...the departure of Arian Nations from that area, but how about the behavior of Doug Wilson and his Christ Church.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/29/2055102/-Built-on-misogyny-and-racism-cult-like-church-attempts-spiritual-takeover-of-Idaho-college-townFrom the article:
"In most regards, Moscow, Idaho, is the embodiment of the bucolic college town: tree-covered neighborhoods, quiet streets, quaint shops downtown, and a
pretty University of Idaho college campus. But for people who live there, the insidious presence of Pastor Doug Wilson’s cult-like Christ Church—not at
all obvious on the surface, but cumulatively overwhelming at times—can make life on the Palouse surreal, even nightmarish.
Moreover, as
a deep profile by Sarah Stankorb at Vice
reveals, Wilson’s domineering evangelical church—which buys up property and businesses throughout the Latah County community and bullies both members and
non-members who question either his edicts or his far-right theology—is built on a fundamentally misogynist worldview that permits male members to rape
their wives, and threatens any women who object.
Stankorb’s report details the stories of the women who have survived Christ Church’s “culture that normalizes sexual abuse and harassing survivors.” One
described being raped repeatedly by her husband, then becoming an outcast when she divorced him. Others describe being sexually abused as teenagers by
men who taught in the church’s schools.
This ethos within the church is a direct outgrowth of the theology that Wilson teaches. He asserts that husbands have complete spiritual responsibility
for the household, which includes preventing the wife from failing to submit to his will in “spending habits, television viewing habits, weight, rejection
of his leadership, laziness in cleaning the house, lack of responsiveness to sexual advances.”
Wilson contends that modern society has stripped men of their intended roles, including their sexual mores. He has written that “the sexual act cannot
be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party”; instead, “a man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants,” while a “woman receives, surrenders, accepts,”
he argues. He concludes that “true authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.”
Despite its location in a remote rural college town, Christ Church is not merely a fringe cult. Wilson is a major figure in the evangelical home-schooling
and “classical Christian school” movements, having helped found the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, which accredits institutions similar
to Wilson’s. He also operates a publishing house, Logos Books, that provides curriculum materials for both homeschoolers and “classical schools.”
Its current expansion plans in Moscow include a new complex for Logos School, built on 30 acres of land on the town’s northwestern perimeter. A fundraising
video reminds viewers “that much of what we are doing in education […] is exported to hundreds of classical Christian schools across the country and beyond.”
Much of what Wilson teaches has long been controversial. In 2004,
the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok
exposed both his church’s cult-like creeping takeover of Moscow, as well as the far-right Dominionist beliefs embedded in his school literature, including
a defense of the Confederacy and slavery.
Wilson co-wrote a book, Southern Slavery: As It Was, featured in the Logos Books curriculum, which claimed in part: "Slavery as it existed in the South
[...] was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence.”
It argued: "There has never been a multiracial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. [...] "Slave
life was to them [slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care."
At a 2003 public forum in Moscow, Wilson
attempted to defend the book,
claiming it had been misinterpreted. "My defense of the South does not make me a racist," he said. "I am not interested in defending slavery. I don't believe
we should practice slavery.
“What I said is that a Christian man in the South could be a slave owner. He needed to follow the rules in the New Testament. Christian slave owners were
compelled to teach their slaves to read [and] teach them Christian values. When there is a chance for freedom, the Bible tells the slaves to take it. Paul
lays out the peaceful end to slavery. That is not how Southern slavery ended in the United States.""
For the record, I have family now living in the area in Tensed, Idaho, some 20 or so miles northeast of Moscow (it's close to an Indian reservation if I remember correctly). My late father's younger brother, who is still alive, was raised Nazarrean then switched (if I remember correctly) to Southern Baptist after he married a Roman Catholic. He moved in with his son in Tensed a few years back, and I very much fear the worst: that the family has fallen under the Wilson spell. They don't talk to us anymore, but the little we've heard suggests that this is exactly what has happened.