In a lecture hosted by the Collegiate Reformed Fellowship, Christ Church’s Jared Longshore brought a personal interpretation of American history as well as prescriptions for reshaping America.
This lecture comes after Christ Church has repeatedly gripped the national spotlight for controversial statements in actions. The past “Psalm Sings” protests in opposition to mask and social distancing mandates as well as statements from Pastor Doug Wilson targeting women and the LGBTQ community.
In order to realize his Christian vision, Longshore said that America would need to “formally acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ and have civil leaders who do so as well.” At the legal level, Longshore said this vision would require a restructuring of the legal system to be directly informed by the Christian faith.
Longshore began his lecture seeking to establish America’s foundation in Christianity by examining founding documents and asserting that the rights enjoyed by Americans stem directly from the Christian faith.
“The Christian religion is what gives us the liberties that we greatly enjoy and without that Christian faith, we’re going to see the increase of tyranny and the disillusion of our liberties,” Longshore said.
Painting a picture of America’s religious roots, Longshore cited a quote from John Adams in which Adams declared “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
Though framing the Constitution this way questions its applicability to all Americans, Longshore said that he believes the document should be equally applied.
Citing John Adams again, Longshore said, “Religion alone can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.”
Longshore acknowledged concerns from those who may contend that such a vision is “a domineering one that will suffocate people who think differently and strip people of their liberates.” Longshore’s reply came from biblical scripture.
“Jesus Christ said if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed,” Longshore said. “So that particular objection arises from a worldview that says the Lord Jesus Christ is a tyrant…the Lord Jesus Christ is the great liberator…wherever people trust in that gospel…all sorts of good and wonderful things happen.”
These statements on his vision not being “a domineering one” seemed to be contradicted not long after when Longshore broached the subject of freedom of religion. For Longshore, freedom of religion as the founder’s saw it was limited to different Chrisitan denominations.
“Freedom to practice any religion, as religion defined today, comes from the pit of hell,” Longshore said. “That would be a different thing than what’s going on in the Constitution…when people were thinking about religion, the freedoms that were going to be practiced there, they weren’t thinking about the religion of Moloch.”
Longshore expanded that since the worship of Moloch, the Canaanite deity associated with child sacrifice, wouldn’t have been tolerated by the nation’s founders, it would face similar intolerance in his vision for the nation’s future.
“I think we just need to say no,” Longshore said. “If your religion involves sacrificing your children to Moloch, then that’s you’re not going to have the free exercise of that religion.”
Whether this reference to the worship of Moloch as a descriptor of the current bounds of religious freedom was being done figuratively or literally was left up to the audience.
In Longshore’s view, a Christian nation would provide greater tolerance than what is seen within our present society.
“Dissenting opinions would be far more heard than they are in our present operation,” Longshore said. “There would be far more freedoms, even for people that are rejecting the Christian consensus than there are right now, with the current zeitgeist.”
Concerning LGBTQ+ culture, Longshore would like to go back in history.
“We wouldn’t have the White House lit up in rainbow colors, let’s start there,” Longshore said. “How it’s being fronted, how it’s being advanced, all that would be done. It would be very much like it was 100 years ago—it’s something that’s on the outskirts of society.”
When it comes to the implementation of civil penalties for homosexuality or practices deemed immoral by the Christian faith, Longshore iterated that such decisions should be beholden to the judgement of civil magistrates.
“There’s going to be civil penalties, especially for the expressions of this kind of lifestyle that are public.”
Though Longshore initiated his speech around “the increase of tyranny” in the United States, much of his prescriptions for an ideal society seemed to only restrict how a person could operate, taking away liberties in expression that are currently protected.
Speaking on the purpose of Longshore’s lecture, CRF Vice President Trent Oland said that the goal of this lecture was to bring an evangelistic opportunity” to the UI campus.
“We are hoping to further the Great Commission,” Oland said, referencing Jesus’ instruction to make disciples in the world’s nations. “This is a step in that direction, making our presence known on campus.”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @roycem_news
Captain
Way to give some racist, bigoted and hate filled Christian nationalist that want to destroy Moscow Idaho a voice.
Linda Moser
Fear not. Religious bigotry and suppression of Constitutional freedoms will not win in this community nor in our country. Wilson will go the way of all leaders of high control groups like Christ Church. They all have a heyday within a lifespan, after which their influence fades and they're reduced to nothing more than a reference in a book about local lore. The dude's a flash in the pan. He has a right to express his beliefs and vision for America, just like the rest of us have a right to say no thanks. I'm not saying Wilson isn't somewhat of a threat to the diversity and freedom of thought and expression we now enjoy, but he's more of a paper tiger than a figurehead capable of widespread damage. I've seen this playbook before. It never ends well. I am a Moscow native.
Ginger Rankin
Douglas Wilson is not like Christ in the tiniest sense. I have suffered through reading his blogs and his watching his sermon podcasts. He is an arrogant self appointed leader of a cult, who teaches misogyny and hatred of those who are LGBTQ, and anyone who thinks differently from his absolutism. He uses sarcasm and gaslighting, so that if anyone disputes his word he questions their humor - as he was “just joking.”He is a danger because of the naïveté of those who fall for his egoism and narcissistic attitudes. Throughout the years these types have risen for a while but they always fall due their inability to truly love as Christ taught. X
Someone who just moved away
Get Christ ch*rch out of UI facilities. Get it together Moscow…CC is ruining this once vibrant town
Neal
Galatians 1:6–10 (ESV): I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Karen Hanson Wellman
Rather than going “back in history,” I am proud of the many University of Idaho students, staff, and faculty who are members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community on this campus. To state the obvious, no one at this University should be “on the outskirts of society.” Know that you are loved and supported. Karen Hanson Wellman Assistant Clinical Professor University of Idaho College of Law
Bill Greene
As Christians, the Holy Bible is Gods word concerning what’s good and what’s evil. We are wrong when we think that we can pick and choose what the Bible teaches. Wilson teaches and preaches from the Bible and he is right on. Sin is sin. Thank God for forgiveness through our savior Jesus Christ or heaven would be a real small place. Final judgment is coming and it is your choice. Choose wisely.
Keely Emerine-Mix
I have spent more than 20 years publicly confronting Doug Wilson and his ideology only to have Moscow's evangelical pastors, fellow Trinitarians whose rebuke might matter to him, fail miserably. I've tried to convince liberal Moscow to set aside "tolerance" as its primary virtue and stand against the corrosive teachings and actions of Doug Wilson, whose empire spawns beholden upstarts and encourages them to be as bigoted and belligerent as he is, only to be told that "Christ Church is just like any other fundamentalist Church, so just ignore them." But they are not, and I will not. I am a trinitarian Christian myself with a Ministry background, including co-pastoring a Spanish language congregation in the late 1990s. This isn't fundamentalism, which seeks to largely avoid culture. This is the fascism first predicted as arriving in America draped in the flag, caring a Bible, and as I pray for his repentance and the repentance of those who follow him knowing how he tramples the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I will fight his message and fight for that Gospel til the day I die. Perhaps more stories like this will result in Moscow's pastors and uber-tolerant liberals to be offended enough to confront and condemn him publicly. May it be so.