Inside one pastor's crusade for Christian domination in the age of Trump
A standing-room only crowd gathered on a Sunday morning last month above a former bar three blocks from the US Capitol to formally open a new church.
The inaugural service of Christ Church Washington DC, an extension of an Idaho-based Evangelical movement, took place in a building owned by the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), a think tank co-led by President Donald Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Exposed brick and pipes adorned the ceiling. An American flag hung above the pastor on the makeshift stage.
Minutes before the service began, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth walked in with his wife and children.
Though he wasn't in Washington, the opening marked a major achievement for Douglas Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist pastor who, since the 1970s, has built his Evangelical church in Moscow, Idaho, into what's now an international network of more than 150 churches, as well as Christian schools, a college and a publishing company.
In dozens of books and years of blog posts, Wilson advocates for the idea that America should adopt a Christian theocracy and adhere to a biblical interpretation of society. The new church in Washington is part of that mission, he says.
'Every society is theocratic,' Wilson said in an interview with CNN at his Christ Church in Idaho. 'The only question is who's 'Theo'? In Saudi Arabia, Theo is Allah. In a secular democracy, it would be Demos, the people. In a Christian republic, it'd be Christ.'
Wilson believes in a patriarchal society where women are expected to submit to their husbands. Women are banned from leadership positions in his church. He supports repealing the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, (though he says it's not a top priority) wants to outlaw abortion and says homosexuality should be a crime.
While he's been on the fringes of the religious right for decades, Wilson has found an increasingly mainstream Republican audience under Trump. During Covid, his church in Moscow defied lockdown rules and held an outdoor protest in September 2020, leading to arrests, national attention and support from Trump on Twitter. His church community in Idaho has roughly doubled in size since 2019, he says.
Last year, Wilson was interviewed on Tucker Carlson's podcast and spoke at Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA 'The Believers' Summit.'
'My views on a number of things have become steadily more mainstream and have done that without me moving at all,' Wilson said.
Now, with a newly created White House Faith Office and Hegseth instituting monthly prayer services at the Pentagon, Wilson is part of an ascendent group of Christian religious leaders finding influence among MAGA conservatives.
'There's really a whole movement of these folks,' said Matthew Taylor, a senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies, an educational nonprofit that advocates for religious diversity. Taylor says they're often known as the 'Theo Bros.'
'These almost always male, online-influencer types. Pastors, usually with a big beard, preaching hardline Calvinist theology,' said Taylor. 'And Doug Wilson is the avatar or ringleader of that crowd.'
Wilson's critics point to a litany of his views they argue are well outside the mainstream, and they say they're concerned about the influence he's accrued.
'They actually literally want to take over towns and cities, and so they're building a grassroots infrastructure to do that. And they have access to this administration,' said Rev. Jennifer Butler, who founded Faith in Public Life, a network of progressive faith leaders. 'If you are Jewish, if you're a Muslim, if you're a woman, if you're gay — they want to criminalize LGBTQ people — you don't belong in this society.'
Wilson doesn't apologize for his views or his theology, though he notes he writes with a 'tartness' that animates those who disagree with him. He says he has embraced the term 'Christian nationalist' because it's better than the other names he gets called.
'I'm not a White nationalist. I'm not a fascist. I'm not a racist. I'm not a misogynist, and those are the names that usually get thrown at me,' he said. 'And then when someone says, well, that's Christian nationalism, I can — well, I can work with that.'
'Owned what he believes'
Wilson's most prominent and public follower in the Trump administration is Hegseth, who is a member of a church in Tennessee that's part of Wilson's network, known as the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
When Hegseth held his first Christian prayer service at the Pentagon, he brought in the pastor from Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, his church in Tennessee. Hegseth says he had moved there in 2022 to send his kids to a school that's part of a Christian network that Wilson helped found.
While Wilson did not meet Hegseth until he was confirmed as defense secretary, the pastor says it's 'very encouraging' to see the unapologetic way that Hegseth has 'owned what he believes,' which has included purging DEI and so-called 'woke' polices from the military.
Asked about Hegseth's controversial history, including numerous marital infidelities as well as allegations of excessive drinking and sexual assault, which Hegseth has denied, Wilson acknowledged, 'His past is pretty raggedy.'
Now, Wilson says: 'Pete Hegseth is living like a Christian man ought to live.'
Wilson described their first meeting in Tennessee in May at Hegseth's local CREC church as 'very pleasant.'
In a statement to CNN, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: 'The Secretary is a proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was founded by Pastor Doug Wilson. The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings.'
Wilson's church has already benefited from Trump being in office. In May, the Department of Justice intervened on behalf of the church, suing the town of Troy, Idaho, which had denied the church's application to operate in a former bank building, citing parking and traffic issues due to the location in the town's business district.
The DOJ lawsuit accuses the town of religious discrimination.
'A Mission to Babylon'
In a May blog post titled, 'A Mission to Babylon' announcing the new church in Washington, Wilson wrote there would be 'many strategic opportunities with numerous evangelicals who will be present both in and around the Trump administration.'
'We're not planting the church so that we can get to meet senators and important people. What we're doing is planting a church so that the important people in DC will be reminded that God is the important one. What matters is His favor,' Wilson told CNN. 'We've got a number of people that are connected to us that are there, and we wanted to have a church service available for them.'
Wilson's Washington congregation meets above a shuttered bar popular with congressional staffers, Capitol Lounge, which still has old political memorabilia covering its darkened walls.
The current venue underscores the connections to Trump's base in Washington. The building is one of several near the Capitol purchased by CPI while Trump was out of power.
Led by Meadows, now a DC MAGA power broker, and former Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, CPI is at the heart of a network of conservative advocacy organizations, including the Center for Renewing America, created by Trump's budget director Russ Vought, and America First Legal, an operation co-founded by current White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Asked how the church ended up using CPI's building, Wilson says a friend in Washington made the connection. (CPI did not respond to a request for comment.)
Wilson says he was grateful for the first Trump administration and the appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices that led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Now in the second Trump administration he wants to see the high court repeal the 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.
Asked how the president fits into his mission, Wilson says: 'Trump is the wrecking ball. He is the wild card. He is, he's the thing that nobody really anticipated.'
A divided college town
In person, Wilson, 72, comes across as a sincere, mild-mannered grandfather with a thick white beard. He has three grown children — who are all members of the CREC church. (By the church's rules, he says that if his children left the church he could not be in charge, under the philosophy that if you can't lead your children, you can't lead the church.)
Wilson is a postmillennialist, meaning he believes it's the job of Christians to build the kingdom of God on Earth in order to bring about the second coming of Christ. He says he sees his theology squaring off against a broader secular society that's been dominant in the US.
Christ Church was founded in Moscow, Idaho, in the 1970s by Wilson's father, an evangelist who had settled his family there. The younger Wilson had just completed a stint in the Navy and was attending college in Moscow, and he writes that he became the head preacher of the fledgling church after about a year-and-a-half when the regular preacher moved to a new city.
Home to the University of Idaho, Moscow is a college town, with clear competing forces in its idyllic strip of businesses along Main Street. Coffee and book shops displaying pride flags and 'Black Lives Matter' signs reside beside businesses owned by 'kirkers,' the name members of Wilson's congregation call themselves based on the Scottish word for church (Christ Church's website is 'christkirk.com').
It doesn't take long for Wilson's notoriety to show itself. While walking down Main Street with a CNN reporter, a shop owner popped out of a vintage clothing and record store called Revolver and shouted 'boo' in Wilson's direction.
'Well, there ya go,' Wilson said, looking unphased. 'It's not unusual,' he said of that sort of reception from fellow Moscow residents.
'Everybody laments the fact that we don't have community anymore, and then as soon as you start to have community, people start calling them names like a cult,' Wilson said.
The church's sprawling presence in the town is hard to miss. In addition to Christ Church, Wilson more than four decades ago started the Logos School, an elementary and secondary school, when his oldest daughter was school-aged. Wilson says it was the first of what's now more than 400 'classical Christian schools' across the US.
Wilson also started New Saint Andrews College in the 1990s, a small four-year college that's located on Moscow's Main Street.
Just up the way from Christ Church is the Canon Press building. Works from the publishing arm of Wilson's empire are displayed, such as the poster of a book published there, 'It's Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity,' near the kitchenette.
The CREC network now has more than 130 churches in nearly 40 states across the US and another 25 around the globe, including Canada, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Australia.
More than anything, Wilson says, the Covid pandemic and the government's response is what's fueled growth in his church. People were 'chased here,' he says, by blue-state governors, Covid restrictions and pastors elsewhere who closed their churches down.
Wilson's many controversial views and writings
Wilson says that his critics who accuse him of wanting to turn American society into a theocracy like 'The Handmaid's Tale' misunderstand his mission.
'I think all of those people would, in most areas of their life, be astonished at how much more liberty they had,' Wilson said. 'Because we are living under an oppressive, tyrannical state that wants to they want to regulate how much water comes out of my shower head. They want to regulate what kind of light bulb I can have. They want to regulate all kinds of stuff, and that affects the Muslims and the Hindus.'
But critics of Wilson say his claims about the benefits of a theocratic society don't hold up for those who aren't Christian, male or straight.
'There would be fewer infringements on individual liberty from the government, that is probably true,' said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida.
'But certainty the church would have a ton more authority,' she said. 'And families would be tiny little patriarchies. These folks have said out loud that they don't think women should have the right to vote. And in the CREC, women do not vote. All congregational decisions that are made by members voting — it's the men who vote on behalf of their families.'
Wilson and his pastors say they would support repealing the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, because they believe each household should have a sole vote from the head of the household (widows or single women would still get a vote, they say).
'This is a key in the way that we're thinking about the world itself. So I believe that the household is a unit, and so the household should have one vote,' said Jared Longshore, executive pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, who delivered the sermon at the opening of Christ Church Washington DC last month.
'I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household,' said Toby Sumpter, another pastor at Christ Church.
Wilson's writings on sex and marriage have sparked criticisms that his theology opens the door to spousal abuse and even marital rape. In a passage from his 1999 book titled, 'Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man,' Wilson writes: 'A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.'
Wilson insisted to CNN that his theology has never supported sexual or spousal abuse, and he says he's helped women escape abusive relationships.
'If there is sexual abuse or violent abuse, other forms of misbehavior, I believe that other authorities, sometimes the cops, sometimes the elders of the church, sometimes other family members, extended family members, need to intervene to protect the woman or to protect the children,' Wilson said.
Wilson advocates for ending legalized gay marriage and supports laws making homosexuality illegal, noting sodomy was banned by all 50 states when he started preaching in the 1970s.
'That America of that day was not a totalitarian hellhole,' Wilson said.
His most controversial commentary is arguably about slavery. He co-wrote a booklet in the 1990s on slavery in the South, which included the claim: '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.'
Asked if he still believes there was affection between the races, Wilson said: 'Well, yes, it depends on which master, 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,' he said. 'I think that system of chattel slavery was an unbiblical system, and I'm grateful it's gone.'
'It's barely, barely started'
Wilson says that his vision of turning American into a Christian nation means that Christ would be 'in the public square' but others would still be free to practice their own religions.
He says his ultimate goal remains achieving a Christian theocracy across the globe, to facilitate the second coming of Christ. It's a goal he still believes is 250 years or so away.
'Yes, by peaceful means, by sharing the gospel,' he says of how it would happen. 'We're a little putt-putt effort here. So the world has got 8 billion people in it. There's a lot of work yet to do. I believe that we are working our little corner of the vineyard.'
In Washington, Wilson says it's 'very encouraging' to see Hegseth defending his beliefs as he's taken a top position in Trump's administration.
Hegseth's service at the Pentagon with a CREC pastor was 'not organizationally tied to us, but it's the kind of thing we love to see,' Wilson said.
'But everybody who loves the Lord in Washington, DC, will tell you how much they're up against,' Wilson said. 'And it's not anywhere close to being done. It's barely, barely started.'
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