I originally started writing this post a few days ago and had the tentative title The Moscow Mood Has Soured. After the weekend, I think it’s appropriate to ask if the Moscow Mood is dead.
By dead I don’t mean to say that all of the endeavors happening in Moscow, Idaho, will cease to exist shortly. Rather I am saying that the unique thing called the Moscow Mood is probably dead.
It’s not clear to me what will take its place and how things will develop. But November was not good to their endeavors. From my perspective, they lost a couple of important battles online that will slowly but steadily drip out into the rest of the Reformed world.
This post is a collection of my thoughts regarding what happened. It is not comprehensive and it may seem a little disjointed. I’m leaving out loads of content. But I don’t want to devote more than a few hours to writing this.
So here goes.
No Quarter November Preview
On October 19 in the post The Moscow Mood and No Quarter November I wrote:
Here’s what I’m interested in seeing this year during NQN.
This is the first NQN since Moscow received what I would assume is several magnitudes of greater notice due to the Kevin DeYoung controversy and Doug Wilson going on Tucker.
How do they handle working from a position of greater notoriety? Does it go to their heads? There was a recent dust-up over a vulgar Johnny Cash photo they used in a promotional video. I thought their response came off as arrogant. I hope it isn’t a sign of things to come.
In addition, there has been significant pushback against Wilson’s view of the Jews and Israel from even among those who would be considered part of his camp. I’ve read many comments on Wilson’s CensorTube videos that say something like, “Love everything you do in Moscow. Subscribe to Canon+. But you are just wrong about the Jews and Israel.”
So Wilson has been accused by more than a few people of having a blindspot when it comes to that particular issue. I’m curious to see how that plays out in the months ahead from several different perspectives.
I was over the target. Their doubling down on the Johnny Cash photo was a sign of things to come. And the issues related to the Jews? Most of the month ended up revolving around that topic. I think that happened in some ways they planned for and in other ways they didn’t.
No Quarter November Highlights (Lowlights?)
Here is my attempt at an impartial summary of the major points (in no particular order).
Doug Wilson & Co. are willing to go to very great lengths to avoid being connected to anything and anyone that could remotely be labeled with anti-semitism. This includes being willing to alienate a significant portion of their support base. They as much as said that the Pete Hegseth nomination to Secretary of Defense was part of why they did what they did because of his connections to the CREC and classical education. (See: Antioch Declaration) As I said before, I think those in Moscow have tasted access to power and they don’t want anything getting in the way. Although this might sound odd, I’m not paying them a compliment when writing about their commitment to avoid being labeled an anti-semite. I’ve covered this in many other posts so that’s all I’ll say here.
Doubling down again and again on poor choices, poor wording, and poorly executed plans loses you supporters. (See: Antioch Declaration).
Advocating for wives to basically turn in their husbands to church authorities for being too right-wing is now a thing Moscow promotes. They are still backpeddling and clarifying as I write this post, but that’s what blew up over the weekend. (Here’s a link to one discussion on Twitter/X with the video. I’m not endorsing any of it, but it gives a good overview of the debate in the comments as well.)
Related to the content in the previous paragraph is a 2021 clip that got brought up and was new to me. Go here to see the original tweet that shared the video in the comments. Go here to video and jump to 27:33 mark. This is Doug’s wife and daughters telling women that if their husband thinks they should get the vaccine, they should obey and do it – even if the wife is convinced it is dangerous. (I could write an entire post just about this one thing and the assumptions that go with this kind of thinking.)
Doug has lost the benefit of the doubt. Many people gave it to him for many years. He’s lost that. I would include myself in this. I have a few posts with videos featuring Doug on this website. I’ll be deleting them this week. It’s one thing to make a mistake here and there. We all do it. It’s another thing to repeatedly say things that incite turmoil, tell people that’s not what you meant, and then write massively long missives that no one has time to read to explain what you really meant. A lot of people are over it. That much is crystal clear.
Things develop far too quickly with too many people online for the public facing people in Moscow to stay informed and respond promptly. There were people doing their shows who admitted they didn’t know what was going on with some major stories but were discussing the stories on their shows.
The theme of the 2024 NQN was burning bridges and they definitely accomplished that. The mood that they set with their video for this year was just off. It felt negative and combative. Clearly they had been thinking about breaking with a certain segment of the right for some time (anyone who questions the official WW2 narrative).
Joel Webbon was clearly wronged in the drama that had been simmering for months and blew up in November. I’m not a Joel Webbon fan and have even written in Are We Heading Toward Vision Forum 2.0 and Patriocentricity Again? that there are some red flags there. However, it seems pretty clear to me that Moscow decided Joel is a threat and it was time to separate from him and take him down. Like him or not, Joel isn’t afraid to discuss things that are considered off-limits in polite Christian society and the rapid growth of his CensorTube channel is proof of that. I’ve addressed some of this in other posts so I’ll leave it at that. I still have strong reservations about Joel, but he handled a vicious and ridiculous situation put upon him very well and the Moscow group came off poorly.
This barely scratches the surface of what happened. But, again, there are so many other things to do (homeschooling, Christmas, homemaking, etc.) and other blog posts to write that it’s not worth it for me to hash it all out in multiple posts.
NQN Tweets To Archive
So the next part of this post is simply a record for me. Below I’m including a couple of lengthy comments I made on Twitter so I have a record of them here on my website. If I don’t, they will be lost in my timeline. If anyone has questions or wants clarification about anything in this post, I’ll be happy to do that in the comments on this post. Just ask. But I’m only taking the time to write this summary otherwise.
Live text and screen shots for my archival and search purposes
Thoughts on events leading up to Antioch Declaration
I’m the opposite.
I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. However, as some people inexplicably doubled-down it became more important.
But now bringing out what is basically a loyalty oath in the form of a declaration?
There’s a battle going on for the leadership of a certain part of American Christianity. That matters because it filters into other areas of Christianity.
What I find most interesting is how all of this has revealed glaring blind spots in some leaders. We’ve moved from secular “trust the science” to religious “trust the history.”
I don’t know what the complete truth is about history, but any Christian leaders who tell me I must fall in line and not ever question one group of people and one event in history is someone I won’t trust. I didn’t trust the leaders who told me to blindly trust the science and I’m not going to blindly follow the religious leaders who tell me to trust the history.
Same thread
When a Christian leader tells grown men and women to sit down and shut up, there’s something seriously wrong.
I was a teacher years ago. If I had said that to a classroom of students, I would have been in big trouble.
Something is very, very off about all of this. Seeing grown men with decades of ministry experience handling things like this defies logic.
Responses to the Antioch Declaration
I watched your newest video and then listened to it again with my husband. I think in the end it boils down to this.
You and the men you named in the video are seen by the other side as expendable collateral damage.
There is really no other explanation.
There’s a reason you’re flabbergasted and trying to figure out something that makes sense. As a mostly impartial observer, I can say none of this has made sense for some time.
This is an undeclared war and the other side has determined they will not lose. They are willing to let former friends and associates be collateral damage.
Moscow, the associated brands, and personalities associated with it carry more value across the established Reformed world. They are calculating they can outlast you (and especially Joel) both in the short-term and long-term because you are backed primarily by nameless anons and named people with less cachet.
Until someone provides a better explanation, this is the only thing that makes sense.
Disconnect in Moscow
There is a real disconnect in Moscow.
One of the problems is that some of these men admit they are not up on things that are happening. Knox admitted that on this CrossPolitic. Something similar came up with Jared Longshore (IIRC) on another show recently. He admitted he was not at all up-to-date on something else (elections maybe?).
There’s nothing wrong with being too busy with your responsibilities that you can’t keep up with what is happening. I don’t fault them at all for focusing on job and family. That should be their first focus.
But to have no idea what is going on with a situation and then come on a show to lead or participate in a discussion about that situation is not wise.
It feels like all of this has gotten way too big on multiple fronts for the public-facing leadership group trying to handle it.
Holodomor and Doug Wilson
If you haven’t read my previous posts, this one might not make sense. But it made perfect sense to those in the know.
If our first commitment is to be to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world as opposed to our fellow countrymen/women, then why has @douglaswils apparently never written even once about the evils, tragedy, and lessons of the Holodomor?
Yesterday was Holodomor Remembrance Day.
Those tens of millions of primarily Christian lives that were wiped out by the Bolsheviks meant something. They should especially mean something to us as Christian believers.
Sadly, I knew nothing about the Holodomor until a few years ago. I’ve asked myself why this is and came to my own conclusions.
But most people aren’t naturally inquisitive about history. And, truthfully, many people don’t have the time to be because they are too busy navigating life. But I think Christians would want to know about this part of the history of the church. I think they should know.
Perhaps @canonpress could create materials for Canon+ and the bookstore about this important topic by the next remembrance day. They could create some great material that parents could use with their children as well as materials more appropriate for adults.
Again, if our first commitment is to be to fellow Christians (as Doug has pointedly said), this seems like a glaring hole in Christian education in every way – home, school, and church.
Lastly, here is when someone shared this last Twitter/X post. It made me laugh. Remember that in these circles a lot of the men think women should not even be engaging in theological discussions online. I was pleasantly surprised a few of the things I wrote were widely shared and liked.
Watching all of this unfold while deep-diving on other related topics the past few weeks made me realize all over again why David and I have never fit into these circles.
But those are posts for another day.
