Doug Wilson, a co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), to which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth belongs, participated in a CNN interview that aired last week in which he advocated for recriminalizing gay sex and defended his view that there was mutual affection between enslaved Africans and their American masters. But it’s the belief that wives shouldn’t have political opinions distinct from their husbands that’s drawing CREC the most negative attention. Hegseth shared the nearly 7-minute CNN video on his personal X account Aug. 7.
It’s the belief that wives shouldn’t have political opinions distinct from their husbands that’s drawing CREC the most negative attention.
Jared Longshore, the executive pastor at Wilson’s church, told CNN during that segment that he’d support repealing the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. “In my ideal society, we would vote as households,” Toby Sumpter, another CREC pastor, said. “And I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household.” When Hegseth, who has questioned women serving in combat roles in the military, reposted the video, he captioned it with the church’s motto: “All of Christ for All of Life.”
Wilson told The Associated Press on Monday that he appreciated Hegseth resharing the video and said that while his wife and daughter vote, he believes the 19th Amendment “was a bad idea.”
A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed in an email to NPR on Saturday that Hegseth is a “proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches” who “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.” In May, Hegseth had his pastor, Brooks Potteiger, lead a Christian prayer service at the Pentagon during working hours, and Defense Department employees and service members told the AP they received invitations to the prayer service in their government email accounts.
We need leaders from both parties to say, clearly and unequivocally, that women’s right to vote is not up for debate. We need journalists to ask Hegseth, President Donald Trump and every member of Congress on the record about their views on women’s rights. They should especially ask Hegseth if Wilson’s belief that women serving in positions of civil leadership (such as the 26 women in the United States Senate) is included among those teachings that Hegseth “very much appreciates.”
To some people, America being a “Christian nation” may sound innocuous. But if you’re unclear what Christian nationalism means from a policy perspective, know that for some Christian nationalists, it includes repealing the 19th Amendment. And the defense secretary generally supports the people whose beliefs include such a repeal. “He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen,’ at some level,” Wilson told the AP about Hegseth resharing the video about CREC’s beliefs.
As Christian nationalism surges, we can’t take the last century of gains in civil rights and human rights as secure.
As Christian nationalism surges in the United States, we can’t take the last century of gains in civil rights and human rights as secure. During his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama famously said, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal, is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forbearers to Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.” The Christian nationalist movement wants to drive what it imagines is a divine bulldozer straight back through centuries of progress by the women’s rights, civil rights and gay rights movements.
It’s unlikely we’ll see the 19th Amendment repealed anytime soon, but the people in support of that idea are becoming less and less fringe.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” told The 19th that Wilson “was a fairly fringe figure,” but not so much anymore. She says he “signaled and gave permission to others that they didn’t need to hide some of their more controversial views, such as, should women have the vote? And that’s something that you didn’t hear proudly promoted from very many spaces, even just a handful of years ago.” Wilson argues that the Apostles’ Creed should be added to the U.S. Constitution and has written that “I propose that as a nation we formally confess together that Jesus actually did rise from the dead.” Deseret News published an article in July about the Idaho Family Policy Center and its push to make Idaho a “Christian state.” (The Moscow-Pullman Daily News says “Nearly two-thirds of the policy center’s board have clear connections to Wilson” even though he has no official role.) Baptists such as myself should recoil at the idea of enshrining the Apostles’ Creed into the U.S. Constitution. Baptists have historically supported the separation of church and state and don’t believe in reciting creeds even during our own worship. The Christian nationalist movement is playing a long game. Even Wilson says that. He told the AP that repealing the 19th Amendment is not a top priority. Its leaders are patient and strategic. They build institutions, groom political candidates, and slowly accustom the public to radical ideas. The conservatives’ patient approach to taking down Roe v. Wade — and the belief from the other end of the spectrum that they couldn’t succeed — is instructive. Today, it’s just talk about repealing women’s suffrage. Tomorrow, it’s a constitutional convention.
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons is vice president of programs and strategy at Interfaith Alliance and the author of "Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity." 
