Doug Wilson and the Danger We Tried to Warn You About
How the Church Ignored the Warnings and What It Cost Us
Contributor Jemar Tisby via Substack
Douglas Wilson is a self-avowed Christian nationalist and a dominionist who believes the United States should have a theocratic government patterned after his ultra-fundamentalist beliefs.
Like all white Christian nationalists, he is a threat both to democracy and the witness of the church in the United States today.
Christians, of all people, should be outraged by this wolf in the church and the boldest ones in naming his harm.
We tried to warn folks about the danger this man poses. But they didn’t listen. Now we have to deal with the consequences.
The Quote Heard Round the Web
On a recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored Wilson, the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, appeared alongside a panel with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, and Wajahat Ali - Muslim, The Left Hook on Substack.
The spoke about various topics from the president’s feud with the Pope to the war in Iran. In the midst of the conversation, Ali called out Wilson.
“Pastor, I have no problem attacking wolves in sheep’s clothing. I have no problem attacking a man who wrote that American slavery was mutually harmonious between the slave master and the slave. That’s you. I have no problem attacking a man who proudly says he wants to do away with the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. I have no problem attacking a man like yourself who sits here incoherently supporting an incoherent, unwinnable, illegal war in Iran.”
The most satisfying moment of the clip came after Ali finished. Wilson’s retort was a lame joke—“Incidentally, we know that Jesus was not a socialist because he could actually feed people.”
The host and panelist stared blankly in a fitting non-response to a tired joke that landed like a dud.
It was a moment of catharsis for those of us who have been warning the world about Wilson for years.
Finally, the broader public was seeing what we’ve seen—a man committed to oppressive ideas and actions put on blast for the harm he’s causing.
When Black Christians Warned about Doug Wilson
The episode also caused frustration because we could have prevented Doug Wilson from causing further harm.
We could have avoided the mainstreaming of his ideas and kept him on the fringe where his backwards ideology belongs.
Black Christians had been warning the white Reformed and evangelical world about Wilson for years.
He calls himself a “paleo-confederate.” That alone should have been enough to disqualify any Christian outlet from platforming.
If that wasn’t enough, he authored Southern Slavery As It Was and contended that “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.”1
In a splashy 2025 CNN profile on him he said,
“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. I think that system of chattel slavery was an unbiblical system, and I’m grateful it’s gone.”
Wilson has also espoused other harmful ideas such as repealing the 19th Amendment—the law that finally granted women the right to vote.
Rather than all adults voting, Wilson wrote a book called "Federal Husbands” and advocated for "household voting” in which the male head casts a vote for the entire family.
I was part of a chorus of voices—mainly including Black Christians and women—who warned of Wilson’s danger to the church.
But outlets like Desiring God, Christianity Today, and The Gospel Coalition continued to platform him. They sold his books, let him write on their outlets, invited him to speak at their conferences.
They refused to listen to the voices of the marginalized and those harmed by his views. Now Wilson’s influence is in the Pentagon through is disciple, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense.
There is much more to say about Wilson and his brand of white Christian nationalism.
In this episode you’ll hear about…
Why Douglas Wilson is back in the headlines and what people are just now noticing
Who he is and the beliefs driving his vision for a theocratic America
His controversial views on slavery and “biblical patriarchy”
How his influence spread through churches, schools, and major evangelical platforms
How Black Christians warned about him years ago and were ignored
The real cost of speaking up against harmful theology
