Pastor Douglas Wilson of the Moscow, Idaho Church of Christ caused a stir online last week when he made a video arguing against women’s suffrage.
In the video, Wilson seemed to frame the ratification of the 19th Amendment as a repudiation of the institution of the family and men’s obligation to represent their families in the public sphere.
Wilson has long been controversial for his charitable views, both within and outside the evangelical movement. Christian Nationalism and American Chattel Slaveryand how his church has dealt with it. Sexual Abuse Allegationsand his way of engaging with culture has been called by some the “Moscow mood.”
“There are many names for this problem,” Wilson said at the beginning of the video. “Our generation of men has lost their courage. They have abdicated their responsibility, and as a result we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis of leadership.”
“In the words of Scripture, man fell into the sin of unbelief,” Wilson added. He said humans have not kept God’s covenant and therefore “have no way of understanding the cultural turmoil that surrounds us.”
Wilson further argued that “God always deals with humans in covenant form.”
“These covenants are solemn bonds and are sovereignly enforced, with blessings and curses,” Wilson said, highlighting the covenants God made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David in the Hebrew Bible.
“[These covenants] “All these are part of one great, unfolding covenant of grace, which finds its final, great fulfillment in the passion and work of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Wilson said, arguing that humanity is fundamentally oriented to function by covenants, particularly the covenant of marriage, “the institution of the church,” and “the social order.”
Wilson argued that these institutions were established “by the hand of God” and that “the covenant institutions of church and civil society are constituted in the covenant family unit.” He further argued that the family “constitutes the molecular strength in the constitution of our institutions of church and civil government.”
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“Because of the crisis of masculinity in the family, such representation is not offered in our homes, and if it were, it would be met with laughter in the social order and ignorant theological indignation in the church,” Wilson said. “In short, we are all, from top to bottom, in violent rebellion against God’s design for the family and for our culture.”
