Pastor Doug Wilson warns Islam incompatible with American culture

Douglas Wilson, a self-identified Christian nationalist pastor, is the latest Evangelical pastor to call for Muslims and other non-Christians to be prohibited from holding public office.

Wilson, 71, the lead pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, made the comments during a June 6 appearance on “The Auron MacIntyre Show,” where he discussed the concept of an “American ethnos,” or what he described as a shared cultural identity grounded in Christian beliefs, language, and history. The conversation took a provocative turn when Wilson addressed the role of non-Christians, particularly Muslims, in American society, suggesting they should be excluded from public office and face pressure to either abandon their faith or leave the country.

When MacIntyre asked whether Wilson would be “comfortable with deporting people of Muslim faith in the United States knowing that its practice is fundamentally incompatible and if they have their own communities, they would ultimately never assimilate into the United States,” Wilson responded, “I would recognize that that’s a very severe problem that we have to solve. I don’t think that we can solve it by deporting them, but I would want to solve it by other means.” 

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Hesitating in his response, Wilson continued, “I think that what you have to do is, if we continue to push for a Christian nation, I think we ought to say yes to church bells, no to minarets. If the public space belongs to Jesus, you can’t have a prayer tower calling for Muslim prayer. I don’t think a Muslim should be able to hold political office, for example.”

Part of such an effort, Wilson added, would include public policy proposals to “encourage abandonment of Islam, encourage evangelization, and, in the cases of some, encourage them to voluntarily deport themselves.” He referred to proposals for Islamic compounds — or what he called “Muslim ghetto towns” — in Texas and other states, drawing parallels to historical Jewish ghettos in Europe.

“Certain cultures are just not compatible,” Wilson argued. “Islam is not compatible with our cultural structure and history. Islam is simply not compatible. We can handle it if a Muslim brings his family to Disneyland and goes home, but we don’t have the mechanism — God did not give us the mechanism — to assimilate to an alien worship of an alien god.”

Wilson’s vision includes halting further immigration to prevent the “planting of Muslim colonies” and deporting “all the criminals, all the bad actors, terrorists,” which he believes “should be aggressively done.” He also called for “putting boundaries on what can be done or not done by people who serve an alien god,” an apparent suggestion that non-Christians should face restrictions in public life.

The pastor contrasted the integration of groups like the Scots-Irish, who he claimed “meld in faster” due to ethnic and cultural proximity, with Muslim immigrants, whom he views as fundamentally unassimilable. He then called immigrants who enter the U.S. southern border illegally “at least Trinitarian Christians, as opposed to Muslims.”

Wilson also referenced the results of the 2024 election, pointing to “a surprising level of support from American Hispanics who didn’t like the border chaos any more than anybody else did,” as evidence of partial assimilation among some groups.

Last month, Wilson — who Tucker Carlson once called “the Christian nationalist they warned you about — announced the July opening of Christ Kirk Washington, D.C., just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol building. He explained the move as an effort to leverage “many strategic opportunities with numerous Evangelicals who will be present both in and around the Trump administration. These believers are obviously culturally engaged already, but we happen to believe that every form of cultural engagement needs to have a solid theological foundation and support, and we want to help to provide it. “

Wilson’s comments echoed those of Texas Pastor Joel Webbon, who claimed in a March 7 episode of his “Right Response Ministries” podcast that Jews, Muslims and Hindus “cannot hold public office.”

“Jews cannot hold public office,” said Webbon, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and leader of Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown. “They can live here, and they can live here peacefully, and all these kinds of things. But no, this is a Christian nation, and those who reject Christ and hate Christ, they can be in the car, and we shouldn’t mistreat them, but they don’t get to drive.

“It’s OK to have a country,” he continued. “Listen to me, Christian, you are allowed to have a country. You are. It is OK to say, ‘No, this country, this nation is for us and our posterity.’ It’s not for Hindus. It’s not for Muslims. And it’s not for Jews. It belongs to Christians.”