A NETWORK OF outspoken Christian nationalists is growing in popularity. They are not yet mainstream, but their drive for power is irrefutable. In Onward Christian Soldiers, the second season of the NPR podcast Extremely American, hosts Heath Druzin and James Dawson trace the rise of this Christian nationalist movement as manifested in the ministry of Doug Wilson, the reactionary, fundamentalist pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.
Wilson and his followers are forthright about their goal. “Our mission at Christ Church is summed up by the phrase, ‘all of Christ for all of life,’” according to the mission page on the church’s website. “Under the grace of God, this means that our desire is to make Moscow a Christian town.”
Across eight episodes, listeners of Extremely American witness Wilson’s emergence: The son of a Christian bookstore owner, Wilson takes on the mantle of preacher, excels in his philosophy classes, becomes an intuitive builder of institutions, and uses these skills to advance a crude political vision of Christian domination.
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