by Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho
Back in 2017 I wrote a column about sexual abuse in conservative evangelical churches (bit.ly/4b9CrgN), and today I want to update my research. My focus will be the following church denominations: Doug Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).
My principal resource will be the podcast series Sons of Patriarchy (sonsofpatriarchy.com) that asks the question: “What happens when biblical patriarchy and a theology of authority and submission become the pillars of a movement? Scores of abuse stories in marriages, schools, churches and families.”
The producer of Sons of Patriarchy is OPC member Peter Bell, who now devotes all his energies to exposing Wilson. When OPC pastors say that they condemn Wilson, Bell points out that this pertains to details of Calvinist theology only, not to Wilson’s extreme patriarchal views of marriage, the family, and sexual relations.
Bell interviewed dozens of abused women and girls in the OPC and CREC, and all revealed a pattern of sexual, emotional, and spiritual predation that they blamed on Wilson’s teachings. In every case I was impressed with both how articulate and how calm the women were in relating their maltreatment.
Most of the women were steadfast in their faith knowing well that their God would not condone the suffering that they had endured. They refused to embrace the misogynist imperative: you as a woman should suffer as Christ suffered. The fact that their men are the cause of their misery is criminally ignored.
The podcast “Christ Church Santa Clarita” is perhaps the most horrendous example of Doug Wilson’s “pastoral” theology. It is an instance of double-teaming maltreatment by a husband and an adult stepdaughter against his wife and her biological 6-year-old daughter.
The case is thoroughly documented and corroborated by a former church deacon, a family protective agency, the judge who served a restraining order against the husband and errant daughter, and evangelical pastor and trauma counselor Ray Davis serving as ad litem for the abused daughter. There were 20 counts of child harm against the husband and his daughter.
The husband’s abuse was heinous and it beggars belief. In a recording made by the wife, the husband used the “F” word in nearly every sentence, so I will spare you that and share some exceptions instead. The husband admitted that “when I say I love you, I really mean that I hate you.” He also said: “I want to punch you in your face and slit your throat.” He once pushed one of his own daughters down the stairs, and in another incident he threw another daughter against a fridge.
The podcast contained a 911 call that the husband made during a domestic incident. He told the operator that he was just about to murder his wife and then take his own life. He was arrested and placed on a psychiatric hold. Also, as he was processed, he failed a drug test. A judge issued a no-contact order for the mother and her daughter, but the elders insisted that they stay away while the husband attended church on alternate weekends.
Church elders, however, refused to honor a similar order against the adult daughter attending church while her stepmother and daughter were in attendance. Even when confronted with the child protective agency’s report, the elders believed her when she denied that she had ever mistreated the little girl.
One September Sunday in 2022 a church elder informed the congregation that the couple would divorce. He stated that elders had given them good counsel but to no avail. He also stated that the husband was under church discipline, but conspicuously absent was any mention of domestic abuse.
In 2024, the church elders, after over a year of no attempts at reconciliation, finally expelled her. Their reasons were that she was “working against the peace of the church,” and that she was not abiding by its rules.
Prior to her excommunication, the mother called the headquarters of Wilson’s denomination but she didn’t receive an answer. An official, presumably not to validate the woman’s authority, told the Santa Clarita elders that she should find another church.
Pastor Ray Davis, the trauma expert assigned by the court, told Peter Bell that this was the worst case he had ever seen. After some research into Wilson’s churches, he concluded that the abuse was systemic and the enforcement of these draconian policies came down from on high.
Gier had Wilson as a student at the University of Idaho, and he now regrets that Wilson did not use his degrees responsibly. Read his articles on Wilson at nfgier.com/?s=wilson. Email him at ngier006∂gmail.com.