Transcript of Theocrats on the Doorstep of Power

I'm Ayesha Rosco, and you're listening to the Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story. If you've been following the news over the last year, you've likely heard about the rise of the Christian Nationalism Movement. Today on the Sunday Story, we take a closer look at one group of Christian Nationalists and hear their vision for the country in their own words. I'm here with journalist, Heath Druzen, He's the host and Creator of the Extremely American Podcast Series from Boise State Public Radio and the NPR Network. The podcast series provides an inside look at how a national movement places back to a church in Idaho. Keith, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks.

I know that you've immersed yourself in reporting on Christian Nationalism in America. Talk Talk to me about what this very, very broad category means to you.

Christian Nationalism is a pretty broad movement. It can mean a lot of different things, but there are some unifying ideologies in the movement. One big example is something called dominionism. Now, that's a jargony term, but really what it means is that Christianity should rule all aspects of life and that Christ's teachings should be the foundation for all of society. I've been covering extremism since 2018, just looking at how extremism interacts with politics. A lot of my early coverage was about militias. I covered the COVID lockdown pushback, which was really strong in Idaho, especially, and even elected officials pushing conspiracy theories. Eventually, Essentially, my reporting turned to Christian nationalism. When I started in 2018, I think people saw it as a really fringe movement. I certainly did, too. I definitely, even in making this podcast, there was a lot of skepticism as to whether Christian nationalists would ever really matter. But with the election of Donald Trump, I do think that a lot of that skepticism has melted away. The landscape is very different now. Trump himself has said Christians are under siege and that the left wants to tear down crosses and that we have to bring back Christianity in this country.

When Donald Trump says these things, Christian nationalists say that it's their ideology influencing the now President-elect.

You did a lot of reporting from this college town in Idaho. It's called Moscow. Tell me about your reporting there.

Yeah, Moscow, Idaho, seems like a really unlikely place to be a center of Christian nationalism in the country. It's a sleepy college town of about 26,000 people in North Central, Idaho. Kind of an idyllic area, rolling wheat fields, a lot of agriculture around the town, real cool quaint downtown. Also a blue dot in a really red state. I live in Idaho. It's very conservative, I can tell you that firsthand. But Moscow is one of these liberal strongholds, as you'll find in a lot of college towns. So It's a little weird that it's become this center for this unyielding, pretty far-right Christian Nationalist Church called Christ Church. The pastor of Christ Church is Doug Wilson. He leads a congregation of 8-900 people. He's a Navy veteran in his early '70s and a prolific author of Christian-themed books. He spent most of his adult life evangelizing and developing a conservative Christian education model. He's built this network from Moscow where he's had a lot of influence. He and his church members have been able to buy up some key real estate, also working on a housing development on the edge of town. A lot of their influence is through money and real estate right now.

That's been alarming a lot of people in town because the stated goal of Christ Church, locally at least, is to make Moscow a Christian town.

A Christian town? Yeah. What does that mean exactly?

Doug Wilson and his associates at Christ Church, they want a local theocracy where the political power is held only by people who identify as Christian. Now, they haven't had much luck at the ballot box because it's a liberal town. But what's been fascinating and what drew me to the story is that the fight over the town is really dramatic and interesting. But you could argue that he has more influence nationally. Because Doug Wilson, he's built up what my co-reporter James Dawson on the podcast termed a Christian industrial complex. He's got this church in Moscow, but he also has churches across the country and across the world. More importantly, he's built up a Christian educational empire where he's getting nearly 500 schools across the country, Coast to Coast, in nearly every state in the country. As he told me, he sees his educational enterprises as munitions factories. He likes to use war terminology. He sees his students as basically foot soldiers in the culture wars that he wants to win. The school system has been really effective, as has his media empire. He's got popular streaming shows. He's got a publishing house called Canon Press that churns out dozens of titles.

He himself has written dozens of books. And they've been pretty influential in these circles.

Secularism is resting on America like a dense fog.

That's Doug Wilson speaking to me in Moscow, Idaho, for the podcast in 2023.

We want students who are threats to that fog. We want students making movies. We want students appearing before the Supreme Court as attorneys. We want alums who are writing novels that are best that help shape the worldview of hundreds of thousands of kids who are reading those books and so on. That's what we mean by shaping culture.

How did you get access to the church and the people behind it? Do they call themselves Christian Nationalists?

As far as the Christian Nationalist label, they've become more and more comfortable with it. They really, for the most part, don't shy away from it anymore, even if they say it's coming from people that they disagree with. Agree with originally. The way I got access was I just asked, and I was upfront with them. I said, I'm sure you won't like everything in my podcast, and you're going to hear from a lot of people who are really critical of you, but I do want to hear you out, and I want to get your voice in there. They did end up talking to me. But what I quickly realized is that I think a big reason they talk to me is simply because they're very proud of what they're doing. When I'm telling you what their plans are, what their ideology is, and what they think, I'm not telling you what I think it is. They said it all into my microphone, and they were very direct. They want America to be a Christian nation, explicitly Christian nation, just saying it like it is in their mind.

When we come back, we'll take a listen to some of Season 2 of Heef Druzen's podcast, Extremely American. It starts off with a candid moment between Druzen and Gabriel Wrench. He's a prominent member of Doug Wilson's Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, the Moscow, Idaho-based religious organization. Then Druzen and his co reporter, James Dawson, check out a Christian Nationalist conference called fight, laugh, feast, outlined by Doug Wilson and other leading voices of the national movement. We'll be right back.

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This is our- I'm talking to Gabriel Ranch, a media personality and activist in Idaho.

Most people I'll call him Gabe. Okay, great. Gabe has a lot of ideas about how America should change. You said it would probably take a long time, but that you would like to see only Christians be able to run for office. If you're Jewish, if you're Muslim, if you're atheist, certainly, if I had you right, you said that, yes, you would support eventually them not being allowed to run for office. That's correct.

I did say that.

Because Gabe is a proud Christian socialist.

I think that the Christian faith is the ideal moral doctrine and principles for a thriving society. The farther you get away from that, the more in chaos we descend. The only way to maintain that, or one of the ways to maintain that, is you have to have people who are running for office who believe that, or you're going to get back into that chaotic decline.

I'll tell you straight up, as a Jewish American, I hear that, that I can't run for office, other non Christians can't. I have to admit, it's a little terrifying to me because to me, that means a fundamental freedom of mind in this theoretical world is gone.

Well, I mean, you're saying that in a country where you experience all these immense freedoms that was built on the Christian faith.

But where I can run for office right now.

Yeah, because your worldview is not good for society.

So Gabe wants biblical law to apply to everyone. That means a lot less democracy, especially for non-Christians like me. I should probably pause a moment here to acknowledge the bizarre journey I've been on for the past year. I've mentioned before that I'm Jewish, and it has been surreal to be immersed in this world of Christian nationalism. Don't get me wrong, people like Gabe have been unfailingly polite, which frankly makes it weirder. I'm being politely told I don't deserve key rights. But the reason I'm here listening to Gabe explain why I should lose my rights is not to feel uncomfortable. It's because plenty of people agree with him. Gabe is part of a younger vanguard of Christian nationalists trying to make their vision a reality, and they're their word through popular streaming shows, including Gabe's creation, CrossPolitic.

Mary, curious to see you. Welcome to CrossPolitic. You could not wait for the weekend to end and CrossPolitic to begin.

No. Crosspolitic is a mashup of fundamentalist religion, politics, and drinking.

It's a faster-paced show and a little rough around the edges. I think that's attractive to a younger generation. Our music is a little more hard-hitting.

These aren't the mega church pastors of York with their faith healing and fire and brimstone. Those guys focused on arena-sized church crowds. Gabe and his allies use popular streaming shows and savvy social media. They have followers around the country. They write books extoling the patriarchy and want their followers to get political and get more Christ into government.

They love to get into my tribe, your tribe, tribalism, and all sorts of nonsense.

Gabe and his Christian Nationalist peers are a whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking set that favor expensive boots and well-quaffed hair.

What are we drinking? This is a Glenn Fittich, 14 years. This is from a listener.

Kind of hipster theocrats with a distinctly bro motif. And business is good. These guys have popular books, a large podcast, and a YouTube channel with about 20,000 subscribers.

All right, you all. Come on back. Come on in. Sit down. Squanch in. That's not a word. Squanch is a word from Texas.

Each year, leading Christian Nationalist thinkers as well as rank and file believers, gather at a conference.

As soon as I walked on campus, someone handed me a glass of whiskey. I was like, All right, I'm at the fight Laugh Feast conference now. It's official. It's official.

This is Gabe's creation. But one of the ways-Fightlap Laugh Feast is four days of fundamentalist Christians talking to Christians about being Christian.

One of the gifts that God has given us is to be able to be a place where we could bring like-minded Christians together.

So Jimmy and I went. We flew across the country to where Gabe and his compatriots were brainstorming a Christian takeover of America. We're in the Northern Kentucky countryside.

The landscape is rolling and wooded with lots of farms and, of course, distilleries. But we're not here just as an excuse to go bourbon tasting. We're here to attend fight/lap feast. The theme is the politics of the 6 Days of Creation. This, of course, is the granddaddy of Bible verses, Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From there, each day God creates a new facet of the earth. And on the seventh day, he rests. And yeah, Christian nationalists definitely go with he.

Creation in six days. A gigantic floating zoo with girafs sticking their heads out the windows, burning bushes, talking donkeys, dragons and unicorns, resurrection from the dead. Yeah, we believe all of it.

We are not embarrassed by any of it. That's Tobi Sumpter, a pastor and a Christ Church affiliate, and one of Gabe's co-hosts on the show Cross-Politic. If you're wondering about the Dragons, it's Revelation 12:3. And unicorns are actually mentioned throughout the Bible. Fight Laugh Feast is billed as a conference, but it feels more like a festival. Or this year, even a political convention. Because everyone we talk to here thinks America should be a Christian nation.

I want the authority of the Lord Jesus to be confessed by the House and the Senate, and I want the President to sign it.

If you recognize that voice, it's Pastor Doug Wilson, who's a featured speaker here. Fundamentalist thinkers have come from around the country to be here, nearly 1,500 people, according to co founder Gabe Ranch, Church. And that's despite a per person ticket well north of $400. These Christian nationalists are here to put their heads together. They're planning how to take over America for Jesus. And they have ambitious goals. This is Pastor Tobi Sumpter again in a speech at the conference.anger.

And mockery. And may you see your children's children standing in the gates of our cities, confounding our enemies until every knee bowes and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this land, and all the earth, is full of the knowledge of the Lord.

As the water's We talk to a lot of people at the conference.

They didn't pull any punches about who would be in charge in a Christian America. Christians, of course. When you talk to them, though, they're often polite, funny, and light-hearted about some heavy subjects. Gabe has a pithy term for this approach that he emphasizes in his speeches.

We have to be joyful to all your orders. Joy is contagious. Being thankful is contagious.

Jolly as they may be, warriors are at war, and in a war, there is always an enemy. What I started to realize was to them, that enemy was me. Here's Gabe.

The Bible says that if your enemy needs a drink, give them something to drink.

Are we your enemy, though?

Well, I'd say you're God's enemy. If you don't believe in Jesus, then you're at odds, you're at war with God.

Statistically speaking, there's a good chance they think of you as the enemy, too. If you're Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Roman, Catholic, Buddhist, you'd be out Christian Nationalist strategy isn't just ideological, though. It's practical. Remember, America is rapidly becoming less Christian. Demographics are death for Christian Nationalists right now. Finding support from people they want to disenfranchize seems unlikely. I think opposition to democracy comes when they realize or when it becomes more clear that democracy may not return results that they've historically desired. That's Indiana University Professor Andrew Whitehead. Andrew studies Christian nationalism and has written two books on the subject. But there's a workaround for not getting support in a democracy. If Christian nationalists get rid of entire voting blocks that might oppose their theocracy, voting blocks like women, non-Christians, anyone in the LGBTQ+ community, that starts to solve the problem. Being in the minority isn't as much of an issue if the majority can't vote.

Because ultimately, Christian nationalism is focused on gaining, maintaining access to self-interested power.

I think that ultimately draws Christians away from the example and words of Jesus in trying to break down dividing walls of hostility and to actually loving our neighbor. One thing we noticed at fight Laugh Feast, Christian nationalists are trying to create a parallel society where as many goods and services as possible are provided by Christians. Leaders of Christian companies haunt their services on stage in between speakers. There's Christian crowdfunding in email, Christian Netflix, and a publisher putting out Christian children's books. With that, we created an entire universe where our characters are meeting the same ideologies that they're facing nowadays with peer pressure, fake news, cancel culture, gender identity, but we talk about it from a Christian point of view. This parallel structure, parallel society, is trying to pave the way for a Christian America. And these guys are patient patient.

You're listening to the Sunday story. After the break, Hef Druzen and I sit down to talk about the road ahead as we enter the next Trump term. We'll be right back.

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For years, the Chinese government has been detaining hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs. This is the story of one family, torn apart. Listen to the Blackgate on the Embedded podcast from NPR. All episodes are available now. We're back with Keith Druzen talking about his podcast, Extremely American, which takes this deep dive into Christian nationalism and talks to the practitioners of it who are very open about it. One thing that I was struck by in the excerpt that we just heard is that they want the nation to be run under this idea of Christianity or Christ. That's where I get a little confused because I'm Christian. I grew up in a very conservative church, but I guess I want to get some clarity on what these specific Christian nationalists, when they're talking about a Christian government, what does that actually look like to them?

Yeah. In the view of the Christian nationalists I talk to, it's an extremely narrow view of what Christianity can be. It's a Protestant view of it. And even more than that, really, if you're outside of the Calvinist Baptist umbrella, then they don't really consider you Christian. So if you're Catholic, if you're Norman, you're still in the out-group in their very narrow view of what a Christian America would look like.

The other part of this that I think is very interesting is that there was another very pro-US and Protestant movement in the 1920s, and that was the Ku Klux Klan. Where to be American was to be white and to be Protestant. That was a part of this. That was a part of what it meant. Obviously, now the Klan was a terrorist organization. But I just wonder, how does whiteness interact with this movement?

Yeah, it's a pretty white movement. Doug Wilson, who leads Christ Church, he co-wrote a pamphlet called Southern slavery as it was, which very much whitewashed the evils of slavery and painted the Confederacy as the victims. There's some serious baggage there. There's some real infighting and a bit of a civil war going on within the Christian Nationalist Movement. I've gone down the rabbit hole and seen some people go to some dark places, mostly on the platform X, where there are elements of Christian Nationalism who have really embraced anti-Semitism and racism. They They've basically just embraced alternative theories about the Holocaust and slavery. Then there's people... It's a weird thing to say, but the moderate Christian nationalists- They're a little more moderate. Okay. Right. They're pushing back like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't like being quote, unquote, woke, but you guys are going too far and you're putting a stain on the movement. There is a big battle going on inside the movement between the folks see not being woke as actually being racist and the other people who are like, no, that's not what we're about. You guys need to get your head straight.

That is an interesting dichotomy there. This is a church in a town in Idaho. They may have created this Christian industrial complex, but how far can their reach really be?

How far can they reach The limitation they have is that their ideas are broadly unpopular in America, but they're gaining influence, and they're gaining influence at the top of power. To many, it seems as though the theocrats are now on the doorstep of power. You've got the architect of Project 2025, Russ Vot, who's been tapped to lead the White House Budget Office again. Vot was actually caught on a secret recording saying he wants to, quote, rehabilitate Christian Nationalism. In the speech last year for a series called The Theology of American Statecraft, he said he wants to use biblical principles to instruct government. He's been pretty explicit about his plans. Doug Wilson, who leads Christ Church, also spoke at that event. You've got Fox News personality, Pete Heggsett, who's been nominated to be Secretary of Defense. Well, he's a member of a church connected to Doug Wilson's Christian Nationalist group, and he sends his kids to one of Doug Wilson's schools. He's talked about his writings, too. I think we're seeing it right there in that what's in genius about the influence campaign that Doug Wilson, sitting in Moscow, Idaho, has orchestrated, it's this intangible influence, right?

What he's created is an entire ecosystem, from school to church to entertainment. So if you get sucked in, all you're hearing is that ideology. And I think that's really powerful.

The influence that Christian nationalism has is not theoretical. Trump and his advisors have not called for some of the most extreme things that the Christian nationalists that you talk to that they're pushing for, for an actual theocracy and things of that nature. But in this next Trump administration, are there any things that you are going to be paying attention to or looking out for just along these lines?

My home state of Idaho has been a lab for extremism in the last few years. I think it actually can be instructive as to what might be coming nationally. There's some examples where the legislature has passed laws that have really become blueprints for the rest of the country. Idaho had an early anti-trans bill that was used as a blueprint for later anti-trans bills that passed in other states. They also recently passed a really restrictive library bill that basically leaves libraries open to lawsuits if they are found to have harmful materials available to miners. Now, the definition of harmful materials is very much in the eye of the beholder and some possibilities there when it comes to books about people of color, about LGBTQ themes, things like that. I think what we're seeing in Idaho So it might be indicative of the kinds of pushes we're going to be seeing in this next administration. As far as what Doug Wilson and his allies can achieve in the next four years, that remains to be seen. But they've said they're in a stronger position now after Trump's win.

Keith, thank you so much for bringing this reporting to us. It's very illuminating. So thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

Keith Druzen is the host and creator of the extremely American podcast podcast series from Boise State Public Radio. You can hear both seasons of the show at npr. Org or wherever you listen to podcast. This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yann. It was edited by Jenny Schmidt. Quaisi Lee mastered the episode. Special thanks to Boise State Public Radio, who partnered with Heath on Extremely American, James Dawson, Heath's co-reporter, and Sound Designer on the season, and extremely American editor, Morgan Springer. The Sunday Story team includes Andrew Mambo and our Senior Supervising Producer, Lianna Simstrom. Irene Naguchi is our executive producer. I'm Ayesha Rosco. Up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Up First sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Up First Plus at plus. Npr. Org.

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