Today, Explained - The case for holy war

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

The Secretary of Defense suggests the Iran war is blessed by God. The head of his church, Pastor Doug Wilson, agrees. Some call Wilson an extremist. He prefers Christian nationalist. Either way, he's no longer a fringe figure. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Noel King. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been talking about the war in Iran in distinctly biblical terms, citing Psalms, the resurrection of Jesus, and the book of Quentin. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. President Trump is comparing himself to Christ. Vice President Vance is fighting with the Pope. Watching all of this is the increasingly influential pastor Doug Wilson. He co-founded the church that Hegsetth attends. Wilson's a Christian national. who would like the USA to be a theocracy. He'd also like to help us get there, though he doesn't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

I believe that it is accelerating. I believe that we're making significant gains. I see assembling resources, and I'm encouraged in that labor. But I don't expect to see what we're praying for in my lifetime. Pastor Doug Wilson, and how much you should worry about his plans coming up on Today, Explained from Vox.

This is Today Explained. My name is Douglas James Wilson. I'm the senior pastor at Christchurch in Moscow, Idaho. So I'm a pastor and I'm a writer. Pastor Wilson, I've heard you say that you are okay being called a Christian nationalist. Do I have that right? Right. I'm okay with it. It's not a term that I would have picked off the menu myself. But when it was assigned to us, I thought I can work with that. because I prefer it to the names I usually get called. He gets called a theocrat, a fundamentalist, an extremist, and Wilson can be extreme. He said that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to hold political office in the U.S.

He said that it was better to be a black person in the South during slavery than to be a black baby in a state that allows abortion. He can also sound very rational, as you're going to hear. And we're talking to him because he's gaining influence in a country where many people are disappointed by what secular liberal democracy has gotten us. There's a character in one of Hemingway's stories I've heard who said, who was asked how he went bankrupt. And he said, well, at first gradually and then suddenly. So what happened is when COVID hit was sort of the pressure test or the stress test for us. All the wheels came off. And for a lot of, I call them normies and grillers, a lot of normal Americans were looking around

and say, what just happened? This is crazy. What do you mean, drag queen's story hour? What do you mean? What are you talking about? This is not what I was, this is not what I signed up for. So the things that we'd been talking about for some decades, back to the Bible, Christ is Lord, Christ is risen, and that has political implications. That sounded crazy 20 years ago. And two years ago, it didn't sound nearly as crazy because the world had gone crazy. Let's say we get closer to where you want to be. What would your ideal Christian nation look like? Can you paint me a picture?

Yeah. The most obvious difference is right away would be things like abortion would be outlawed, Urbergefell would be overturned, things like that, social conservative issues, no-fault, divorce. would be gone. Those sorts of social conservative reforms would be the most obvious thing that people would be pointing to. That'd be negative. If you wanted to know what would it look like positively, I would say there'd be a lot more liberty, fewer regulations, a lot more ability to move around the country, do what you want to do. All right. So Obergfell is overturned. You don't like gay marriage. Right. What would happen to gay people in this nation?

that you're envisioning? The way you frame the question, I would say nothing. They would not be able to marry. They would not be able to alter the definition of marriage by marrying a man or another woman. But they would not be, I don't want a sexual Gestapo. Basically, I don't want to persecute or harass homosexuals as such. There would be a number of things that I also don't want the society to in any way

approve of that behavior. So, for example, pride parades, no. You know, no pride parades. That sort of thing would be out. Public expressions of it that way would be out. So basically envision America in 1975. Right? America in 1975 was many things, but it was not hewing all that closely to the Bible. You want this new nation to hew to the Bible. I do. In the Old Testament, gay people are stoned as punishment. So are adulterers.

Ah, yes. How are you planning to regulate homosexuality, to regulate adultery, and keep it in line with what the Bible wants? Yeah. So there are numerous theological issues involved in that question. One of them having to do with the transition from the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, to the New Testament, the advent of the Messiah, Christ dying on the cross for our sins, how we deal with sin publicly, the difference between a sin and a crime. It's a very complicated subject.

But the moral code remains the same. Whatever else happens, it's not like. times change and the morality changes. But times change and the way you deal with social ills, like widespread homosexuality, which I would define as an ill as a bad thing in society, what I'm arguing for is a public disavowal of this manner of life, not honoring it, not sanctifying it, not trying to pretend that it's marriage, etc. So basically, Our society disapproved. When I first began ministering, we had formal disapproval of homosexual behavior in all 50 states.

And America at that time was not a totalitarian hellhole. It was a deeply unpleasant place, though. Maybe even a hellhole if you were a gay American. Right? We just have to look to history and hear how people testified then to what it was like to live in America as a gay person. One of my favorite sayings is the phrases is that of an inescapable concept. It's not whether but which. It's not whether you make people uncomfortable.

It's which people you make uncomfortable. To that end, yeah. This is a good and interesting point that you're making because I hear you saying there would be more liberty. I know that liberty is important to you. Liberty is important to a lot of Americans. Right. But the way this has been laid out, there is more liberty. for some people, but there is also less liberty for others.

Yeah, yeah. So basically inescapable. It's not whether you impose morality. It's which morality you impose. Okay. And the current imposition of secular, gay-friendly morality makes traditional Christians intensely uncomfortable. But the secular world doesn't care.

Some of us haven't moved. And the reason, and this is what a religious extremist is, is a moderate who didn't move for the times. So we haven't budged. And a lot of people were sort of simmering under the transformations of our country over the last half generation or so, not liking it at all, not liking it at all. And the Christian nationalist response is something like of a recoil against, all this stuff. Okay. The country as you envision it is not where we are now. Right. What does it take? And I imagine you've spent many years thinking about this. What does it take to get us to where you want to be? What it would take is a massive revival, a reformation and

revival. So basically, what are we doing? Let's say, what are we doing about it here in Idaho? Well, we're planting churches. We're starting Christian schools. We're publishing books, we're seeking to persuade people. So we're not talking in terms of a hostile takeover. What we're talking about is persuading our neighbors, serving our communities, building good schools, establishing centers of worship. And if God is kind to us and there's a reformation of Christianity, reformation and revival, then this could possibly happen. Otherwise not. There's just, there's, there's, there's no way that you could take a, a pristine set of Christian laws and impose it on America as it now is. Hmm.

That's just not, that's just not going to happen. So I don't think that nonbelievers have to worry about, you know, us making all the ladies put on red dresses and, you know, that's kind of nightmarish scenario is not what we're talking about at all. Can I push back on you a little bit there? Sure. Because there is the Handmaid's Tale, yes. Fiction, although some would say these days, maybe not. But from what I understand, from reading and listening to you, you believe in, if we're talking about voting, you believe in households. You have a man and a woman who are married.

They have children. Maybe they don't, but you've got a man and a woman. You believe that the man should cast the vote for the household, meaning by extension, the woman does not vote. No, she, the man doesn't vote as a man and the woman doesn't vote as a woman. The household votes as a household. If the household is headed up by a woman, the household votes through a woman. So a single woman, I'm a single woman. I would vote. Yeah, you'd be a household of, you'd be a household of one. Household of one. Household of one. So what we're after is we believe that the family is a molecular unit and we believe that a healthy society is, built up of molecules rather than an atomistic society where each individual is a BB and you put all the BBs in a sack and it's like a beanbag chair. And then you grease the BBs with, you know, ubiquitous porn and a lot of cannabis. And none of the BBs are sticking together. The households don't stick together. Marriages don't stick together. What we're trying to do is recognize,

governmentally recognize the molecule, right? And we do it. It's nothing to do with X, X, X, Y, chromosomes, because the family doesn't have chromosomes. That's not what it is. So that's the first thing. But we would like to model this kind of governance in our churches for a century or so, and then have people say, oh, that's a great way of doing it. It's not like repealing the 19th Amendment is number one on my agenda. It's like number 27. Is it on your agenda? Okay.

27. Okay. I'll be in heaven before we get to it. But I, so I hear you saying that you don't want people to worry. Right. That you want to convince and not to scare. I'm a reasonable guy.

Right. But you can see, you can see how this might worry women. My sister is a married woman. Right. This would worry her. Right. It makes the job of convincing.

hard. Let's just take your sister, a married woman. If she and her husband agreed to vote for candidate Smith, all they've done is multiplied his vote tally by two. If they differ, if they're not going to vote for the same candidate, they might as well stay home and have a nice romantic dinner because they're just going to go cancel each other's vote out. The way to get the changes that you want is, in part, evangelizing.

And I hear you and I believe you are entirely sincere. Also, you can influence people who make policy, who have power in America. Right now, the seat of power in America, Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump. Do you like President Trump's leadership? Two-thirds of the time, I like it a lot. Okay. A third of the time, I think, what is he doing? What is he, you know, why that, why now? What do you like? What don't you like? Tell me. What I like, one of the things I think that is a good thing to compare Trump to is sort of America's got cancer and Trump is chemo. Trump is a radical chemo treatment. And chemo is toxic.

Chemo basically has a, it's a system where it kills the cancer before it kills the patient. And it's a very rigorous sort of thing. And I like the progress that Trump has made on a lot of the cancer. and I'm aware of some of the damage that's done to the healthy tissues by his management style, his leadership style, but politics is the art of the possible. I hear you saying President Trump is getting us closer to the Christian nation that I want. He also acts in ways that contradict what Christ preaches in the Bible, and he is often, I would say, and he's a bad role model, right, the way he speaks.

Do you have any reservations being a pastor about letting Trump off the hook? Oh, yeah. If I did let him off the hook, then I would have reservations about that. But I really haven't. So I don't think in the congregation I pastor, we don't have any Trumpkin wild-eyed supporters where no matter what Trump does, it's always good. when when when trump misbehaves everybody laughs we budgeted for that that's bad okay and we know it's bad and we say it's bad but we're also we don't have trump derangement syndrome when he does good things that that thrill us we're thrilled well i don't mind saying i don't mind saying that there are

whole range of issues where trump's behavior has thrilled me and others that i just heartily disapprove of And I don't think I'm setting a poor example for our people when I say what I think about both of those categories. Pastor Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, CREC. Did you know, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseh belongs to a CREC church? We're going to ask Pastor Wilson how he sees his influence on Heg-Seth and about that Trump Jesus meme. Pete Heg-Seth, the Secretary of Defense Pete Heg-Seth attends a CREC church. and that's why I think people mention you in the same breath. Correct.

The Secretary of Defense has had opportunities, ample opportunities of late, to speak publicly in front of the American people. Do you hear your church's teachings when he speaks? Yes. How so? Yes. So basically, let me flip it around. I don't hear anything from him that contradicts what we teach.

And I believe he's a, I believe that he's a, consistent Christian gentleman. I like what he's doing. I like the job he's doing. But I've not heard anything that contradicts what we would teach from the pulpit. He has spoken of the war in Iran in religious terms. He also suggests that God is on America's side, right? God is rooting for America in this war. Right. So I think the thing that people struggle with is the idea that God would be on board when you see civilian casualties like this school in Iran with the children, 150 people, maybe even, possibly even more, killed. That happens. And then the Secretary of Defense says, God's on our side. Can you help us understand why that feels right to you? Yeah. So the first thing

I would say is that no answer should try to pretend that war isn't horrible. Okay. in any war, horrible things will happen. But when you look at a regime that killed, what, 35 to 40,000 of their own people in the last month or in the last month or so, if you're looking at a regime where a woman can be executed for having been raped, right? The values, we have a lot of problems, a lot of moral problems. We are not a moral paragon. We've got all kinds of problems. But But if you put this, the Western civilization that we have and the Islamic Sharia state that they have in Iran, I believe that it's a, it's not a morally ambiguous situation at all. The war has certainly divided Christians. Pope Leo, tweeting from the Vatican, wrote, God does not bless any conflict, anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. What do you make of his statements? I'd say he needs to read his Old Testament more.

Right. Psalm 144, verse one, Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my fingers for battle. There is basically, Pope Leo, before he was the Pope, was just sort of an ordinary,

democratic, leftist critic of Trump. Right? And in the recent spat that the Trump and the Pope had, It was just Trump being Trump dealing with a political opponent, which is what the Pope was being. I don't think the Pope was being, acting in the role of a religious leader exigating the scripture there. I think he was just stating his political convictions. God does not bless any conflict.

Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. that strikes you as just a political opinion, just a criticism of President Trump? Yeah, absolutely. Right. Because the reason is when you have people who are very selective in their indignation, and when you look at the kind of violence that the Iranian regime perpetrates against their own people, like 40,000 people dead, and they did it on purpose, as opposed to blowing up a school by accident.

And the Pope is silent on that kind of thing. And then he turns to go after Trump for conducting this war. I don't think, I don't see equal weights and measures there. I don't think Pope Leo is being honest. President Trump attacked the Pope on Truth Social. He, as you know, he posted a meme depicting himself as Jesus Christ. He deleted it, but it struck many Christians, including many conservative Christians.

is really appalling. What was your gut reaction to that? And then when you had time to think it through, where did you land on that? Okay, when my first reaction, I tweeted about it, I said, somebody needs to figure out how to put this picture onto black velvet so that it can be blasphemous and tacky. Right? So it was, the picture was blasphemous. The president's explanation afterwards was that he thought it was a doctor figure, not Jesus. Do you believe it? I find that's a stretch. But I'm willing to do. to accept it. If he took the picture down and said that portraying himself as Jesus is not what he

intended, at least we got that. That was a very good thing. But I don't think, I think he was just too, they've got to do better when it comes to social media management. That was a, that was a blasphemous image. And blasphemy is no good, no matter who does it. But what is the penalty for blasphemy? It would depend on, the word blasphemy, can include everything from virulent, I hate God, you know, I love the devil kind of blasphemy. And it can also be just railing speech against someone else. So it would depend on the, it's like first degree murder down to manslaughter. So there are varying degrees. The worst form, the worst penalty in the Old Testament for blasphemy was capital punishment.

Let me ask you one last question. There's a writer Tim Alberta. I'm sure you're aware of him. He comes from an evangelical background. I'm not sure if he is still an evangelical. But I suspect he may be because he tweeted this the other day in response to President Trump in the image. My conviction remains, God did not ordain Donald Trump to rescue the American Church or revive the American Church or redeem the American Church. God ordained Donald Trump to test the American Church. And the American Church has failed. What do you think God is trying to do with President Trump?

I agree with actually everything in that tweet right up to the last line. I disagree with the last line. I think that Trump is a test. This goes back to what I said earlier about chemo. I think that the tumultuous times that we're living in really is a test. I've been greatly heartened at how many Christians have gotten to work, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the chaos of our times. So I think Tim Alberta's tweet seemed to indicate that we failed, because all the Christians fell in lockstep behind Donald Trump and didn't stand up and challenge him.

But in the world I live in, conservative evangelical leaders, conservative ones, are willing to oppose Trump where they think he's wrong, and they're willing to support him where they think he's right. And I don't think I wouldn't call that failure. Pastor Doug Wilson, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Great being with you. Today's team, Hadi Mawagdi, Jolie Myers, David Tadishore, and Gabriel Dunatow. I'm Noelle King. It's today explained.