Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposts video of pastors saying women shouldn't vote
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reposted and praised a video interview of a self-described Christian nationalist pastor whose church doesn't believe women shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Doug Wilson, senior pastor of Christ Church in Idaho, said during the interview with CNN that, "Women are the kind of people that people come out of."
"The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls," he continued.
In the CNN interview, Wilson also defended previous comments where he had said there was mutual affection between slaves and their masters. He also said that sodomy should be recriminalized. The Supreme Court invalidated sodomy laws in 2003.
In his repost of the interview on the platform X, Hegseth added, "All of Christ for All of Life."
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told NPR in an emailed statement on Saturday that Hegseth is a "proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches," which was founded by Wilson.
"The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings," Parnell also wrote.
In the CNN video, a congregant in Wilson's church explained that her husband "is the head of our household and I do submit to him." A fellow pastor also said that families should vote as a household, with the husband and father casting the vote.
Andrew Whitehead, a sociology professor at Indiana University Indianapolis and an expert on Christian nationalism, told NPR the goal for Wilson and his followers is to spread these ideas across the country – and ultimately make them enforceable.
"It's not just they have these personal Christian beliefs about the role of women in the family. It's that they want to enforce those for everybody," Whitehead said.
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/09/nx-s1-549...gseth-vote
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reposted and praised a video interview of a self-described Christian nationalist pastor whose church doesn't believe women shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Doug Wilson, senior pastor of Christ Church in Idaho, said during the interview with CNN that, "Women are the kind of people that people come out of."
"The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls," he continued.
In the CNN interview, Wilson also defended previous comments where he had said there was mutual affection between slaves and their masters. He also said that sodomy should be recriminalized. The Supreme Court invalidated sodomy laws in 2003.
In his repost of the interview on the platform X, Hegseth added, "All of Christ for All of Life."
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told NPR in an emailed statement on Saturday that Hegseth is a "proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches," which was founded by Wilson.
"The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings," Parnell also wrote.
In the CNN video, a congregant in Wilson's church explained that her husband "is the head of our household and I do submit to him." A fellow pastor also said that families should vote as a household, with the husband and father casting the vote.
Andrew Whitehead, a sociology professor at Indiana University Indianapolis and an expert on Christian nationalism, told NPR the goal for Wilson and his followers is to spread these ideas across the country – and ultimately make them enforceable.
"It's not just they have these personal Christian beliefs about the role of women in the family. It's that they want to enforce those for everybody," Whitehead said.
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/09/nx-s1-549...gseth-vote
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
