Help untangling Doug Wilson for your congregations.

[SisterinChrist]

I would like to offer a helpful resource for pastors and others in leadership positions. Doug Wilson is gaining more prominence and it can be difficult for people to sort though his rhetoric. My husband has published an article that many have found helpful. Pastors have been giving it to their congregants as a thorough resource. It made it on Tim Challies' A La Carte list. Jim Hamilton said on X that it was "important." Here are a few other comments about it:

*A very thorough and sound theological response to a concerning situation indeed.
*This is likely the first critique of Moscow's patriarch clearly motivated by love.
*This article provides the wisest, most insightful, and comprehensive biblical analysis I have read on the Moscow Mood—which has influenced and infected many areas of Evangelical Christianity.

Here is an excerpt:
Confusing Doug Wilson with a prophetic voice distorts the prophetic office and damages the church. I write with this concern not as an outsider but as one who pastored in the CREC for more than a decade. From that vantage I saw both the appeal of Wilson’s persona and the theological and moral toll it exacts, though one need not be in the CREC to recognize the pattern. My concern now, as it was then, is to guard Christ’s flock from mistaking brand-building provocation for authentic prophetic ministry.

It now requires creating a free account at MereOrthodoxy to view it. It can be found here:

Doug Wilson Is Not a Prophet

Doug Wilson's 'serrated edge' substitutes lampoon for lament and crosses into language Scripture forbids.

mereorthodoxy.com

I hope some of you find it helpful!
In Christ,
Brandy

 

[TheInquirer]

I was able to read without an account. Good article, author is a former pastor in the CREC. Article contrasts Wilson’s view of himself as a prophet vs. biblical prophets. Parts that stood out:

Prophets Pay, Wilson Profits

“Prophets are not brand-builders. They do not churn out clickbait, market novelty flamethrowers, or traffic in gimmicks and stunts. They do not engage in “Christotainment” reaction videos (“watch me watch someone else”), a form that reached peak irony when Wilson found himself watching himself.

True prophets do the very opposite: they destroy their own brand by confronting the idols within their closest circles. Their path is marked not by empire-building but by costly confrontation leading to loss, humiliation, and often death.“

(Later in the article, looking at the consequences of Wilson’s approach)

“Mistaking edginess for prophetic boldness, Wilson invokes the prophets as prooftexts for his rhetoric and ridicule. The prophet’s word, however, is double-edged: sharpness on one side, burden on the other.

Wilson’s devotees absorb the same error, corrupting both themselves and others. What begins as admiration for Wilson’s ingenuity develops into settled allegiance to an aberrant ethical system that inverts biblical categories, insidiously turning vices into virtues and virtues into vices (Isa. 5:20–21)—especially in matters of speech, attitude, and cultural engagement, where a loose tongue masquerades as Christian liberty, humility is undervalued, and costless defiance parades as faithfulness.”

. . .

“Wilson’s style entertains, scratches an itch, scores culture-war points, and often helps churches grow numerically when they identify with it. But what passes for bravery is something else entirely: something that does not require the sacrificial resolve of a prophet. Often it amounts to little more than fan service.

When Christians confuse Wilson’s provocation and unwholesome talk for prophetic ministry, they end up applauding a counterfeit courage and giving cover to sin. Cleverness is mistaken for wisdom, snark for moral conviction, and conceit for masculine strength. Triumphalism is confused with confidence in the truth. The failure of Wilson’s followers to discern this inversion of virtue and vice is sobering. Thus their understanding of the mind of Christ becomes warped, and they lose sight of the true nature and cost of speaking God’s truth to God’s people.”

 

[VictorBravo]

Thank you. I also could read without signing up.

Our church is some 30 miles south of him. This is immediately useful.

 

[EvanF]

I highly appreciate Jeremy Sexton's articles and insight from the CREC. For a brief time, I thought he represented the beginning of a shift within CREC thinking away from its traditional poles of Wilson and Leithart, but it sadly seems that he was instead driven out of the denomination.

 

[Theoretical]

“Prophets are not brand-builders. They do not churn out clickbait, market novelty flamethrowers, or traffic in gimmicks and stunts. They do not engage in “Christotainment” reaction videos (“watch me watch someone else”), a form that reached peak irony when Wilson found himself watching himself.

True prophets do the very opposite: they destroy their own brand by confronting the idols within their closest circles. Their path is marked not by empire-building but by costly confrontation leading to loss, humiliation, and often death.“

That's an amazingly insightful statement, and it applies to many more people than Doug Wilson.

 

[TheBoringBaptist]

Neat

 

[MW]

That's an amazingly insightful statement, and it applies to many more people than Doug Wilson.

Agreed. The modus operandi is important. The "man of God" is not God; he is a man; and he serves God, not himself.

 

[Jake]

Thanks. We're thinking more about this, as there is a CREC church that started in our community. They've barely begun and we've already had folks hurt there seeking refuge, for a variety of reasons.

 

[RamistThomist]

Scanned files from court reports documenting sexual abuse cases in that church are a good place to start.

 

[dsanch1120]

I actually just read this and was curious if anyone posted it here for discussion. Very good article and very important. I hope this will be a useful resource for those who need it.

 

[darrellmaurina]

Nice to see a fellow Ozarkian here on the Puritan Board, Brandi. We likely have a number of mutual acquaintances from your time at Christ the King CREC in Springfield, including a number of members and former members of the church I began attending almost twenty years ago, which was founded as Springfield URC, then became Gospel of Grace (independent), then Gospel of Grace ARP, then Heritage ARP and now Heritage OPC. (I transferred out last month due to the church's decision to join the OPC, and was almost the longest person in the church.) One of my former elders, Bruce Stidham, formerly with the Springfield News-Leader, is married to the daughter of one of the key families in your former church, and I'm sure you know him and his in-laws.

For those who don't know the local situation, for many, many, many years, my former church and Christ the King CREC were almost the only confessionally Reformed churches, not just in Springfield but for many miles in any direction in the Ozarks, that practiced infant baptism. I drove well over an hour from the Fort Leonard Wood area to get to my church, and there were multiple families stationed at Fort Leonard Wood who drove the same distance to get to Brandi's husband's former church, or who drove even farther to go to OPC churches in St. Louis.

The result is that a number of people joined Christ the King CREC, not so much because it was CREC, but because of it being Reformed.

To their credit, the CREC is willing to begin churches in places that very few people in the traditional Reformed denominations are willing to go. I am painfully aware of the need to start Reformed churches for small isolated groups of Reformed believers who literally have NO other option unless they want to become Baptists.

Also, Doug Wilson has attracted people who are conservative "culture warriors" who are far less interested in the doctrinal positions of the CREC than the fact that they are willing to fight -- and fight VERY hard -- on the key battles on which Satan is currently seeking to destroy the Christian witness here in the American context. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, can probably be counted on that number. We pray almost every week for him, not because he is in the CREC or because we agree with him on everything -- we do not and I make that clear every Sunday so I don't get someone taking a clip from a message and going viral with it based on something Hegseth has done -- but because Hegseth is fighting and most of the time is fighting the right fights.

But as the article by Brandi's husband notes, there are significant issues in the CREC and with Doug Wilson.

I have said for a very long time that Wilson reminds me of Martin Luther in a bad mood. I said similar things about Steve Schlissel, who for a number of years was an important figure in the CRC's conservative wing before his church was more or less thrown out of the CRC. Other names could be mentioned.

We need to be careful in our criticism of Wilson's methods. I believe the linked article is correctly careful in its criticism. God does use men like Luther and sometimes anger is the right response, even when it goes overboard and does real damage (i.e., Luther's fight with the Swiss Reformed).

The problem with that approach is that when anger becomes the message, instead of what we are angry about (i.e., the enemies of God attacking the godly), an approach of "he fights!" can attract men who Scripture describes in terms such as "brawlers" and "quick to anger" rather than people whose primary desire is to uphold God and His Holy Word, and view anger as being necessary at times rather than a positive good to be embraced and encouraged.

I would like to offer a helpful resource for pastors and others in leadership positions. Doug Wilson is gaining more prominence and it can be difficult for people to sort though his rhetoric. My husband has published an article that many have found helpful. Pastors have been giving it to their congregants as a thorough resource. It made it on Tim Challies' A La Carte list. Jim Hamilton said on X that it was "important." Here are a few other comments about it:

*A very thorough and sound theological response to a concerning situation indeed.
*This is likely the first critique of Moscow's patriarch clearly motivated by love.
*This article provides the wisest, most insightful, and comprehensive biblical analysis I have read on the Moscow Mood—which has influenced and infected many areas of Evangelical Christianity.

Here is an excerpt:
Confusing Doug Wilson with a prophetic voice distorts the prophetic office and damages the church. I write with this concern not as an outsider but as one who pastored in the CREC for more than a decade. From that vantage I saw both the appeal of Wilson’s persona and the theological and moral toll it exacts, though one need not be in the CREC to recognize the pattern. My concern now, as it was then, is to guard Christ’s flock from mistaking brand-building provocation for authentic prophetic ministry.

It now requires creating a free account at MereOrthodoxy to view it. It can be found here:

Doug Wilson Is Not a Prophet

Doug Wilson's 'serrated edge' substitutes lampoon for lament and crosses into language Scripture forbids.

mereorthodoxy.com

I hope some of you find it helpful!
In Christ,
Brandy