Loyalty vs kingdom searching

 

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✅ It’s important to display loyalty in a cultish sense, specifically to Doug and Nancy Wilson and their adult children N.D. Wilson, Rachel Jankovic and Rebekah Merkle

Note Doug Wilson’s own words on loyalty:

“One of the things that modern Christians have a hard time doing right is loyalty. We don’t know how loyalty is supposed to work. We don’t understand the spiritual requirement of personal allegiance to your church and its leadership…. Allow me the privilege of translating all of this into modern American English for you. Drink the Kool-Aid. Join the cult. Surrender your independence. Swallow the party line. Go baaa like a sheep. Strive for the nirvana of acquiescence….”

Source: web.archive.org/web/2023112601…

Contrast this to the words of scripture, which repeatedly tells each believer to pursue wisdom on their own. Each believer is in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, and is commanded to pursue wisdom and the mind of Christ, not pursue Doug Wilson’s words as gospel and the mind of Doug Wilson.

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✅ It’s important to present an appearance of external perfection

Thoughts about this expressed by ex-kirkers:

• This external perfection is directly tied into their Federal Vision views and their Postmillennial views: Federal Vision pushes external performance, and the Moscow Postmillennialism posits the world being perfected by Doug Wilson & his followers to the point that, once perfected enough, Christ will return as the jewel in the crown of God’s Kingdom.

• This external perfection is used to recruit new members, which is done through various conferences like CALLED and Grace Agenda: Look at how shiny and happy we are! Come to Moscow and join us, and you too can be #shinyhappy 

• This devotion to external perfection has resulted in cover-up of crimes and abuse

• Homes are expected to be spotless, with hospitality emphasized to an extreme degree: be ready to accept even uninvited guests into a gathering without hesitation

•  Doug Wilson’s family members are examples of how to dress: men are to dress like Doug or Doug’s son N.D. Wilson, women are to dress like Nancy Wilson, Rachel Jankovic or Rebekah Merkle. “You can look at a woman in Moscow and know instantly that she’s a kirker.”

• Nancy Wilson, Rebekah Merkle and Rachel Jankovic are pointed to for women kirkers to emulate in their clothing, housekeeping and hospitality. Note that these would be an impossible standards to keep for the majority of the women, given that they don’t have the funds these women have.

• Food and wine at gatherings are often lavish and expensive

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✅ It’s important to appear externally joyful

Ex-kirker: “They talk a lot about joy, but it’s a forced joy. Their joy is in mockery and sarcasm, it is a joy in tearing others down: it is not a joy that reflects the nature of Christ. It’s not joy as the fruit of the Spirit.”

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✅ It’s important to accept and place yourself under the Moscow pecking order

Ex-kirkers express that there is an extreme culture of celebrity and favoritism in Moscow, with the Wilson family at the top of course, but then a sort of vicious pecking order moving down from there.

I suspect that bringing in outsiders Joe Rigney and Jared Longshore was not well received by longtime kirkers who have been kissing Doug Wilson’s ring for years, and most likely expected to be in line for the roles taken by Rigney and Longshore.

[That’s all for now, might post more later as I continue to think on these conversations.]