Examine. Expose. Extinguish.
The Sons of Patriarchy podcast takes on Doug Wilson.
Bombastic and crude. What could possibly be attractive about these qualities?
In retrospect, my childhood pastor’s support for Trump should not have come as a surprise. He’d been recommending Doug Wilson’s books for years.
How does a Oneness Pentecostal pastor who espouses Arminianism latch onto a Reformed cessationist leader? How does a pastor who preaches holiness vote for an orange man who proudly bellows his sin for the world to hear?
Power. Control.
It’s always the people who want domination and control. Always. Whether you’re Pentecostal or Anglican or somewhere in the middle, the people attracted to Doug Wilson’s message want to dominate.
Their strategy for gaining domination? A multi-generational coup. Or as my pastor’s wife described it, a 20-year process to change a cultural mindset.
“Your parents must begin to look at their children as God looks at them. They must see the need to invest their lives in the future generation. This is not a quick harvest. There is no immediate fruit. This is a 20 year process. Your parents will need continual reminders, constant encouragement. You will need to cast the vision again and again and again. You will need to be in it for the long haul. Changing a cultural mindset is a huge undertaking. It is not accomplished overnight. A large ship is not turned around quickly or easily. It is a long process that requires patience. But in this case, it is essential. You are headed for destruction unless you turn this around. When the Church sits idly by, allowing the future generation to be lost, its own destruction will soon follow.”
I was born into this church in 1986. As I was growing up, I noticed that most of those first-generation members came in as college students. They weren’t local folks. They weren’t the farmers or the college professors. As you might imagine with any small town, people don’t really consider you a local until you’ve been around a generation or two.
When your goal is taking dominion and changing the local culture, you need a multi-generational strategy. The brilliant series The Americans illustrates this tactic. Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings are Russian agents tasked with infiltrating US intelligence but—more importantly—giving birth to US citizens who can get jobs at the CIA or State Department. Phillip and Elizabeth’s cover wouldn’t stand up to a CIA background check, but their children could successfully pass the test.
That’s what we’ve seen with Doug Wilson in Moscow (Idaho, not Russia) and that’s also what happened where I lived in Northern New York. Plenty of first-generation church men ran for local office and their success rate was pretty low. But then you have the second generation—my generation. Those folks are winning elections. They’re infiltrating local industry and then hiring only church members. It’s a long game.
We only have to look at Doug Wilson’s empire to see the potential threat. Rampant sexual abuse. Men who want to strip women of their right to vote. Theocratic Christians who believe they have a divine mandate to rule the country.
It’s taken far too long for us to stand up to Doug Wilson and his cronies, but the forthcoming Sons of Patriarchy podcast will explore American Moscow in detail. Stay tuned for a No Quarter November to remember.
Our church here started espousing Doug Wilson teachings, we exited stage left.