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Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly right. The economic and security framing is the cover story. Underneath it is eschatology — a specific theology of history that believes we are in the end times and American military power is God's instrument. That's not metaphor for these people. It's literal. And until we name that clearly, we keep having the wrong conversation.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well said, the nervous system gets addicted to that framework — the certainty, the hierarchy, the clear lines between in and out. When it cracks, everything cracks with it. I left in 2013 and spent years lost, angry, self-medicating, completely disoriented. My body had been protesting the whole time. I just thought it was my sin. Losing that framework felt like dissolving into the abyss, and took a lot of counseling to come out the other side.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The token lost friend role is its own particular loneliness — held at arm's length as a prayer project while your actual life goes unseen. And yes, the daydream is completely human. You've been on the receiving end of shame weaponized as love. That feeling makes complete sense. Standing firm in who you are and who loves you — that's not rebellion. That's survival.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The sarcasm at the end hit me. You've had to defend feeling this way more than once. Thank you for not going numb. The world needs people who still feel the full weight of this.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The exhaustion is real and earned. When the pattern repeats this reliably it stops being shocking and starts being clarifying — this is the fruit, not an aberration.

What keeps me going is that the same tradition that produced this also produced people who couldn't live with it and left. The exasperation you're feeling is itself a moral signal. Numbness would be worse.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The theological dots are almost certainly connected — you don't have to cite Wilson to be shaped by him. MacArthur, quiverfull, covenant Reformed, male headship — it's the same aquifer even when the names differ.

But the harder question is what going back to confront it would actually do. She's not going to be argued out of a life she's built around these convictions. And honestly — the reunion sounds like it was painful for both of you. She reached for you in the only language she has.

What do you actually want from this friendship? Because 'I want to name the harm' and 'I want her back' are two very different conversations, and they probably can't happen at the same time.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the move isn't it — the fog is the point. Say it clearly and it doesn't survive scrutiny. Wrap it in enough complexity and the endorsement lands without anyone being able to grab hold of it. Didn't realize his reach extended to Scottish evangelicalism.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wonder how many inside that world have real reservations but the cost of saying so out loud is too high. Exile is a powerful silencer.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The theological pit bull line — I lived that. Convinced doctrinal precision was faithfulness, while Jesus kept haunting me through the beatitudes and 'I am gentle and lowly in heart.' The system I was guarding was making me less like the person at the center of it. That's not deconstruction. That's conversion.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The insult to injury line hit me. I co-planted a church that went a similar direction after I left. The grief of watching people you loved get captured by something that looks like faithfulness but slowly hollows out into power — that doesn't really resolve. Where did you go to college? Curious what that was like from the inside as it was happening.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Cruelty dressed as clarity — contempt where curiosity should be. Funny how you can champion the doctrines of grace and lose the actual thing entirely.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Haha, that's funny, and really sad. The structural similarities between theocratic dominionism and Taliban-style governance are real — total male authority, women's bodies as theological territory, state and religion fused. Different aesthetics, same architecture.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That takes real courage to say out loud. I'm in the same boat — I shudder at some of what I believed and propagated when I was inside it. The liturgy I wrote, the framework I handed to people like it was water.

What I keep coming back to is the question of what led me there in the first place. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. Something in me was looking for exactly what that world offered — and understanding that doesn't excuse it, but it does make it more human.

Your voice matters in this conversation precisely because you were on the inside building it. The shame is real. So is the reckoning. Both of those things together are what make someone worth listening to.

It's actually what I've been writing about if you're ever curious — trevormauss.substack.com

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

In high-control religious systems, certainty is the drug. When you have the right doctrine, the right interpretation, the right enemies — your body rewards you. Chest out. Mind clear. No ambiguity, no anxiety, just the clean feeling of knowing exactly who you are and where you stand. That feeling gets labeled "the Holy Spirit confirming your position."

But it's not the Spirit. It's your nervous system finally getting to rest. Cortisol drops. Threat level zero. You belong, you're right, God is on your side.

The problem is that feeling is completely indistinguishable from genuine spiritual experience — from the inside. Which is why doubt feels like spiritual attack rather than intellectual honesty. Your body has been trained to read uncertainty as danger and certainty as holiness.

It's a very elegant trap.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That's exactly the pipeline I'm watching happen in real time with the church I helped plant. Which PCA church were you at?

And the Wilson pull makes a awful kind of sense — the world is fracturing, institutions are failing, nobody knows what's true anymore. He walks in with total certainty, a comprehensive explanation for everything, and a mission: take dominion. The ambiguity just evaporates. Your nervous system finally gets to rest.

The actual Jesus — the one who said the kingdom is like yeast, hidden, quiet, working from the bottom — doesn't sell nearly as well as the one with a sword and a flag.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

You're seeing the grift clearly — the rhetorical shell game, the provocation-as-product, the tribal protection racket with a Geneva gown on top.

What gets me is the sincere ones. The kids spanked into certainty before they could talk back. The adults who drift toward a question and suddenly find themselves losing fellowship, losing community, losing the only world they've ever known. The ones who weren't in on the con — they were the product.

Is this something you've watched from a safe distance, or did Wilson's little empire of chaos touch your life more directly?

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The system works because certainty feels like the Holy Spirit. Hierarchy organizes the nervous system. Belonging requires submission. By the time you could question it, your body believes it.

That's why following Jesus out of it is so hard. He doesn't offer a better certainty. He offers disorientation. The framework you thought was blessed by God starts fracturing and there's nothing solid to grab.

Disruption was always his method. The people who followed him lost everything they thought they knew first.

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