Doug Wilson and the Myth of the Christian Pharisee

Part 1 of some reflections on Christianity Unity

A few nights ago, a Canon Press video showed up in my YouTube feed. This video has become something of an annual event that some Christians anticipate with eager anticipation and other Christians roll their collective eyes at. I’m referring to Douglas Wilson’s No Quarter November video.

This year, Wilson and his team at Canon Press performed a parody of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood, a clear nod to the evangelical “neighborhood” that I’ve called home for most of my life, especially since Jesus saved me at 19. Though I’m smart enough to catch Doug’s obvious disgust with evangelical niceness, there are clever, spiteful references in the video that I’m sure I don’t recognize and went over my head. I’m okay not being enough on the up-and-up to recognize all of the allegorical attacks, as I consider my time and attention to be valuable and want to give most of it to God, my family, my church, and my neighbors.

However, I do think it’s wise for me to be at least somewhat aware of major evangelical developments and conflicts, mostly because I serve in full-time ministry at a local church and I do occasionally get asked questions like what I think about The Gospel Coalition, or Douglas Wilson, or worship music by Elevation, or Voddie Baucham, etc. etc. etc. I want to have done at least some thinking on these names and issues and try my best to be in line with God’s word so I can give those who ask me what I hope will be helpful advice.

So, to be fair, I don’t understand all of the controversy and ill-will that’s been stirred up between Doug Wilson and The Gospel Coalition over the years. I’m not writing this as an evangelical Christian culture expert. I am writing this as someone who helps shepherd a local church and loves the tent of evangelicalism even while recognizing it’s not a perfect tent. Disclaimer disclaimed.

In the video, Doug Wilson sits before a model of a neighborhood much like the one in the intro to the Mr. Rodger’s program Wilson is parodying. The neighborhood is in two sections, split by a river with a wooden bridge connecting them. One of the bridge road signs points the way to The Gospel Coalition (which he mockingly calls The Gospel “Cotillion”). He describes TGC as “simple, scared, and naive.” Each bridge, says Mr. Wilson, “could make you stronger, or it could destroy everything you want to defend and protect.” He then lights the bridge on fire, which quickly spreads, engulfing the neighborhoods.

If I’m understanding Wilson correctly, he is suggesting that the time for building bridges is past. It’s now time to burn them. In fact, the entire neighborhood needs to be burned down. There is no hope for those in the TGC camp. He confirms this thinking in a recent blog post he wrote:

“One of the things that the Moscow Mood is known for is—let us be frank—all the horsing around. But I would not be misunderstood . . . it is deadly serious horsing around. We really do mean it. If hypocrisy came in two-ton limestone blocks, the evangelical establishment in North America would be the great pyramid at Giza…The evangelical establishment is diseased and corrupt, and everyone knows it.”

Wilson seems to think of himself and those in his camp as the last leg of uncompromising Christendom in America. Everyone else is corrupt. From his perspective, most Reformed evangelical leaders are modern-day Pharisees, which is why I assume he feels so justified in constantly mocking and attacking organizations and leaders I care about and who have played a significant role in my spiritual and theological development over the past 15 years of walking with Jesus. But let’s talk about that comparison for a moment.

There Are No Christian Pharisees

Here’s one (of the many) problems I have with this way of Doug Wilson critiquing his opponents - there’s no such thing as a Christian Pharisee. I am weary of seeing people make the point - “You know, Jesus had the harshest words for the religious leaders,” as though there is an apples-to-apples comparison to be made between the Pharisees and evangelical pastors and leaders. I’ll admit that I’ve made this point myself in the past, and I’m now convinced it’s a poor argument.

Were the Pharisees religious leaders? Yes, of course. But the Pharisees were apostate religious leaders. What I mean by that is they (amongst other sins) actively rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah. They refused to worship him as God. They rejected his message and his coming kingdom. They denied Christ’s calls to repent. And they sought to destroy Jesus by putting him to death on a cross. In other words, the Pharisees were not “believers.” They were, if anything, the equivalent of Old Testament equivalent of false prophets and the New Testament equivalent of false teachers (more on that in a minute). You cannot compare a Pharisee to a Christian leader you disagree with on a secondary or tertiary issue.

Does that mean there are not warnings for Christian leaders to learn by looking at the Pharisees in the Gospels? There certainly are warnings. We can learn a lot about bad leadership, bad theology, and bad character from them. The point I’m making is that the category of person that Jesus reserves his harsh words and harsh critiques for is not the same category of person Doug Wilson reserves his harsh words and harsh critiques for.

When Jesus pronounces woes to the Pharisees, he is not speaking to “Christians.” He is speaking to false prophets and false teachers who are actively leading people away from the kingdom of God. He is harshly, and rightly so, rebuking them and their false gospel which makes them enemies of God (Gal. 1:8–9). Which means that Jesus’s words for the Pharisees is not a model for us to follow when it comes to Christian conflict. For that, we need to look at how Jesus interacts with his disciples and how the apostles instruct us in the New Testament letters - which I plan to do next in part 2.

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