Christ Church in spotlight by ‘Meet the Press’

Christ Church has again caught the attention of the national media as “Meet the Press” recently aired a segment profiling the Moscow-based church as part of a broader discussion about the rise of Christian nationalism and theocracy in the U.S.

The long-running NBC program visited Moscow several weeks ago to talk to Christ Church pastor Doug Wilson and other community members. A portion of the segment was aired during the program Sunday, and the full piece can be viewed on Peacock or online at nbcnews.com/meet-the-press.

The piece focused on Christ Church’s stated goal to make Moscow a Christian town and the tension that has caused in the community. During his interview with NBC’s Anne Thompson, Wilson called Moscow a “microcosm” of the “radical division” happening around the country.

Wilson said his church’s members pray for reformation and revival across the U.S.

“And if what is happening here caught fire and spread elsewhere, I would be very, very grateful,” he said.

Thompson interviewed Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Stevens, of Moscow’s Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, who called Christ Church a “dominionist cult” that does not represent Christianity.

“I see them representing patriarchy,” she said. “I see them fighting the culture war.”

Wilson also spoke about this culture war to NBC.

“You can’t have a naval warfare without ships,” Wilson said. “And you can’t have tank warfare without tanks. And as I tell Christians all around the country, you can’t have culture war unless you have a culture.”

Meet the Press touched on some of the controversial ideas regarding slavery, marriage and homosexuality put forth by Wilson and his church. Former Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney spoke about these statements during her interview with NBC.

“When some kind of outrageous statements were made early on about southern slavery as it was as a mutually affectionate relationship between master and slave, or saying that members of our LGBTQ community, trans people should be exiled or possibly stoned — that catches our attention,” she said.

Wilson told Thompson that he believes homesexuality is “a sinful choice.” He also believes wives should be submissive to their husbands.

Chaney responded to the Meet the Press segment in a letter to the editor that can be found in today’s Daily News Opinion section (see Page 5A). She encouraged the public to oppose “propaganda and policies that diminish equality.”

“The problem is not Wilson’s religion, but rather that Christ Church leaders have extended their reach into secular institutions they seek to crush,” she said. “What Wilsonites call religious persecution, others call zoning code violations, threats to human rights, disregard for pandemic directives, littering, defacement of public property, and anti-science rhetoric.”

The NBC piece featured Journey’s End Cafe owner Josh Flickner, a Christ Church member. Flickner claimed his workers were threatened by crank calls and that his cafe struggled thanks to a social media campaign calling out local businesses that are run by church members.

“Look at what people say about my business and then pretend like I was not a white heterosexual Christian male,” he said. “That would be a hate crime.”

He announced on Facebook that Journey’s End Cafe will be closing for good by the end of this week.

On Monday, Wilson published a blog post where he reacted to that segment. He included a video that showed additional footage of his interview with NBC.

Wilson said in the video he is grateful that the Meet the Press segment was not a “hit piece” because it showed the viewpoints of both the church and its critics.

However, he said, it had evidence of “typical leftist liberal bias” that affected how it was edited.

“When a secular or hostile media outlet requests an interview, we have them fill out a form,” Wilson wrote on his blog. “On that form they have to agree to allow us to film the entire interview independently. For the Meet the Press gig, we had two cameras of our own running the whole time. The BBC is going to be visiting in a few weeks, and we will do the same with them. This is what you might call ‘hit piece’ insurance.”

Meet the Press also highlighted the cases of Alex Lloyd and Steven Sitler, two sex offenders previously associated with Christ Church. Lloyd recently pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and Sitler was convicted for lewd conduct with a child younger than 16 in 2006.

“The thing that upsets people is not the child molestation offense,” Wilson said. “There are 20-30 sex offenders in Moscow and everybody knows the name of one of them because of where he goes to church. The ones who don’t go to church, they’re all OK, they stay out of the newspapers. But the one who is repentant and wants to live right and is straightened out, we’re going to go after him because the target is actually me.”

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.