. [10:58] That would be a war crime, yes. [11:00] But one of the things that's awful about war is that—and several things are awful about war. [11:07] One is the antiseptic terminology that's used, like collateral damage. [11:12] But there is a very real difference between civilian casualties as a byproduct [11:19] or because they were in the blast radius, as opposed to targeting civilians on purpose. [11:24] That would be a war crime. [11:25] So just to keep the lines distinct, if Christians are told to do something that would dishonor God, [11:33] it doesn't matter that your superior told you to do it. [11:37] You must not. [11:38] What is your view of the Iran war? [11:40] Is it a religious war? [11:43] In a very broad sense, small r, religious. [11:46] It's not a religious war in the way the Crusades were. [11:53] It's not that. [11:54] But there is a civilizational difference between the Islamic civilization in Iran [12:01] and the historically Christian civilization. [12:05] It is a civilizational collision, and there are religious elements mixed up in it. [12:10] So you see this as a Christian-Muslim war? [12:12] No, I think it's a geopolitical war with Christian-Muslim elements mixed up in it. [12:20] Do you think it's divinely sanctioned? [12:23] Well, I'm a Calvinist, so I think that everything is ordained by God. [12:30] As in, is there biblical justification for this war? [12:32] Well, there's a difference between a holy war in the Old Testament, where God says, [12:38] go in and exterminate the Canaanites. [12:40] That's God's command. [12:42] That's a religious sanction for the war, and it's a holy war. [12:46] As opposed to, that was under Joshua in the invasion of the land. [12:51] Centuries later, under King David, for example, [12:53] the wars that Israel had were, you might say, ordinary wars, geopolitical wars [12:59] that happened to have believers and unbelievers on opposite sides. [13:03] And the rules of war in an ordinary war were different [13:06] than the wars of extermination that God commanded under Joshua. [13:11] So I don't believe that the wars of extermination are ever justified in the Christian era. [13:16] I don't think that is our place. [13:20] I don't think that's what God is up to. [13:22] But I do believe that we come into ordinary conflicts, and we must fight like Christians. [13:27] And there are rules of engagement, and they ought to be observed. [13:32] You said you don't support forever wars. [13:34] No, I don't. [13:35] Has this gone on too long? [13:37] Yep. [13:39] Yeah. [13:40] I think that this, and this is a stop and start kind of thing. [13:46] The bombing campaign was a short, brief war. [13:51] I would have much preferred to have us just do that and get out. [13:56] But it seemed like more of an entanglement than I think anybody in the MAGA right likes. [14:06] Do you think it should have started at all? [14:07] What's that? [14:07] Do you think it should have started at all? [14:09] Well, I've written about this, too. [14:13] I much prefer the older constitutional system of Congress declaring war and the president executing it. [14:20] However, with the War Powers Act and the way Washington has functioned since World War II, that was the last declared war that we had, you would have to unravel a good deal of Washington in order to get to a constitutionally declared war. [14:40] Which I would prefer. [14:41] I would prefer that. [14:43] But given the fact of hostilities, I like the fact that Congress has the authority to pull the plug. [14:49] And is that what you want to see happen? [14:52] Well, I'd like to have them pull the plug at a sensible time. [14:56] Once I appeal to Colin Powell's statement about Iraq, he appealed to the pottery barn rule. [15:04] Well, if you break it, it's yours. [15:07] So I think you can't go thundering in and then tiptoe out like nothing happened. [15:12] I think we did that, for example, in Afghanistan. [15:18] Afghanistan was a terrible overreach. [15:21] I don't think we should have been there. [15:22] Don't think we should have been there for 20 years. [15:24] And we certainly shouldn't have extricated ourselves the way that we did. [15:29] So the way we came out was as much of a disaster as the way we went in. [15:33] So if we extricate ourselves from the Iranian war, I don't want that extrication to make things worse. [15:40] Have you communicated these concerns directly to the Secretary of Defense? [15:46] No, I've written about them. [15:48] I've written about them, and he may have read them. [15:50] But I've been very careful not to take my position as pastor and say, [15:56] I've got a pipeline to the Secretary. [15:58] Let me tell you what I think about these things. [16:01] No, I wouldn't. [16:02] Now, you've made it clear that you want a Christian theocracy in this country. [16:08] You've declared yourself a Christian nationalist. [16:11] What would that look like in the United States? [16:13] It would look like fluffy clouds and unicorns, and everybody would be happy. [16:19] That's my vision. [16:21] That's your vision. [16:22] What it would look like in practical terms. [16:27] What would change, for example? [16:29] What would change? [16:30] I would want basically the same constitutional framework that we have now. [16:36] I love the U.S. Constitution. [16:39] I think it's a work of theological genius. [16:41] I like the federal system of subordinate states that have their own powers. [16:48] I like the separation of powers at the federal level. [16:51] I love the constitutional structure. [16:54] So I'd want that to remain. [16:57] The things that would change would be things that would be at the statutory. [17:01] Some would be Supreme Court, excuse me, constitutional amendments, or they might be dealt with other ways. [17:10] I'd want to see abortion outlawed everywhere. [17:13] I'd want to see Obergefell overturned. [17:17] I'd want to see no-fault divorce rejected, overturned, things like that. [17:24] So no same-sex marriage, no abortion? [17:27] No same-sex marriage. [17:30] I'd like the LGBTQ plus thing to go away at the legal level in terms of law. [17:39] There would be no legal protections for LGBTQ plus books. [17:41] Correct. [17:41] There would be no special carve-outs for them, right? [17:45] You said you love the Constitution. [17:47] Right. [17:47] I mean, the First Amendment of the Constitution protects your right to believe all the things you believe. [17:53] It protects other Americans' rights to believe what they believe or not believe. [17:58] It says very clearly that there shall never be a religious test to hold public office. [18:04] It says very clearly that there shall never be a religion of the land. [18:07] So how can you love the Constitution but also envision a Christian theocracy in this country? [18:13] So let me divide it in that question. [18:16] It's actually two questions. [18:17] One is the established church issue, and the other is the First Amendment free expression. [18:24] There's two things going on there. [18:26] First on— [18:27] The First Amendment says there shall be no establishment of religion. [18:31] Right. [18:32] And that is—the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of religion. [18:39] The only entity on earth that can violate the First Amendment is Congress. [18:44] What the founders were prohibiting was a Church of the United States. [18:48] They didn't want a federal denomination. [18:52] And this makes sense because if the Oriole is the state bird of Maryland and the bald eagle is the national bird, that's not likely to cause any civil war. [19:02] The state flower, national flower, state anthem, national anthem, everybody's fine. [19:07] But if you had state denominations, which at the founding we did, okay, there were—so Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont all had the Congregational Church as the official church of their state. [19:24] Not Vermont, excuse me, New Hampshire. [19:26] Then Vermont came in as the 14th state after the Constitution was ratified, and they came into the Union with an official Christian denomination as the state church. [19:36] In the other colonies, South Carolina, for example, had a law that said basically the Protestant religion is the official faith of this state, okay? [19:49] Now, if you then made the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church the national church, you're just begging for conflict between the federal and the state. [20:00] So the prohibition of a religious test is a prohibition of a religious test for federal— [20:06] For public office. [20:07] For federal office. [20:08] For federal public office. [20:08] Okay. [20:09] For state office, when the men who passed or ratified the Constitution, they had all kinds of religious tests for office at the state level, all right? [20:20] And so now there's an important thing here. [20:24] I'm not a big fan of established religion at the state level either. [20:29] I don't like that. [20:30] But how do you get to a Christian theocracy? [20:33] I would prefer the South Carolinian system where we publicly recognize that Jesus rose from the dead without giving tax money to any particular Christian denomination. [20:46] So I don't want—there's a difference between a formal recognition of Christianity and tax support for ministers or tax support for particular churches, which I'm against. [20:58] But so if I were a citizen of Connecticut at the time, I would have been opposed to the Congregational Church being the State Church of Connecticut. [21:09] And I think it's a bad idea. [21:11] But it's not an unconstitutional idea because all the people who ratified the Constitution were doing it. [21:18] They had established Christian religion in the states that ratified the Constitution. [21:23] So the thing that's excluded is an official denomination of the United States, and I support that. [21:32] So I support the First Amendment as originally written, and I am an opponent of established state churches at the state level, which I think is a bad idea. [21:43] But a state should be allowed to do it if they want. [21:46] It's not unconstitutional. [21:48] Now, the other part of your question on the First Amendment is I believe that LGB2Q plus people have the right to think what they think and say what they want to say. [21:58] And I don't want to prohibit their right to express their views. [22:03] So that's not—I don't believe in a priori censorship. [22:08] I don't believe in restricting, persecuting people who think differently. [22:14] I think religious minorities, for example, in a Christian republic should have civil protections. [22:21] But you would want to make it illegal for them to be in partnerships. [22:28] You would want to restrict what they could do in their bedrooms. [22:32] So—oh, you meant like— [22:34] LGBTQ plus. [22:34] Sexual partnerships, like marriage. [22:37] Yeah, so I don't want legal recognition of those relationships. [22:42] Right. [22:43] What happens—you said you want civil protection. [22:45] What happens to non-Christians in a future Christian theocracy that you imagine? [22:49] So Muslims, Jews, Hindus, many other non-Christian faiths, people without a faith. [22:54] So if you took the United States as it currently is—so my joke about this is if I were president of the United States, what a glorious three days that would be. [23:03] I wouldn't just impose a Christian hard theocracy on the country as it now is. [23:12] You can't do that. [23:16] Politics is the art of the possible. [23:19] You do what you can with what you have. [23:22] And so there's a distinction to be made between what would—if I were in a position of political influence, what would I do next? [23:30] What fish would I fry? [23:31] And that's one question. [23:33] And the other is, what do you envision as the ideal civic arrangement 250 years from now, if everything evolved to that point? [23:42] Right. [23:43] So a lot of the questions about—that I get asked on this have to do with the 250-year scenario and not what I would do right now. [23:53] What I would do right now is outlaw abortion, overturn Obergefell. [23:57] Those are the fish that I would want to fry now. [24:00] But the long-term view of what happens to non-Christians in a country that has long given equal rights and equal protections to all faiths and all—what happens? [24:10] Can they hold public office? [24:12] Can they vote? [24:13] Can they pray in public? [24:14] So probably the best illustration of this would be church bells, yes. [24:24] Minarets, no. [24:25] Why? [24:26] Because the public space would belong to Christ. [24:29] So church bells can occupy the public space, but a minaret is a loudspeaker, big call to prayer. [24:37] Could Muslims pray to Allah? [24:39] Yes. [24:40] Could they gather together to pray to Allah? [24:42] Yes. [24:43] Should they be free from being hassled and persecuted? [24:46] Yes, they should be free from that. [24:47] But they should do it quietly and in their homes. [24:49] But they should recognize that they're in a Christian country. [24:52] Now, and consequently, they should defer to that. [24:57] Now, the only—but the only way—go back to what I said about the politics being the art of the possible. [25:03] The only way that that is ever going to happen is by means of persuasion, evangelism, mass conversion to Christianity. [25:11] There's no way—you can't just flip a switch and make this country as cosmopolitan and secular and diverse as it is and just say, [25:22] Okay, everybody, we're going to do it the Christian way. [25:25] That's not going to happen. [25:27] Do you believe Catholics should have a role in shaping a future Christian America? [25:31] Yeah. [25:31] Do they count as Christian in your view? [25:33] Yeah, I would want a basic Apostles' Creed definition of Christian for these purposes, yes. [25:42] Mormons, Pentecostals? [25:43] Well, the Mormons couldn't sign off on the Apostles' Creed. [25:46] Pentecostals could. [25:47] Could they serve in public office? [25:50] Could they vote? [25:50] So if you had a Christian republic, the Constitution would be Christian. [25:56] And an office holder would have to vow to uphold the Constitution. [26:02] So everybody who holds public office— [26:04] Would have to be Christian? [26:05] Would have to vow to uphold the Christian Constitution, yeah. [26:09] So they could be technically Muslim or Jewish or Hindu and then vow to this, which they wouldn't. [26:15] So technically they wouldn't be in public office. [26:16] Technically they would not be. [26:18] But could they vote? [26:19] Yes, probably, yes. [26:23] Now you've called for repealing women's right to vote, which is protected by the 19th Amendment. [26:28] Right. [26:29] Why? [26:29] Because it's a good idea. [26:35] A lot of women wouldn't think so. [26:36] Yeah, a lot of women wouldn't agree. [26:38] Right. [26:39] But this is one of my favorite questions now, too. [26:44] This is not an XXXY chromosome issue. [26:50] Because I don't want women voting as individuals, because I don't want men voting as individuals. [26:57] So what I envision is a system that we have practiced in our church here for four decades, and that is household voting. [27:09] So in our polity, in our church system, the congregation votes on the installation of deacons and elders and calling a pastor. [27:21] Those are the areas where the church exercises its voice. [27:26] And when we hold a church election for an elder, about 7% of the votes are cast by women, because we have a number of women who are heads of their households. [27:41] And when a young man, let's say a college student, moves to Moscow, and he's 19 years old, and he's going to college, and he wants to become a member, we interview him. [27:53] And one of the things we ask is, who's paying for your school? [27:57] And if his folks back home are putting him through school, we bring him into membership, but he's a non-voting member, because he's not a household. [28:06] But with the concept of headship within your church, which is households led by men. [28:12] When there's a man. [28:13] When there's a man. [28:15] That would mean the vote would ultimately be decided by the head of the household. [28:19] Well, the vote would be decided, the vote would be cast by the head of the household. [28:25] By the head of the household. [28:26] Which would typically be? [28:27] The man. [28:28] The man. [28:28] Right. [28:29] And when it isn't, in our church we have a number of households headed by women, and when they head the household, they vote. [28:38] So it's the household that votes. [28:39] So, for example, I'm a woman who's not married, who doesn't have children, and who is Muslim. [28:46] So in a future Christian theocracy, where the 19th Amendment is repealed, what is my role in public life? [28:55] Do I get to vote? [28:56] Do I get to run for office? [28:57] Do I get to do these things? [29:01] Holding, in this hypothetical. [29:02] In this hypothetical. [29:03] Hypothetical. [29:04] No, you wouldn't hold office because you couldn't vow to uphold the Christian Constitution. [29:12] And whether you voted or not would have nothing to do with whether you were a woman or not. [29:16] Whether you voted would be— [29:18] If I'm the head of my household. [29:19] If you're the head of the household. [29:21] If you were head of the household and Christian, you would vote. [29:24] And if I'm head of the household and not Christian. [29:26] Then that would depend probably on the state. [29:29] Mm-hmm. [29:29] Right. [29:30] Now, you've talked about wanting patriarchy, and that's because you believe that men are supposed to protect women. [29:36] Provide and protect. [29:37] Provide and protect. [29:38] But you also use words that don't feel Christian. [29:43] Okay. [29:44] Cunt, small-breasted bitties. [29:46] You've spoken of the propriety of rape for women who reject patriarchy. [29:50] So women who reject patriarchy, do they deserve protection? [29:56] Of course. [29:57] Mm-hmm. [29:57] So that phrase, propriety of rape. [30:01] A number of those things are gathered from people taking arguments out of context. [30:08] Let me give you the propriety of rape thing. [30:12] One consequence of rejecting the protection of good men is that you're opening yourself up to the predations of bad men. [30:20] When they've walked away from the protections of fathers and brothers, what it amounts to is a tacit, implicit, in principle, not overt acceptance of the propriety of rape. [30:27] This is from a 2016 law. [30:29] Yeah, correct. [30:29] I'm not saying anything about the propriety of rape. [30:31] What I'm saying is the women who do these things, they're the ones saying that. [30:36] So if you refuse the protection of good men, then I'm saying you're the one asking for it. [30:43] I'm pleading with you to stop asking for it. [30:46] I don't think there's ever a time when... [30:49] Asking for... [30:50] Let's say... [30:52] Here's an illustration. [30:54] Mm-hmm. [30:55] Let's say someone parks his car in a bad part of town, leaves his wallet on the dashboard with $20 bills sticking out of it. [31:02] I think that if someone breaks his windshield and takes his wallet, that person should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. [31:10] He has no right to take the wallet. [31:13] Right? [31:13] He has no right to do that. [31:15] And he should be prosecuted for doing that. [31:19] So I don't argue for the propriety of theft. [31:22] What I'm saying is that the idiot who left his wallet on the dashboard, he was arguing for the propriety of theft. [31:30] He's the one... [31:32] So the women who reject this protection are arguing for... [31:35] Right. [31:36] And my argument was they ought to stop doing that. [31:39] I'm opposing the propriety of rape. [31:42] I'm not urging the propriety of rape. [31:44] I'm opposing it. [31:46] And I'm saying that there are certain downstream consequences to rejecting the protection and provision of good men. [31:56] You expose yourself to the predations of bad men. [32:00] I'm curious about what punishment would look like in this future Christian theocracy if it were to come to be. [32:11] And you've taught that homosexuality is an abomination to God and that either execution or exile are permissible punishments. [32:17] In the Christian America you want to usher in, would homosexuality be a crime and what would be the punishment for that crime? [32:25] Right. [32:25] The punishment would vary depending on jurisdictions and what not. [32:32] But when I say execution or exile, that first arose in a debate back in the 80s. [32:43] There was a movement called Christian Reconstruction and there were people arguing that the penalty, Old Testament penalties, ought to be executed, period. [32:54] You know, homosexuals need to be executed, period. [32:56] Old Testament, as in Old Testament penalties, like stoning. [32:59] Yeah, stoning, right. [33:01] And my argument was, no wait, King Asa and King Jehoshaphat both are recorded as basically shutting down the bathhouses. [33:12] They exiled the homosexuals, and they didn't execute them. [33:18] And so my argument was, execution is not the minimum penalty in the Old Testament. [33:24] It's the maximum penalty. [33:26] It's not a minimum, you must do this in all circumstances. [33:30] So I was arguing for the civil magistrate having the leeway to deal with the social problem of public sodomy and pride parades and whatnot. [33:41] He can do that without shooting people. [33:44] He can do that without executing people. [33:46] And Asa and Jehoshaphat did that. [33:48] So what would punishment look like in a future Christian theocracy? [33:53] Would it be stoning? [33:54] Would it be exile? [33:55] And for other things too, adultery, blasphemy. [33:58] Yeah, it would be, yeah, adultery was a capital crime just as homosexuality was. [34:04] But one of the things you have to bank on, budget for, is the coming of Christ. [34:13] When Christ came, the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians, after the coming of Christ, gives a whole list of gnarly sins, including homosexual sins and adultery and whatnot. [34:26] And then he says to the Corinthians, and such were some of you. [34:31] Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost, not to kill everybody. [34:36] So the Old Testament, the holiness code, the requirements there were instituted in order to teach right from wrong, up from down, left from right. [34:46] And when Christ came, he came in order to save sinners. [34:54] We are, I'm not interested in taking a grappling hook, grabbing Old Testament law as it is, and then dropping it on modern society. [35:02] I'm not interested in that. [35:03] I am interested in, as the Westminster Confession says, that the judicial laws of Israel are ceased along with that nation ceasing. [35:15] And do not pertain today, except as the general equity thereof may require. [35:21] So I'm interested in arguing from the general equity of Old Testament law. [35:26] I'm not interested in applying Old Testament law straight across with no variations. [35:32] How do you actually get, though, to a Christian theocracy? [35:35] I know you talk about 250 years, but there has to be a mechanism. [35:39] Is it courts, is it schools, is it violence? [35:42] No, it's not violence. [35:43] It is preaching the gospel, planting churches, starting classical Christian schools. [35:49] It means working your tail off, basically. [35:53] Until the majority of Americans are convinced? [35:55] Yeah. [35:56] So basically what I'm talking about is a radical experiment in democracy. [36:00] But you would have to change portions of the Constitution to become a theocracy? [36:05] Actually, no. [36:07] I mean, a lot of constitutional scholars would disagree with you. [36:11] Yeah, I disagree with them. [36:12] Well, let me—okay, go ahead. [36:14] Here there's an important issue. [36:16] All societies are theocratic. [36:20] In every society, there's a point past which there's no appeal. [36:25] There's always got to be the buck stops here. [36:28] And when you've identified the point past which there is no appeal, you've identified the god of the system. [36:36] In secular democracies, the god is Demos, the people. [36:41] In Saudi Arabia, the god is Allah. [36:44] In a Christian republic, the god would be the father of Jesus Christ. [36:49] So every society has a point at which debate stops, and that is the final authority in that system. [37:00] So my argument for Christian nationalism is very simple. [37:04] If this is the state or society, and god is over that society, if there is no god over the state, then the state becomes god. [37:15] You have about—you're just under 170 churches? [37:18] The CRAC is about 170 churches, yes. [37:22] Would it be your interpretation that is the blueprint for a future Christian theocracy here in the United States when really you're a minority among Christians in this country? [37:32] Oh, yeah, I'm a big-time minority. [37:35] So why would it be your vision, your blueprint? [37:37] Well, right now it isn't, right? [37:41] So this goes back to persuasion, write books, preach sermons, look to persuade, do everything peacefully, and see what happens. [37:55] With so many evangelicals, as you mentioned, in the administration that are connected to your church, [38:02] do you feel in this moment that your religious worldview is closer to power than it's ever been? [38:09] That your vision of what the U.S. should be is closer? [38:13] I think it would be fairer to say that my vision, our vision of what the intersection of theology and politics should be, [38:22] our theopolitical vision, is closer to getting a hearing. [38:29] Closer to getting a hearing. [38:30] Closer to getting a hearing, which is very different than being, here are the levers of power. [38:37] That's not where we are. [38:40] But where we are is, I would say, 15 years ago, we've been teaching and preaching and talking about these things for 40 years. [38:49] And 20 years ago, the faithful would listen to it, and that was a great conference, or I really enjoyed your book. [38:57] In the last five years, we have gotten a much more significant hearing than we ever have before, [39:10] where people are actually listening to what we say, are actually able to reproduce what we're saying. [39:19] So, and this is a backhanded compliment to you, but the reporters I've been talking to over the last few years have come prepared. [39:32] They know what we're saying. [39:34] They've read it. [39:35] They've watched a bunch of the video. [39:38] They've come prepared. [39:40] 10, 15 years ago, they would just throw mud at the wall. [39:44] You know, you're a fascist. [39:45] You're a Nazi. [39:46] You're a thing. [39:46] You know, this is... [39:48] And some people still think that about you. [39:51] Yeah, there's still people... [39:52] That's still going on, but we are... [39:56] We have risen to the dignity of needing to be intelligently opposed, okay? [40:03] The slander doesn't cut it anymore. [40:06] Screaming doesn't cut it anymore, although there are still screamers. [40:09] There are still people doing that. [40:10] But the last five reporters I've talked to have commented to my friends, [40:17] man, they knew what they're talking about. [40:18] They came into the interview knowing what our positions were [40:24] rather than coming in half-cocked, half-baked, and then misrepresenting them. [40:30] And what that means is we're getting a respectful hearing. [40:35] Maybe not a friendly hearing, but we're getting a respectful one. [40:38] And that is progress compared to the way it was before. [40:43] Doug Wilson, thank you so much for sitting down with us. [40:46] We really appreciate it. [40:46] Happy to do it. [40:47] New episodes of Newsmakers can publish anytime. [40:54] So to stay caught up, subscribe on YouTube or follow on Spotify or catch us on the NPR app. [40:59] I'm Leila Faudil. [41:00] Thanks for watching. [41:01] NPR's Newsmakers.