Who are you?

Nate served as a missionary to Cambodia for several years before returning to the States to attend The Master’s Seminary, graduating with a BTH in 2009. Nate met Christiana at his home church during that time. We met, married, and left for Cambodia in 2010 with our three-month-old daughter. After eight years on the field (and two additional sons), we made the difficult decision to return to the States. We left the field for many reasons, but primarily because we were burned out and both Christiana and our oldest son were suffering from health issues. Our family moved to Moscow, Idaho in 2018. We chose Moscow because of two close friend connections, both families holding membership in CREC churches, the denomination that Doug Wilson helped to establish.¹ We knew about Wilson and almost didn’t move to Moscow because of his growing, concerning influence.

When we arrived in Moscow, our friends kindly organized meals for us through their churches and arranged for a dozen or so helpful guys from New Saint Andrews (NSA, a college founded by Doug)² to unload our moving van. One of those friends went above and beyond by generously providing affordable housing for us for over two years. We remain incredibly thankful for the remarkable benevolence of these friends and strangers. By God’s grace through his people, Nate was able to continue his translation work remotely with his team in Cambodia (and continues to this day, annually traveling to Asia).

One of our close friends in Moscow was a member of Doug Wilson’s church and felt that if Nate met with Doug, any misconceptions would be answered. Nate agreed and asked questions based on our limited knowledge at the time. While we were amazed that Doug would meet and cordially answer questions, nothing from that meeting changed our previous reservations, as his beliefs were not in alignment with our convictions, specifically in regard to how he and his church dealt with sexual abuse cases³ (especially as Christiana has a history of childhood sexual abuse) and also his view on American slavery.⁴ Around that time, we were hospitably invited to the weekly Sabbath dinner with Doug Wilson and his family. It felt like we were being courted by our Christ Church friends to convince us to join their church. They invited us to several dinners with other Doug-followers, otherwise known as “Kirkers” as well as several Christ Church events, even though they knew we had concerns with Doug’s teachings.

But as time progressed, our concerns only deepened as we encountered more and more people who had been wounded through the teaching and counsel they had received at Christ Church. We did not seek these people out, but met them through the normal course of our lives here. Eventually, some did seek us out, asking for support and counsel. Stories of marital rape, mishandled sex-abuse scandals, occurrences of pedophilia, child pornography, and a consistent retelling of a church culture built on fear and outward conformity to a man-made standard of behavior were alarming. So many hurt, so many feeling abandoned by their church and pastor, trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Some questioning the goodness and grace of God because they felt his earthly representatives had failed them.

We sent our kids to Logos School for a time (a school founded by Doug and two others),⁵ and the school generously offered us a significant scholarship. After Logos, our children attended The Jubliee School, founded by CREC families. After five years in Doug Wilson-approved Christian schools, our children now attend public school. We also donated financially to NSA in exchange for Nate attending a computer programming class.

When speaking with non-Christians in town about our kids attending Logos, the conversation was quickly cut short because of Doug Wilson’s notorious reputation here in Moscow. Not because he is a Christian pastor, but because many in the town feel that he and his followers persist in maintaining an antagonistic attitude toward them, arguably culminating during the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to us removing our children from Logos (among many other reasons). At Logos and within CREC families, we observed children being treated as though they were saved because they had been baptized as infants and therefore children confidently believing they were saved, simply because they were baptized. Other issues we observed were that slander and gossip were misused to label and squash any dissenting opinions. There was only one voice: Doug’s. “Have you asked Pastor Doug about that?” “Pastor Doug said…” “You should talk to Pastor Doug” was the oft-repeated answer among those in the Christ Church community when questions were asked or even when simply discussing life in general. The sad reality was that we rarely heard, “What does God say?” from his followers. Doug’s opinion seemed to matter the most.

These experiences led Nate to more closely examine Doug’s theology and teaching. He started reading Doug’s books, seeking to discern if this was all just bad practice, or if there was something deeper going on. After reading over twenty of his books and meeting with Doug two additional times, it became clear to us that there are concerning errors within Doug’s theology. As Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones famously said: “False teaching leads to false living.” We have therefore decided to publicly make a stand in the form of this blog and in the words of Martin Luther: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen.”

Footnotes

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240529232313/https://greyfriarshall.com/faculty/ ↩

2. https://web.archive.org/web/20250219235254/https://dougwils.com/institutions ↩

3. See https://heidelblog.net/2023/07/hohn-cho-on-missing-the-point-of-sexual-abuse/ for one examination that includes some of the details about mishandled abuse cases by Christ Church ↩

4. See https://thecripplegate.com/the-bible-condemns-american-slavery/ for a complete critique of Doug Wilson’s view on slavery ↩

5. https://web.archive.org/web/20240513031535/https://logosschool.com/about/history/ ↩