I’ve been endeavoring to write this lengthy post about the Moscow Mood and No Quarter November (NQN) since shortly after last November. However, a lot has transpired since then which allowed me to add more depth to this post as we head into No Quarter November 2024.
If you read my post White Boy Summer – Battle Lines Being Drawn, this is the post I said would show how I know young men around you are being influenced by all of this. The Big Eva reactions to NQN 2023 demonstrated that the movements associated with this could no longer be ignored.
This is a long post, but I think it’s important for my readers to be aware of these topics. I also think you will find a lot of encouragement for your faith in the media I share below.
What Is No Quarter November?
So to give you the lay of the land, let’s look at where we’ve been. No Quarter November is a month-long event sponsored by the happy warriors in Moscow, Idaho. Every day there is new content from Canon Press, Canon+ (streaming service), Doug Wilson, etc. They give away all kinds of free ebooks. There are livestreams. It’s grown every year and become a real event.
The month kicks off with a short video of Doug Wilson burning something, setting the tone for the month. Here are the intro videos for 2018 through 2023. Each one is only a few minutes, but it’s interesting to watch the progression in them as NQN has grown and expanded.
Don’t skip these because they do help you understand the bigger picture.
So they kick off the month with lots of fun. It’s now become an event many Christians look forward to each fall.
As it has grown in scope and reach, it has also became impossible for Big Eva to ignore it any longer. And they truly do wish to ignore what is going on in Moscow. The Moscow people aren’t respectable in the eyes of Big Eva types and their success causes all kinds of uncomfortable problems for Big Eva. The folks in Moscow don’t bend the knee to Negative World.
So this goes back to my previous post about White Boy Summer. The developments from NQN 2023 indicate that Big Eva and even local churches are starting to realize that Canon Press, Canon+, Doug Wilson, etc. are having an impact on their church members far beyond Idaho. That impact is part of what, I believe, has also ignited many of the men involved with the idea of White Boy Summer. There is overlap. The people in Moscow didn’t start White Boy Summer (to my knowledge). But I’m fairly certain NQN and the Moscow Mood have contributed to it becoming a thing.
What Is the Moscow Mood?
Kevin DeYoung is a pastor and probably the most conservative person left at The (Woke) Gospel Coalition. He wrote a lengthy article last year which drew even more eyes to NQN. In On Culture War, Doug Wilson, and the Moscow Mood, DeYoung wrote:
Which brings me to the reason you are likely reading this article in the first place, and that is the name “Doug Wilson” in the title. “So, what do you think about Doug Wilson?” is a question I’ve been asked many times during my years in pastoral ministry. I’d say the questioners have been pretty evenly split between “I’m asking because I really like him,” “I’m asking because I hope you don’t like him,” and “I’m asking because I’m not sure what to think.” Even now, I’d rather not be writing this piece because (1) it takes a lot of time, (2) I’m not looking to get into a long, drawn-out debate with Wilson or his followers, and (3) I know a lot of good Christians who have been helped by Wilson and by the people and institutions in his orbit. I’m answering the question now in hopes that I might help those who appreciate some of what Wilson says but also feel like something isn’t quite right.
By any measure, one has to marvel at the literary, digital, and institutional output that has come out of Moscow, Idaho in the past several decades. While some internet cranks are wannabees trying to make a name for themselves by trying to tear down what others have built up, Wilson is to be commended for establishing an ecosystem of schools, churches, media offerings, and publishing ventures. For a scholarly and fair assessment of what Wilson has tried to do in Moscow, I recommend Crawford Gribben’s excellent book Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Wilson also deserves credit for being unafraid to take unpopular positions. True, he often seems to enjoy stating his unpopular positions in the most unpopular ways (more on that later), but no one is going to accuse Wilson of being a spineless Evangellyfish. He offers the world and the church an angular, muscular, forthright Christianity in an age of compromise and defection. On top of that, Wilson has a family that loves him and loves Christ.
Moreover, Wilson understands that opposition to Christ—his word, his gospel, and his Lordship—is not to be taken lightly. Many Christians are witnessing the disintegration of our Western world, and the Christian consensus that used to hold sway, and they are thinking to themselves, “This is terrible. I can’t believe this is happening.” To the Christians with these concerns—and I count myself among them—Doug Wilson says, “Yes, it is really bad, and let’s do something about it.”
I’m convinced the appeal of Moscow is visceral more than intellectual. That’s not meant to be a knock on the smart people in Moscow or attracted to Moscow. It is to say, however, that people are not mainly moving to Idaho because they now understand Revelation 20 in a different way, or because they did a deep word study on ta ethne in the Great Commission, or even because of a well-thought-out political philosophy of Christian Nationalism. Those things matter to Wilson and his followers, but I believe postmillennialism and Christian Nationalism are lagging indicators, not leading indicators. That is, people come to those particular intellectual convictions because they were first attracted to the cultural aesthetic and the political posture that Wilson so skillfully embodies. In short, people are moving to Moscow—whether literally or spiritually—because of a mood. It’s a mood that says, “We are not giving up, and we are not giving in. We can do better than negotiate the terms of our surrender. The infidels have taken over our Christian laws, our Christian heritage, and our Christian lands, and we are coming to take them back.”
And yet, for all that is understandable and sometimes commendable about the Moscow mood, there are also serious problems.
Videos About The Moscow Mood
In The Moscow Mood for DeYoung Restless and Reformed, Longshore writes:
Here is my reply, plain and simple: Kevin could not be more wrong about his supposed detrimental and long-term spiritual effects of the Moscow mood. Because I know the world from which he writes quite well, I understand how plausible that critique may sound. But, in truth, the Moscow mood is something for which to be grateful. It has had good spiritual effects for some time and it looks to be on a trajectory to continue to bear some great long-term spiritual fruit. Indeed, I commend this Moscow mood to that community formerly known as the Young, Restless, and Reformed, that community which attempted to do something like Doug has done in Moscow, but failed miserably.
It seems to me that humility dictates you thank God for good examples, showing honor where honor is due. DeYoung, honestly, failed in this regard. I recall going to Together for the Gospel conferences, and I recall attending a Gospel Coalition Conference. I remember looking on with intrigue when the Gospel Coalition showed its first signs of decay as it gave Voddie Bauchum the Left Hand of Disfellowship when he began to say too many true things about Ferguson. I recall also watching the Gospel Coalition crumble into a platform promoting weird singleness articles and deep insightful analysis of Taylor Swift’s debauched evenings with men who used her. The goal at the outset was to establish true piety in the city. But the result was that Babylon bent the Young, Restless, and Reformed over her knee and spanked them like an angry step mother.
Now, I move to Moscow two years ago and I find genuine piety: Psalm sings, hospitality, generational faithfulness, sacrificial patriarchy, happy women, Bible reading plans, regular old evangelical men’s prayer meetings like you’d find all over the country, the arts, Herodotus and Thucydides, Bach and Handel, a flourishing downtown due to the entrepreneurship of the people of God, and a good deal of mirth and cheer in the face of Genghis Khan being at the gates of this formerly Christian nation. There are people who will wrongly bind on to something like Moscow, of course. We look to correct that kind of thing when it happens. But, that was not Kevin’s critique. Kevin’s critique was that the mood cultivated in Moscow is one that does not comport with Christian virtue, which is to say that Kevin has discovered that grapes really do come from bramblebushes (Luke 6:44).
I encourage you to read the entire post.
Next up are videos.
So I’ll start with two short clips of men discussing how the Moscow Mood has impacted them. Then I’ll move on to what I think were the most viral and important videos that were made during and after that time. I could have easily added another 15 videos here, but I pared it down to the ones I thought were most important and helpful.
It will take some time to watch these. But if you choose to do so, you will be challenged in your Christian faith and how you think about the culture. There is good meat in these to ponder.
Since then, Doug Wilson has gone on Tucker Carlson. If you didn’t see it, it’s well worth your time to watch this segment.
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 won’t explain them here, but if you are a regular reader you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I hope this post is helpful. And don’t forget to check out NQN in a couple of weeks. I’ve added some great ebooks to my library that way. If that interests you, you should mark your calendar and get on the Canon Press mailing list so you get the notices and codes for the various offers.
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