All through the eighties, while I was coming of age, the AIDS epidemic swept through the gay community like a hurricane blowing over a house of cards.

These days, of course, we know AIDS is not a gay disease, but that knowledge took some time to manifest. In those first and dreadful years, there was no treatment, and gay men died in astounding numbers in unspeakable agony, while our President openly mocked our suffering. He refused to allow the Centers for Disease Control to take action. The protocols enacted in the face of any epidemic or public health crisis were deliberately disabled by his executive order, and it took nearly a decade to jumpstart those long-overdue interventions. All the while, pastors, from famous televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson all the way down to the humble men of God like my own pastor, claimed that this disease was God’s ultimate retribution. Gay men, corrupted by Satan, were being wiped from the face of the Earth by the vengeful God known to all by every sermon of hellfire and brimstone ever preached. Decent and hell-fearing Christians, they warned, could not allow themselves to be tricked into any show of compassion. Such weakness was a temptation laid out by the devil himself.

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It is here in this dark corner of our shared history I found my first call to action, my first call to protest. Yes, gay men were dying in the big cities like New York and San Francisco, but they were dying everywhere, even in my rural community, and those deaths hit close to home. While I was just a boy, men I knew and cared about faced a brutal end to their shortened lives in the midst of a decent, beautiful, and working-class community that forgot its own values and offered those men nothing but contempt and hate. My first call to action was nothing grand or spectacular or in any way impressive or amazing. I nursed the sick and the fallen with all the other outcast gay men who were untouched by the epidemic. The work was never easy because I had to bear witness up close to just how disordered a human body can become. I wiped so many butts because no one else in my largely evangelical community would step forward and do the work Christ surely would have wanted.

Brutal hate, dressed up as God’s love, forced me into a very different born-again experience. My open and public ties to the sick and dying added fuel to the flames. My physical safety came under constant threat, and that threat of violence gave way to actual assault and physical harm on a regular basis by members of my own evangelical community. I was a twelve-year-old boy who lost, in a single day, the love and security I had always known, had always taken for granted, like breathing. I never again knew an adult anywhere in my life who did not blame me and hold me to account for the violence inflicted on me. It was my fault, you see. If I did not act like such a sissy, if I did not act like such a f——t, none of this would be happening to me. Those who turn away from God in such a vile fashion get exactly what they deserve.

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My faith got stripped away by violent force. I grew up surrounded by the devout, and both of my parents came from generations of fundamentalist-turned-charismatic evangelicals. By the time I could read, I knew I had been touched, and God had claimed me and my life as his own by laying his hand on me. I was called. I was going to grow up and be one of God’s anointed here on Earth. I was called to the ministry just like my pastor.

Once my dream of becoming a pastor was dead, I had to find out who I was all over again, and it was not easy. It takes time to feel a loss like mine and build a whole new faith tradition. It all came as such a shock to my spiritual identity. Being stripped of my rightful place before God, where I was once held in the arms of his offbeat evangelical followers, inflicted a trauma I cannot fully describe. The words simply do not exist.

But there I was existing without the words, without the language, and I reacted, as I so often do, in very clear black-and-white thinking. That pattern of thought has always been one of the hallmarks of my life, and it has shaped my reality in both positive and negative ways. I dedicated my life to an angry and bitter version of atheism. I mocked Christians at every turn and reveled in every show of their hypocrisy. But in spite of the untamed anger, a transformation was taking place, not in the wilds of outer space, but in the realm of my inner space. I dedicated my life to the cause of social justice. At first, I only cared about my social justice and justice for my tribe of the beaten-down LGBTQ+ world. Those of us condemned to a barren half-life, those of us who were stripped of purpose and meaning in the broader community. But today, my call for justice leaves no one behind.

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I take such pride in my life of radical protest, and I tell people all the time in our current political crisis to set fear aside and take action, any action that helps and heals. I tell them how taking such action will mark your life and how it will change the internal lens of yourself for all the days to come. And I say this with no lack of authority. Today, when I see the old reels of the AIDS quilt unfolding across the National Mall, when I see the footage of men and women laying their bodies down in the middle of busy streets to block traffic and raise awareness, when I see the documentaries showcasing the brutality police officers used against us, I remember. I remember it all. Because I was always there, up to my neck in all the chaos!

I helped move the needle, but I will not shield you from the truth. We were the unlikeliest band of heroes the world had ever seen. Our queer coalition was so strange and complicated. We came from every continent and nation on earth. We came from every faith tradition. We came from every race and ethnicity. We came from every economic class. And we came with more internalized homophobia than we could ever hope to surrender. We fought with each other like cats and dogs, and time and again our coalition fell apart from the constant infighting. The truth is we had no idea what we were doing as we cooked up one crazy scheme to grab national attention after another, and we had no idea if what we were doing would help heal our broken world. The only thing we did know was we could not stop fighting for real change. But change our broken world we did. We could not always see where we were going, and so much of the time it felt like we were not making any difference. But it was like applying the laws of thermodynamics. When you place force on an object, and keep applying that force, things happen and that object moves.

I swore I would never stop until the day came when no child anywhere was forced to relive my experiences in such a homophobic world. And when we look at our history, we know how much has changed, but we also know how much work still lies ahead. Far too many of our trans children are having their lives dragged through the mud for no good reason. Far too many LGBTQ+ youth end their own lives because of the hostile conditions forced on them by their religious communities. But the hate our children endure is happening in an ever-receding pocket. And one day it will be gone. So many of our children already have full access to the support they need—not all of them yet—but we will get there in our relentless effort to build a more just world and a more perfect union.

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This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey, whether you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Let’s begin by acknowledging the ironic frequency with which church goers take offense at social constructs of their own creation. Would there be a Black Lives Matter movement if Christ followers extended people of color the dignities and love afforded to children of God? Would places like San Francisco be known as safe havens for marginalized youth if so-called Christian parents loved their children unconditionally? Would women have sought instruments of family planning if infidelity and financial dependence didn’t leave them trapped in abusive homes? And would there be Pride Month if LGBTQ+ persons didn’t have to fight to live as others do?

Likely not, but since they had to endure a prolonged struggle, evangelicals now have to cope with some rainbows and a few parades, and they only have themselves to blame.

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You know, it’s funny, when St. Patrick’s Day comes along—which ironically celebrates the Christianization of a historically pagan Ireland—it’s not so much a day for reconnecting with our faith but rather an excuse for abject drunkenness, foul language, and sexually explicit behavior. But instead of launching a culture war in response, religious leaders don’t even bat an eye. Then along comes Pride Month and suddenly we’re fixated on the sinfulness of it all.

Hypocrisy aside, let’s take a closer look at the great sins being alleged here: being gay and having pride.

As to the first, evangelicals are quick to reference the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as evidence of God’s rebuke of homosexuality. But that’s not an accurate account in the slightest. Let me explain.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah centers around three heavenly visitors (often interpreted as the Lord and two angels) who are on their way to investigate the reported wickedness of these two cities. When these visitors appear to Abraham, he welcomes them with the hospitable customs of the day, offering them water to wash their feet and a lavish feast. Abraham’s nephew Lot is just as hospitable, offering the visitors his home when they arrive in Sodom in order to keep them safe. But then a violent mob of Sodomites surround Lot’s house and demand that he hand over the visitors so that they can—get this—“know [rape] them” (Genesis 18-19). Weird, right?

Yes, but take into account the societal norms of the day when sexual assault was often used as a way to humiliate and emasculate outsiders in order to establish power and dominance over them. Admittedly, that’s not the strategy that I’d use, but it’s fair to say that all cultures have normalized certain deviant behaviors with one unseemly justification or another. Take the practice of violently separating children from their parents and incarcerating them or deporting them to countries they’ve never been before (that’s us); or, perhaps how rich men travel to islands in order sexually indulge in the raping of children (that’s us too). Doesn’t seem so crazy now.

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When the mob tries to break down Lot’s door, the angels intervene and blind the men before destroying the cities with fire and brimstone (sulfur). So, contrary to what is popularly asserted, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality—not in the least—but rather an admonition against refusing to welcome the foreigner and aiding the poor and needy despite having an “excess of food and careless ease” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). Indeed, the inhospitable behavior of the Sodomites is not some one-off story, but rather biblically thematic as it repeatedly is used to demonstrate the antithesis of God’s commandment to “welcome the stranger,” including Jesus’s own warning about Sodom to any town that refuses to welcome His disciples (Matthew 10:14-15).

Indeed, while there is much about Sodom that mirrors present-day America—hostilities toward foreigners, refusing to aid the poor, to say nothing of socially permissible sexual assault—none of it has anything to do with being gay.

That brings us to the other finger-wag pointed at Pride Month—and that is the sin of “pride.” Unlike being gay, pride is most definitely a sin. In fact, it’s one of the seven deadly sins and the one that C. S. Lewis described as the worst of all the other sins because “it was through Pride that the devil became the devil.” But here’s the thing: “pride” is one of those words that has several different meanings.

The Hebrew word for “pride” is ga’avah (גַּאֲוָה), which captures an array of uses including “majesty” and “rising up.” Indeed, the Bible repeatedly uses ga’avah to describe God as “majestic” (Job 37:4; Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:34). And this is not unique to Hebrew. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “pride” covers multiple definitions including, of course, the biblical sin of “having a high, especially an excessively high, opinion of one’s own worth or importance which gives rise to a feeling or attitude of superiority over others; or being arrogant [and] haughty,” which is someone who is arrogantly proud. Anyone come to mind?

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Here it is in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty [arrogant] spirit before a fall.”

But pride is also defined as “[a] sense of confidence, self-respect, and solidarity as felt or publicly expressed by members of a group (typically one that has been socially marginalized) on the basis of their shared identity, history, and experience.” And this is where we find our usage for Pride Month. It’s simply a rebuttal to the shame that others—who truly exercise the sinful definition of “pride”—attempt to assign certain people in order to make them feel less than. To be sure, no child of God was ever meant to feel less than. So wave your flag and enjoy the parade and do so knowing that God loves you.

Happy Pride Month everyone!

In addition to “It’s Pride Month! And God is Fine With That,” Michael will be publishing three additional pieces on his Substack this month addressing the disingenuous arguments in favor of so-called traditional marriage. Covering everything from government involvement in marriage licenses to DivorceCare Ministries, these articles will demonstrate just how manipulative and dishonest cultural Christians are on this topic.

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey, whether you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Every single time, her face goes red. She stares at me. And she says: I don’t know.

Then I tell her that the only purpose of her clitoris is sexual pleasure. That God gave women a clitoris because She wanted women to enjoy sexual intimacy and to experience the pleasure of orgasms.

And I watch relief flood her face. Because nobody ever told her that. The church made damn sure of it.

Girls were taught their bodies were dirty. Sinful. A problem to be managed. They were responsible for male behavior because boys couldn’t help themselves if a girl’s body was sexually appealing. Their sexual purity determined their worth. Without it, they were damaged goods. And their own desire? That was the most dangerous thing of all. Good girls don’t think about sex. Good girls don’t want it. Good girls don’t need it.

They absorbed those messages into their bodies during the exact developmental window when they were forming their identities. And they were reinforced spiritually, relationally, and socially until they became hardwired. Not as rules, but as truth.

And it went much further than sex. A girl’s worth became tied to her modesty, her compliance, and her future role as a wife and mother. She was never encouraged to develop a sense of who she was outside of what the church dictated to her.

So often, by the time she ends up in my office, she is lost. She doesn’t know who she is or what she wants. She can’t articulate what she wants because she has lived a lifetime of serving others, deferring to them, never considering her wants, or sacrificing her desires for those around her. When a woman does that long enough, she becomes completely disconnected from who she is. Even naming simple things that bring her joy can be difficult. The purity culture didn’t just damage her relationship with sex. It damaged her relationship with herself.

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I’ve witnessed first-hand the harm the purity culture inflicted on women. And what I can tell you is that most of them are not in my office. Most of them are living in heartbreaking silence, accepting that sex is painful, that shame is normal, and that their duty is to serve their husbands because his needs are ordained as more important than their own.

That silence keeps them small. It prevents them from having a voice or advocating for themselves. They abdicate their rights, defer to their husbands, and even vote for their husbands’ candidate. One woman told me she couldn’t vote for a female president because there was no way a woman was capable of leading a country. Let’s name that for what it is: internalized patriarchy and misogyny, installed so early and so completely that she couldn’t even see it operating inside her.

The clinical evidence of what this silence is covering up is not subtle. Christian women report vaginismus, where vaginal muscles involuntarily tighten making sex painful or impossible, at twice the rate of the general population. As many as one in five report conditions that make sex painful. This is not coincidence. When a nervous system has been taught from girlhood that sex is dangerous, shameful, and sinful, the body closes itself off to protect itself. What was once a protective reflex to preserve virginity becomes a prison inside a healthy adult marriage.

Beyond vaginismus, women raised in purity culture feel shame during consensual married sex. They dissociate during intimacy. They feel guilt after pleasure even when it’s wanted. They cannot ask for what they want. They cannot say no without fear. But they don’t talk about it, because that elicits even more shame.

My blood boils that men in power continued the historical demeaning of yet another generation of women. They screwed women over. And they did it in God’s name.

Because here is what they never told those girls:

God gave women a body part whose entire and only purpose is pleasure. The clitoris has no reproductive function. It exists solely to provide women with sexual delight. That was not an accident. That was God.

And the Bible they used to imprison women’s sexuality contains an entire book, the Song of Solomon, dedicated to the mutual erotic pleasure of a couple’s sexual intimacy. The woman in that text expresses desire. She initiates. She has a voice. Her pleasure matters as much as his. God’s own voice in that text says: enjoy this. This is good.

The purity culture buried it. They reframed it as allegory and stripped it of its meaning, while cherry picking Paul’s letters to keep women silent and compliant. They built an entire theology of female shame from interpretations written entirely by men who had already decided women were less than. Women never had a seat at that table.

That is not God’s design for women. That is patriarchy wearing a cross.

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Healing from purity culture damage is hard work. We start by talking about her memories of the church, what she was taught about who she was supposed to be, and how she was supposed to behave. Then we do the deep work of figuring out who she really is as a person, not as a mother, not as a wife, not as any role.

We talk about what she likes about herself and what brings her joy. As we do this, she is often overwhelmed with emotion as she remembers her dreams and the parts about herself that she loved when she was younger. Through this, she gains more clarity about what type of life she wants. Much of this work is permission giving, helping her love herself, understand that her body was always clean, and become empowered to change.

We work on how she wants to show up in her relationship, and we directly address how to create sexual intimacy that she can experience with pleasure, devoid of guilt or shame. That includes her learning what her personal sexual template is, what feels good to her, and what doesn’t. It also includes her becoming comfortable with pleasuring herself and with receiving pleasure from others.

Always, we grieve the way purity culture harmed her and her life. Along the way, she learns that she can hold two truths: she can still love God and her faith, and also be angry at the ways the purity culture damaged her.

If you are a purity culture survivor, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you. There never was.

Be furious at the institution that did this to you.

And then let yourself feel a glimmer of hope and empowerment that you can make your life better. That it’s OK to push back on all of this bullshit. That a loving God never intended for you to feel shame about your body or about the pleasure you were literally designed to experience.

Your faith is not the enemy. What was done in its name is.

God didn’t forget you. She built your body as evidence of that.

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Heather England, PhD, LCP, CST, is a licensed psychotherapist and AASECT certified sex therapist. She writes about midlife, identity, and reclaiming yourself at A Midlife Reckoning on Substack.

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey, whether you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he has no formal theological training, Doug Wilson represents the future of the religious right in America. He pastors Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and formed the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) in 1998, a network that now boasts over 160 churches. He came to national prominence in 2004 after organizing a conference at the University of Idaho that featured his tract, Southern Slavery As It Was, which offers a defense of the Confederacy. He returned to national headlines in 2020 after holding maskless services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t left those headlines, most recently preaching at the Pentagon at the invitation of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a member of a CREC church.

A self-described Christian nationalist, Wilson preaches the gospel of dominion: followers of Christ are to focus less on converting souls and more on angling for powerful positions in government, commerce, the courts, and media in order to re-establish America as a society created by and for Christians. “God has not called us to sit around in the world. He has called us to study it and subdue it,” he once wrote in a book that has been on my mind lately, Federal Husband.

In her memoir A Well-Trained Wife, which chronicles her escape from the world of Christian patriarchy, Tia Levings recalls how Doug Wilson’s teachings fueled the abuse she experienced in her marriage. When Levings’s husband Allan discovered books like Wilson’s Federal Husband and Reforming Marriage, he took Wilson’s words and lived by them.

“[Wilson’s books] said a man needs help, and the woman needs to help. That’s her job, her created purpose. She’s his ‘helpmeet.’ On his own, man’s unsuccessful. He can only function to his full capacity with a capable, amiable woman helping him along the way. And she’ll only be happy if she surrenders and serves him,” Levings wrote. “Allan took all that he learned and issued new rules with tighter, more defined lines. Under the surface, anger brewed. He wanted me to call him ‘my lord.’ Wear only dresses. Cover my head with a scarf to show submission and modesty. And he wanted me to stop showing anyone what I’d written or made, such as a forum post or a scrapbook, unless I’d shown it to him first.”1

The Christian nation that Doug Wilson wishes to usher in is fundamentally patriarchal and relies on the submission of women. Anyone who wants to understand where the conservative Christian movement is headed needs to understand what Wilson teaches and the devastating real-world impacts it has already had on the women and girls who have been raised and shaped in his orbit.

In Federal Husband, Wilson lays out his plan for husbands and wives. That husbands have and must wield authority over their wives is a given. The amateur theologian claims that “the doctrine of male headship is set down for us in Scripture.”2 Although Wilson goes on to say that he believes men and women are equal in their worth in the eyes of God, he places them on fundamentally unequal ground by making men take charge of their wives’ behavior. If a wife commits a sin, Wilson says, her husband is the one who carries responsibility: “All such sinning occurs in the context of a covenant and within the realm of the federal head’s responsibility,” he writes. “When a wife understands that her husband is responsible and knows that he assumes this responsibility willingly, she will be more responsible as an individual.”3

What exactly does it mean for a wife to be more responsible? Wilson gives us examples of an irresponsible wife, as perceived by her husband: “He may be distressed over her spending habits, television viewing habits, weight, rejection of his leadership, laziness in cleaning the house, lack of responsiveness to sexual advances—whatever.”4 In that “whatever” is tied up anything Wilson’s audience of husbands would like to read into the term, giving them room to identify whatever habits or actions of their wives they personally dislike as irresponsibility and even sin.

Consequently, when a wife does something her husband doesn’t like (such as, in Wilson’s laundry list of examples above, reject his sexual advances), that husband is given a game plan to follow by Wilson. First, the husband must repent of his failure to properly lead his wife. “He should then make clear what his expectations are for her in the future,” Wilson instructs. “He does this, without rancor and without an accusative spirit, until she complies or rebels.”5

It should nearly go without saying that in the patriarchal order Wilson wishes to establish, women are led into the realm of the home and told to stay put. “The Bible teaches that a woman’s fundamental orientation is to be domestic,”6 he writes. Of course this means that working outside of the home is not up for debate: “If a man is not capable of providing his wife with food and clothing, then he is scripturally disqualified to be a husband,”7 Wilson reprimands.

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All of this is done in service of the Christian’s ultimate purpose (at least, in the eyes of Doug Wilson): to take dominion over the created world and specifically over America herself. “Adam was created to tend the garden and to exercise dominion over the earth. Eve was created to help him do this,” Wilson explains. “[The husband] needs a companion suitable for him in the work to which God has called him. He is called to the work and must receive help from her. [The wife] is called to the work through ministering to him. He is oriented to the task, and she is oriented to him.”8

In Reforming Marriage, Wilson makes it clear to both wives and husbands that there is only one dominant party in a marriage. “Arguing with the fact of the husband’s headship in the home is like jumping off a cliff in order to quarrel with the law of gravity,”9 he writes. The women of Doug Wilson’s world are to take this in stride. “If she understands the Bible, she knows that she was created to be dependent and responsive to a man,”10 Wilson says of the women who will make up his ideal patriarchal society.

What exactly does it mean for a wife to be dependent on and responsive to her husband? Doug Wilson offers several strict rules. Wives are to bear children and care for them. “A wife must not complain in her fruitfulness,”11 he admonishes. “It is the wife’s duty to submit to the will of God and gladly bear children for her husband.”12 Wives are to be industrious in the home. “Industry in the home means hard work in cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and so forth,”13 he writes. “It is possible to disobey God through neglect of the dishes.”14 Wives are to meet all of their husbands’ sexual needs. “This involves more than just being ‘willing’ whenever ‘he wants it’; it involves being a responsive lover,”15 Wilson orders. “It is obviously lawful for a godly husband to admire, kiss, taste, and caress his wife wherever he pleases.”16 Wives are to be disciples of their husbands, filtering everything she learns through his chosen lens. “She should not make this duty of his [to teach her] superfluous by going elsewhere for the instruction,”17 Wilson reminds wives and husbands alike.

What if differences arise in the marriage? Wilson instructs husbands and wives to handle any issues they might have together in private, away from prying eyes. “Never let anyone into your home when there is no harmony there,”18 he writes. “Never go anywhere else when you are out of fellowship.”19 If a husband decides that his wife has done something to fall out of his favor, he is able to keep her home until he decides that the problem has been resolved.

In Wilson’s world, this isolation is framed as protection. “When a daughter has a father who is jealous for her purity, he watches out for her interests,” he writes. “And when such a father gives his daughter in marriage to a man worthy of the position, the new husband promises the father that he will be equally jealous. So when a godly woman submits to her husband, she is being liberated through godly male protection.”20

The message to women in the orbit of Doug Wilson is clear: submit yourself to the authority of a man or suffer the consequences. “Women inescapably need godly masculine protection against ungodly masculine harassment,” he writes in another one of his books, Her Hand in Marriage. “Women who genuinely insist on ‘no masculine protection’ are really women who tacitly agree on the propriety of rape.”21

In 2025, CNN’s Pamela Brown visited Wilson in his kingdom of Moscow, Idaho. You may have seen a clip from this interview in which Wilson distastefully describes women as “the kind of people whom people come out of” and says that it doesn’t take much “talent” to reproduce. Brown returned to Wilson’s world for an episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper entitled “The Rise of Christian Nationalism,” for which she and her team embedded with a community under Wilson’s umbrella and spoke to survivors of the world of his particular flavor of Christian patriarchy. The hour has been rescheduled twice in the wake of Paramount’s purchase of Warner Brothers, the parent company of CNN. “It’s imperative that CNN be sold,” President Trump said last year. “The Rise of Christian Nationalism” finally aired on Sunday, March 22. The voices of survivors are being given a platform, and it is up to us to listen to their warnings.

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But Federal Husband and Reforming Marriage were published nearly three decades ago. Doug Wilson hasn’t exactly been hiding the ball on his beliefs. And this isn’t the first time that survivors of his world have spoken out. In 2021, journalist Sarah Stankorb reported on the experiences of women sucked into Wilson’s Christian nationalist orbit for Vice (“kirkers,” as they are often referred to by those in the know). “Ex-kirkers describe a punitive community in which women are told they must defer to church leaders and cannot say ‘no’ to their husbands, men are taught to strictly control their homes, and those who speak out can be isolated and harassed,” Stankorb writes.

In her piece, Stankorb documents the story of a young woman, Jean, who joins Wilson’s congregation and marries a kirker—Wilson officiated their wedding. After the birth of their first child, Jean’s husband sexually assaulted her. Years into her abusive marriage, Jean went to several pastors at her church, a plant of Wilson’s Christ Church, and asked for their help. She was met with rejection. “These pastors told me a wife is not allowed to tell her husband no,” Jean recalled.

This is the world to which Doug Wilson wishes to confine women. He can bluster his way through equivocations—for instance, in his interview with Pamela Brown, he sidesteps the question of whether he’d like to strip women of the right to vote by saying that he’d simply like to have only the heads of households vote. If a single woman is the head of her own household, then of course she can vote, he says. But Doug Wilson’s idealized Christian nation is one made up of the kind of patriarchal families he describes throughout Federal Husband and Reforming Marriage. He’s clear that the man is the head of the home, the leader of his wife, the creator and shaper and master of her world.

In the world that Doug Wilson wants to usher into existence, women do not vote. They bear their husband’s children, they cater to his needs, they learn only from him. The world Wilson wants for women is a terribly small one in which husbands have the luxury of raising their eyes to God and wives have the responsibility of keeping their eyes fixed on their men. I do not believe this is the world God wants for his daughters, but it is the world that Doug Wilson’s religious right wants to create.

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey whether you’re deconstruction, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

This week, a second Duggar son was charged with sexual abuse of a minor. Many people sympathetic to the Duggars may have been able to dismiss one son as simply a “bad seed.” Less sympathetic observers may call into question the promises of prosperity-gospel-style “good” Christian parenting. Two sexual predators in the family calls into question whether the Duggars were just “a little extreme” or whether the beliefs they share with many Christians might have actually fostered predatory behavior instead of preventing it.

Likewise, when we see a pastor convicted of sexual assault, we may be able to dismiss him as a one-off, a single hypocrite in an otherwise moral system. However, when nearly 200 pastors are accused in a single calendar year (let alone the thousands of congregants accused of sexual crimes every year), we must begin asking whether the problem is individuals or the system that produces them. In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus tells us that we will recognize false prophets by their bad fruit. In other words, when we see a pattern of abusive behaviors, we need to stop seeing these men as good teachers who simply fell into sin and start taking a hard look at the beliefs they were teaching.

Because a pastor teaches on many topics that likely have no impact on predatory behavior, it may be helpful to first examine the type of environment that fosters sexual predation, otherwise known as rape culture, by turning to the major case of our time: the Epstein files.

Celeste Davis recently published an incredible Substack article examining why so many wealthy and powerful men are implicated in the Epstein files. She argues that although most news organizations are pointing out the obvious reasons why these men were able to get away with it for so long, very few of them are looking at the reasons why so many men rape when given enough power to get away with it. In so doing, they imply that all men would rape if they felt they could get away with it, a conclusion that is as disturbing as it is unhelpful.

As a rebuke to this premise, Davis provides some excellent resources that show that “entitlement, gender inequality, and masculine discrepancy stress have all been correlated with rape.” It is not the wealth and power that drive men to rape; rather, it is their sense of entitlement (to women, to sex, in general, etc.), a culture that constantly values men over women, and a fragile social definition of masculinity that excludes many men.

At this point, it should start to become clear why sexual abuse seems to be more prevalent in the church instead of less, but Davis spells it out for us clearly: “And what is this system called that perpetuates gender inequality, and dominance and entitlement among men? Patriarchy.”

There is a euphemism in American evangelicalism for Christian patriarchy: complementarianism.

Many complementarians would refute this characterization. Kevin DeYoung, a prominent complementarian, wrote an entire article about the supposed differences between patriarchy and complementarianism, only to conclude, “The biblical vision of complementarity cannot be true without something like patriarchy also being true.”

Even if you reject the claim that complementarianism is Christian patriarchy, it is impossible to deny that entitlement, gender inequality, and masculine norms that lead to discrepancy stress are foundational to the theology.

Male entitlement pervades complementarian marriage literature.1 With regards to sex, Christian best-seller Love and Respect claims, “If your husband is typical, he has a need you don’t have,”2 and that “men are often lured into affairs because they are sexually deprived at home.”3 For Women Only claims that husbands who repeatedly fail to contribute to household tasks “just have different priorities.”4 This is followed up with an anecdote about how trivial a wife’s concerns are to the important work her husband is doing.5 The implication is, of course, that a husband’s priorities necessarily trump a wife’s. In The Excellent Wife, we learn that a wife is meant to “glorify” her husband in a variety of ways:6

• “Fulfill your God-given responsibilities,” which are “cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, and cooking.”

• “Put him first over the children, your parents, friends, job, ladies’ Bible studies, etc.”

• “Willingly and cheerfully rearrange your schedule for him.”

• “Do whatever you can to make him look good, to accomplish his goals.”

• “Consider his work (job, goals, hobbies, work for the Lord) as more important than your own.”

Men are entitled to this level of single-minded devotion from their wives simply on the basis of their sex. Complementarianism takes this a step further by cementing this imbalance into its theology of church structures.

Complementarians refute that their theology amounts to gender inequality, claiming instead that each gender is equal in value, but simply has different roles. There is, of course, one major problem with this claim: these differing roles are specifically regarding who gets to hold positions of power within their churches. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, has kicked out whole churches simply for having women pastors while secretly protecting male pastors who had been accused of sexual abuse—being female is apparently more disqualifying than sexual sin. The Institute in Basic Life Principles, the denomination that produced the Duggar sex offenders, has an infamous graphic describing the unequal roles of husband and wife, known as the Umbrella of Protection. Here we see that men have the same authority over their wives that Christ has over husbands, essentially elevating men into mini-gods over their wives.

Gender inequality is already present throughout secular society. The church should represent a counter-cultural haven where women are seen as equally made in the image of God and are uniquely safe and valued. Instead, the church is even more restrictive of women. Consider that most of our questions around gender are some form of “Are women allowed to ____?” Speak, preach, pray, sing, lead … fill in the blank. John Piper, who helped coin the term complementarianism, has even asserted that a woman should be careful to give traffic directions to a man in a way that “neither of them feels their mature femininity or masculinity compromised.”7 We do not ask these kinds of questions about men, but we anticipate that women must always ask permission, because our behavior will be restricted in ways unique only to women.

Masculine discrepancy stress exists “when a man believes that he is, or believes he is perceived to be insufficiently masculine.” According to Wild at Heart, instead of aspiring to be a “nice guy,”8 men instead desire to be “powerful … dangerous … a warrior … fierce.”9 Men who do not relate to such sentiments, or to John Eldredge’s rugged, outdoorsy cowboy aesthetic, will find swift correction in complementarian communities. The Myth of Good Christian Parenting points out exactly the type of correction young boys will receive for failing to conform:

[Doug] Wilson tells parents that a boy’s “natural” response to effeminacy should be yuck and that “for those boys who gravitate toward playing house, and dolls, and dress-ups, wise parental control, oversight, and redirection is necessary.” There was no room for boys who fell outside the mold, especially as American evangelicals reacted to the LGBTQ+ movement and new conversations about sexual identity. It became even more important for Christian parents to get gender right in their families, and this goal left children whose interests failed to conform, regardless of sexual orientation, further alienated.10

Complicating matters, masculine norms have “shape-shifted according to the cultural appetites of the moment,”11 practically ensuring that men constantly feel insecure about being “man enough.” I have even heard men admit to feeling less masculine for not having a porn addiction when their youth group leaders insisted that every man struggles with lust.

Every element of culture known to increase the prevalence of rape is explicitly taught by complementarians. The pastors and other seemingly upstanding Christian men in our communities who commit atrocities do so not out of hypocrisy, but as a direct result of their deeply held beliefs about women, marriage, and masculine identity. If we are to root out the sexual abuse happening in our churches, we must start by acknowledging that complementarianism is rape culture.

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey, whether you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Now, for a long time, I’ve behaved very much as one might expect around church leaders. Reverent. Stood up a little straighter. And, admittedly, paid closer attention to my language. Not so much anymore. My default position has shifted from one of trust and spiritual deference to one of extreme caution. And it’s not for some I-can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it sort of reason, but rather based on a the-evidence-is-so-overwhelming-I-refuse-to-put-my-head-in-the-sand rationale. You see, for as much time as our so-called moral leaders spend warning us about “wokeism” or anything LGBTQ+-related, they manage to summon an impressive amount of energy to sexually abuse children and then cover up the same.

As a subscriber to several Christian email services, there’s an undeniable trend in the daily stories. The first article is often a piece on how Christians are being persecuted somewhere in the world (quite true in many cases). The second tends to be about some liberal policy that is going to be the end of us all. And the third is, quite frequently, about some pastor who has to step down because of allegations of sexual assault:

“A former Horn Lake Mississippi minister has been sentenced to 20 months for sending pictures of his genitalia to a child” (Feb. 17, 2026).

“Evangelical South Carolina pastor arrested for alleged sexual abuse of his children (Files reveal abuse was reported decades before pastor was charged)” (September 15, 2025).

“Bethel Church places Pastor Ben Armstrong on leave after former student alleges sexual abuse” (Feb. 13, 2026).

“Indiana mega church Pastor Peternel has been ordered to enter a ‘structured restorative process’ after homemade sex videos surfaced during a child sexual abuse case involving his son” (February 28, 2026).

Would you believe that this last one actually came into my feed as I was editing this piece? And if it couldn’t get any more bizarre, this Pastor Peternel co-hosts the podcast Jesus, Sex and Politics with Indiana’s Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith (you can’t make this stuff up!). Rest assured, the only challenge in writing this piece is deciding which among the seemingly countless examples to include.

And it’s bad enough when it’s just the individual, but so often the sin and culture of manipulative sexual abuse becomes institutional. Take Liberty University, America’s largest and most influential Christian university, which had to pay a $14 million fine to the Department of Education for lying about its “culture of silence” around sexual assault on campus. When twenty-two young women came forward saying that they had been sexually assaulted or raped, campus officials instead charged the victims with violating Liberty’s student code of conduct. Now, this might sound too egregious to believe, but Liberty markets itself as safe and moral, so they wanted to avoid having to report these instances to the government authority that collects information about safety on college campuses. Apparently, it’s more important to look good than to be good (sort of on-brand for evangelicals).

The other reason that Liberty behaves this way is the sick and twisted cultural Christian position about blaming the woman for men’s sexual transgressions. If you want some sense of what I’m talking about, Pastor Bobby Leonard of Bible Baptist Tabernacle in North Carolina can provide some insight. In 2024, Pastor Leonard stated (from the dag-gone pulpit, I might add) that he wouldn’t convict a rapist if the victim was wearing shorts: “If you dress like that and you get raped, and I’m on the jury, he’s going to go free.” Isn’t that just wonderful? Later, Leonard added, “I’m right, you know, because a man’s a man.” Now, you might expect that he’d be fired immediately. Nope. He’s still the preacher. Not so much as a leave of absence.

Back to Liberty, where they punish rape victims for violating oaths of chastity. This is the same place where its prior president, Jerry Falwell Jr., was forced to step down after he posted a photo of himself drunk, with his trousers unzipped and his arm around a young woman. It was later discovered that Falwell Jr. spent large sums of university resources to fly to Florida so he could watch his wife have sex with a hotel pool boy. There’s a nice documentary on this called God Forbid (2022). Enjoy.

Now, in fairness, I should point out that Liberty’s Senior VP for Communications, Scott Lamb, attempted to speak out in an effort to protect these women, but he was fired for doing so. And when Liberty’s school paper tried to run a story in response to Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, where he said that, as a famous person, he could grab women’s genitalia and get away with it (a fair piece of criticism given the purported Christian values of the university), Falwell Jr. censored the paper from running the article. As for the young women who were sexually assaulted at Liberty, they were repeatedly advised to pray instead of report the incidents. All of this is to say: when people talk about the harmful misogyny, toxic masculinity, and problematic patriarchy, they are not muttering liberal gobbledygook. This is what they are talking about.

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As for the larger Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest Protestant denomination, it spent years having to respond to an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News that reported hundreds (380 to be exact) of SBC clergy and staff had been credibly accused of sexually abusing approximately 700 victims while continuing in their church roles (geez, I can’t imagine why conservatives are trying to silence the media). Now, I’m not sure how many victims it takes you to become convinced that sexually abusing children and then covering it up is sort of their thing, but 700 seems like a fair number.

The only bright ray of sunshine seems to be the prominent women’s Bible teacher Beth Moore who, though raised within the SBC, left the denomination after the investigation into its rampant sexual abuse and Trump’s Access Hollywood tape. Now, given Moore’s position and widespread appeal, to say nothing about being correct on the merits, you’d think SBC’s response would be “you’re right, we should do better.” But instead, the SBC responded by criticizing Moore for pastoring as a woman. This is who they are.

And these incidents occurred in and around churches, where the parents are presumably close by. At church camp, the parents smile and wave as their children drive away on that bus, unsure but optimistic about what will transpire during the next week. Well, in 2025, eighty-eight children were placed in protective custody in Iowa after deputies rescued them from a church camp following reports of rampant child abuse. Separately, at Kanakuk Kamps, one of the biggest Christian summer camps in the country, a camper reported that he’d been abused by the director. Camp officials denied knowing that the director had been previously accused of molesting children. But of course, that wasn’t true. Turns out, the camp had drafted a letter to eight thousand Kanakuk families admitting that they knew about the director’s prior sexual misconduct but opted not to send it. Instead, Kanakuk continued to market popular evangelical speakers and experts on “raising Godly teenagers” while the director reportedly ministered to children nightly in his hot tub.

Now, pastors are quick to mention that they do background checks on all church personnel who deal with children. Of course, background checks only work if there’s no church cover-up to avoid a criminal record in the first place. And there’s plenty of evidence for that. But even when a criminal conviction does exist, that doesn’t always make a difference. Just this past week, a North Texas pastor hired his son, a lifetime registered sex offender, at Heritage Christian Academy. He was also one of the music leaders at the church.

Now, you might say, that’s just Texas being Texas. After all, the current news out of the state involves Representative Tony Gonzales who, like all good southern politicians, publicly leans into his faith. Well, as the story goes, Representative Gonzales repeatedly demanded explicit images from a young female staffer and made continuous sexual advances toward her that reportedly had something to do with her suicide. Now, on any normal planet, this would prompt an immediate resignation (and social isolation forever and ever), but the thing is, Rep. Gonzalez is needed for Republicans to maintain their razor-thin majority in Congress, which is required if they’re going to insulate the President from whatever role he played in the trafficking and raping of young girls.

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the more culturally immersed one’s state is in the patriarchal culture of blind deference to so-called people of faith, the more prevalent these stories are. Indeed, I could write this article every month in any year and simply replace these examples with others. Last week, Kentucky Pastor David Rodgers killed himself after his arrest for having sex with a twelve-year-old. And this past week, Pastor Randy Saylor was sentenced to ten to twenty-five years in prison for sexually assaulting minors. In Arizona, a woman is currently fighting to keep her sex abuser on probation while pastors at Christ’s Church of the Valley are supporting the man’s early release as a sex offender.

As for my pastor’s home state of North Carolina (he likes to take the occasional jabs about New York being unchurched), if I took a shot every time one of these stories broke from the Tarheel State, I’d be passed out on the floor.

“Charity Baptist Church has dismissed longtime pastor Marty Payton … after ‘serious allegations of a sexual nature’” (Feb. 18, 2026).

A couple of months earlier …

“Bertie County pastor indicted on child sex charges” (Dec 16, 2025).

Just before that …

“Children’s ministry pastor in Raleigh charged with sexually exploiting minors” (May 7, 2025).

Despite the prevalence of these cases, it’s a little odd that they’re never mentioned when you stand behind politicians as they sign into law policies that purport to protect children but just don’t have the evidence to back them up. Sort of makes me think that it’s all to provide a little cover, using the Bible—as you do—to demonize the meek and marginalized as you attempt to insulate your own sinfulness.

“Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’” (Matthew 19:13-14).

“Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed” (Jeremiah 22:3).

Preach all the sermons you want. Push all the policies you wish. Manufacture all the cultural boogeymen you think might help serve as a distraction. Chastise those who make claims about toxic masculinity—which, despite your efforts to mischaracterize it, is not about hunting or fishing or pumping fists when your favorite team scores, but about sustaining a culture where it’s easy to rape our children and then cover it up.

So no, my daughter’s not going to your summer camp.

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey whether you’re deconstruction, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

In 2021 a 113-page report was released that found evidence of “system gender inequality issues” within the NCAA. While the NCAA explained that women’s teams didn’t generate as much revenue as the men’s teams, there has been additional reporting that the NCAA skewed the calculations in order to claim women’s basketball lost them money.

According to ESPN, they are on track for a 17% increase in viewership year-over-year as of this week, while this year is on pace to be the most-watched regular season since 2008-09.

Since the gender equity report in 2021, the NCAA has made significant changes to the NCAA Women’s tournament, including extending the “March Madness” branding and marketing. They also increased the staff and oversight for gender equity within the NCAA, and provided equal quality weight rooms, training facilities, and player gifts on par with the men’s tournament teams. But here’s the thing, this existing disparity isn’t just a sports issue. It’s a mirror for how we treat women not just in basketball, but beyond the court, specifically the leadership development pipeline of women’s sports in the NCAA. Just like we see underpaid female coaches, we also see underpaid female executives. Collegiate athletic departments are microcosms of organizational power.

As a former corporate executive, this tracks with both my experience and that of women I know in leadership roles. Tasked with achieving exceptional outcomes with fewer resources than their male counterparts, they are often told it’s because there is no budget or that their program doesn’t generate the same excitement or revenue, which may or may not be true. What I’ve found is that many women accept these logical sounding reasons. More money = more resources. But is that really fair if the purpose of any university is to produce educated leaders in various fields?

The chronic underfunding of women’s collegiate sports disrupts a critical pipeline that builds the confidence, skills, and visibility women need to lead - and I think this is something that needs attention.

Leadership Development in Women’s Sports

Leading a team is a huge responsibility, and belonging to one set out to achieve something significant like an NCAA championship win requires a skill set that sports is uniquely positioned to develop in athletes. These competencies, like resilience, teamwork, strategic thinking, performance under pressure can be mutually developed within a team, and taken off the court and into their careers. But how might they be short-changed if not provided the same opportunities and resources as the men playing the exact same game?

Not only do collegiate sports develop strong team-based leadership skills, but they also contribute to identity formation, institutional belonging, and mentorship, which are qualities all career positions require to be successful.

I can’t help but think what might happen if the corporate world had to undergo the same type of gender disparity audit the NCAA underwent in 2021. I wonder what they would find, and how long that list might be. If it were up to me, this would be happening within every corporation as a matter of practice because culture matters.

The Resource Gap: What It Looks Like on the Ground

A few other reasons I think this matters is because women understand their worth from their environment. Disparities open this conversation to worth, devaluation of women, and the real cost of underinvesting in women’s programs such as NCAA women’s basketball, and other women’s sports. Not only that, the leadership pipeline doesn’t get the benefit of quality leadership that would no doubt be produced by these same programs. I think we all want better

Visibility, Role Models, and the “You Can’t Be What You Can’t See” Problem

We all remember what happened the year Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese played in the national championship. I remember that game very well. Girls got to see a possibility that has been hidden by underfunding and lack of coverage. There will be more giants in the NCAA women’s program, and these women will become leaders beyond the court. Let’s invest in them like we believe that.

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NIL, Power, and the New Landscape

The NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) is changing things for athletes, creating new leadership and entrepreneurial opportunities for women athletes. This is a great case study in what happens when women are given both resources and a platform, not unlike executive leadership.

Since 2024, women are leading in NIL valuation and creating lasting equity through brand partnerships, supporting their communities by gaining visibility, even allowing athletes in less popular sports to gain visibility where they otherwise may not. NIL has helped women close the gap between Men’s program revenue and the women’s programs, which is significant! When given the opportunity, women have capitalized upon it; as they often do in the board room as well!

In order to keep this trend moving in the right direction, I think a few things need to exist:

• Stronger Title IX enforcement with a leadership equity frame

• Budget transparency and accountability at the institutional level

• Media contracts and broadcast investment

• Donor and sponsor culture shift

• Reframing women’s sports investment as leadership infrastructure

This Matters

The stakes are much higher than a trophy and a title. Underfunding women’s sports is a leadership equity issue with generational consequences and one of the reasons this matters to me as both a woman and leader is that I know what it’s like to internalize someone else’s idea of my worth and the value I can bring to the table. And they were wrong. The systems that have been in place made that hard for me to overcome this internalized belief, and I believe it is our collective responsibility to ensure the systems don’t continue to do this to new generations of women leaders.

Rebecca Lynn Thomas is board president of The New Evangelicals. Rebecca has experience gained from several global executive roles in the energy industry and nonprofit organizations and a deep background in organizational leadership and people-centered strategy. She is passionate about social transformation, justice, and reimagining the cultural narrative around family, kinship, and community. Currently a doctoral student in Social Transformation, she enjoys analyzing social constructs and dismantling systems.

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Feel Good Action is a nonprofit that uses digital media to share tools and resources to maximize civic impact, make voting more accessible, and to promote just societies and resilient communities.

What began that day was a civil war in the self-proclaimed greatest man-made empire in the world. It led to the destruction of any vestige of democracy in Rome and ushered in a new era of emperors claiming the leadership of a republic but ruling like dictators. The rich and powerful were culled if they didn’t comply, and if they did comply, they continued to be the rich and powerful. The common people were used as cannon fodder or worse. And it was all controlled by one man. His given name changed for centuries, even though his title remained Caesar—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Diocletian, Constantine, Gratian. One dictator after another on the ashes of a republic that could have been so much more. What could have been a republic that evolved as new eras passed became a war machine with a Colosseum to entertain the rich and poor, while the rich took from the poor based on the selfish dictates of one man.

Given the events in Minnesota the past few months, this is a comment about MAGA.

During the Passover season of roughly 33 AD, a Jewish rabbi, while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, arrested, beaten, tried illegally, flogged, whipped, mocked, spit on, tortured, crucified, and buried. History records that one of His dying statements was “It is finished.”

What began that day was nothing. Just another troublemaker killed by the Roman Empire in the most cruel way possible. A body of a man dumped into an empty cave to be forgotten. The religious class would continue on being the religious class, forcing the common people to submit to their understanding of God defined by rules, policies, dictates, and punishment, void of anything that the rabbi claimed to be truth. But then that rabbi changed the story. Three days later, He would rise, be seen, teach, and evidence a new paradigm. Love is sacrifice. Love is all that matters. Love is God. His name has not changed since that day. It is still Jesus Christ. What could have been just another day in history where the powerful killed to get their way became the start of a movement that changed human history. A movement based on love—love that was patient, kind, did not envy, did not boast, and was not proud. It did not dishonor others, was not self-seeking, was not easily angered, and kept no record of wrongs. It did not delight in evil but rejoiced with the truth. It always protected, always trusted, always hoped, always persevered. And it never failed.

Given the events in Minnesota, this is a comment about MAGA evangelicals.

Whose history do we wish to repeat at this time? Will it be American Empire on the ashes of American democracy led by one man who claims a title he does not deserve? Or is it to the finished work of Jesus Christ, whose command was to love without condition?

Empire is taking. Love is giving. Empire takes no matter what. Love gives no matter what. Will the American church see this Minnesota Rubicon for what it is and call to Jesus Christ or Julius Caesar? Because we can’t follow both. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Matthew 6:24.

The Roman civil war resulted in a powerful empire for a time. But the story it told itself—that it would last forever—was myth. It is gone. The only time anyone speaks the name of the man who was emperor during the beginning of the first century is when they tell the story of the Jewish rabbi who that empire thought they had erased from history. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ changed the world. God was close, love was close, and all you had to do to touch it was to reach out and do so. And live that love. And without an army, that love took over the Roman Empire and eventually reached across the world.

The American church is at a Rubicon. Quiet indifference is no longer an option if it ever was. MAGA Evangelicals have a choice to make, and the world is watching. Our kids are watching. Empire or love. That is the choice we have been given. And you cannot choose both. The die is cast. Who will we be?

This is a community-sourced publication meant to encourage you on your journey whether you’re deconstruction, reconstructing, or just looking for community. Please consider submitting a piece to be published in an upcoming post.

Submit your piece here: TNE Substack Submission

The New Evangelicals is a digital-first 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Content warning: This article discusses mental health issues, sexual violence, and self-harm.

My name is Matt Borneman (he/they). I’m a thirty-six‑year‑old gender‑fluid gay Evangelical UCC Christian, a survivor of deep trauma, and a lifelong metalhead.

I’ve lived with Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder since middle school. I’m a double rape survivor, and I’ve faced the darkness of four suicide attempts—plus four more planned attempts that were stopped just in time. I’ve been hospitalized eight times since high school. I also live with borderline anorexia and have battled addiction.

Through all of it, heavy metal has been my lifeline. When Christian communities have failed me, heavy metal has been my saving grace. In a world where I’ve often felt judged or misunderstood, metal gave me a place to belong—scars and all.

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Heavy metal has long been burdened by stereotypes—that it “promotes violence” or is just “angry white guys screaming.” But nothing could be further from the truth. Since I became a metalhead in 2006, I’ve watched the scene grow into one of the most peaceful, diverse, and welcoming communities I’ve ever known.

At shows, I’ve danced arm‑in‑arm with an Orthodox Jew, a devout Muslim, and an agnostic man. I’ve seen two Black teenage girls start a mosh pit while white men twice their size and age made sure they were safe. Even in the most progressive churches, I’ve rarely witnessed such unguarded unity—strangers of every belief, background, and identity dancing and screaming (singing) together.

Metal isn’t just entertainment—it literally saves lives.

At a Beartooth concert last year, a young college woman who had planned to attempt suicide later that night confided in her best friend for the first time because of the songs and words she heard from the band. She and her friend approached police officers after the show to get the help she needed, and she left in an ambulance, alive, and on her way to getting better.

During one of my own hospitalizations, I met a man who had been walking to a bridge where he intended to end his life. Then the song “Pittsburgh” by The Amity Affliction came on his headphones. Instead of jumping off that bridge, that song caused him to walk across it, and he walked straight into the ER and checked himself in. A song called “All F*cked Up,” also by The Amity Affliction, caused me to call the police on myself and seek help as well. Two songs by one band helped two struggling strangers to meet because those songs inspired them to choose life!

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Even Slipknot—infamous for their “angry” lyrics—ends every show with the words:

“Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.”

Why can’t churches be like that?

Metalheads don’t care about your religion, politics, background, race, gender, or sexuality. Actually, that’s not quite true—we do care! We care deeply about who you are, your story, your scars, and everything that makes you, you.

We don’t judge you for your pain. We only ask that you stand up for the vulnerable, defend the oppressed, and enter the concert space with love. As long as you have my back, and I have yours, that’s enough to belong.

When I touch The Divine, I can see music in color. I can count the times it’s happened in a church on one hand. The times it’s happened at a heavy metal concert are countless.

In 2019, I attended a Disturbed concert. They played “A Reason to Fight”—a song about being each other’s reason to keep going, to fight through depression and addiction. Strangers stood hugging arm‑in‑arm (which is more common at metal concerts than one may think).

Not only did I see the music in color, I saw atoms in the air, and I saw people’s auras/life energy/souls. And to be clear, yes, I was completely sober when I experienced this transcendent moment.

Then the lead singer asked:

“How many of you have battled depression or addiction, or know someone who has?”

In that 20,000‑seat arena, every single hand went up. Which made my knees buckle with tears of love streaming down my face.

If that isn’t God’s love, then I don’t know what is.

I’ve had more transcendent, soul‑shaking encounters with the divine in metal venues than in any church. For a group so often labeled “godless,” metalheads often live out Christ’s teachings more than any congregation I’ve known.

Maybe it’s because at a show, no one demands that you fit a mold. No one measures your worth by your past mistakes or your theology. You’re welcomed as you are—broken, searching, alive. The song “I Am Broken Too” by Killswitch Engage is the definition of this.

That’s the kind of unity the church is supposed to embody.

So I again ask:

Why can’t the Christian Church be more like heavy metal?

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First Jesus, and now Superman? It’d be funny if it weren’t such a clear sign of cultural decay. We’re living in a time when basic empathy—kindness, fairness, decency—is labeled “woke,” not with admiration but with disgust. And in MAGA world, “woke” isn’t meant as an alert to injustice anymore. It means weak. Dangerous. Un-American. That’s how far the window has shifted.

And that’s the point—the window.

I’m talking about the Overton Window—the metaphor political strategists use to describe the range of ideas considered acceptable in public discourse. The center of the window includes safe, mainstream beliefs. As you move toward the edges, ideas become more controversial, more extreme. Outside the frame? That’s where the “unthinkable” lives. But here’s what people like “alt-right” influencers Mike Cernovich and Richard Spencer understood back in 2016: the window is not fixed in place. It moves.

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Andrew Marantz captures this perfectly in his book, Antisocial, documenting how “alt-right” figures saw Trump’s first campaign and inauguration as more than a political win. It was a cultural takeover. Cernovich said to Marantz, “The window is not static, bro. They can’t keep calling us fringe forever.”1 Richard Spencer, standing in a MAGA hat during Trump’s first inaugural, called the speech “populist” and praised it for being “about identity.” White identity, of course. Vox Day, another “alt-right” voice, made the strategy plain: “It is the Alt-Right’s job to move the Overton Window and give [Trump] conceptual room to work.”2

And they did.

During Trump’s first term, the previously unthinkable flooded into the mainstream. White nationalism went from the shadows to the spotlight. Conspiracy theories gained traction at the highest levels of government. Immigrants were demonized, children were put in cages, and political cruelty was reframed as strength. The Overton Window wasn’t just nudged; it was ripped from the center and rebuilt at the extremes.

Now, in Trump’s second term, we’re seeing that shift hardened into policy.

This is no longer about rhetoric. It’s about reality. The federal government is being gutted from the inside. Agencies that once protected civil rights, the environment, and public education are being dismantled. Mass deportations are underway, not quietly but as a show of power. And a new prison complex in the swamplands of Florida is being designed to hold thousands of detained immigrants.

All the while, compassion is still being mocked as “woke.”

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Jesus—the revolutionary rabbi who touched lepers, elevated women, and broke bread with outcasts—wouldn’t get five minutes on Fox News before being dismissed as soft. And Superman, once a symbol of justice and moral clarity, is now dragged as a progressive pawn because he dares to care.

Let’s be clear: we didn’t just stumble into this moment. It was a carefully executed strategy. The same voices who once existed at the fringes are now shaping policy, directing national conversation, and defining who belongs inside the window of legitimacy.

But here’s the truth they don’t want us to remember: the Overton Window can move in the other direction too.

We are not locked in. What’s radical today—real justice, radical hospitality, community care—can become the norm again. But only if we stop flinching at the word “woke.” Only if we refuse to let the logic of cruelty go unchallenged. Only if we believe, deep in our bones, that decency is not weakness.

Because the truly unthinkable is not loving your neighbor. It’s letting this version of America become permanent.

The window moved. Now it’s time to move it back.

The frame is wide open. So, the only real question left is this: will we pull it toward the light—or let it be sealed shut in the dark?

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After all, if Jesus is now considered too “woke” for his words to be preached, believed, and followed, then we have even more responsibility to be his hands and feet in a world that increasingly dismisses his example. And Superman? He’s more than just a fun summer movie. He’s an example that all of us would do well to follow.

“I’m as human as anyone. I love; I get scared. I wake up every morning and, despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human, and that’s my greatest strength.”3

— Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet) in James Gunn's Superman