Theocrats on the Doorstep of Power
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I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you're listening to the Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story. So 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 today. in their own words. I'm here with journalist Heath Drewson. 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 traces back to a church in Idaho. Heath, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks.
So I know that you've immersed yourself in reporting on Christian nationalism in America. Talk to me about what this very, very broad category means to you.
Right. So 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 sort of 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. And, you know, I've been covering extremism since 2018, just looking at how extremism interacts with politics. And a lot of my early coverage was about militias. I covered the COVID lockdown pushback, which was really strong in Idaho especially, and even, you know, elected officials pushing conspiracy theories. Eventually, 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. And 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, quote, under siege and that the left wants to tear down crosses and that we have to, quote, bring back Christianity in this country. And 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 kind of sleepy college town of about 26,000 people in north central Idaho. Kind of an idyllic area, like rolling wheat fields, a lot of agriculture around the town. Real kind of 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 kind of liberal strongholds, you know, as you'll find in a lot of college towns. So it's a little weird that it's become this kind of center for this unyielding, pretty far-right Christian nationalist church called Christchurch. The pastor of Christchurch is Doug Wilson. He leads a congregation of 800 to 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. And he's kind of 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. So a lot of their influence is through money and real estate right now. And that's been alarming a lot of people in town because the stated goal of Christchurch, locally at least, is to make Moscow a Christian town.
A Christian town? Yeah. So what does that mean exactly?
Doug Wilson and his associates at Christchurch, they want a kind of 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 kind of drew me to the story is that the fight over the town is, you know, it's really dramatic and interesting.
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