25 years of Christ Church on UI’s campus

Since 1995, Christ Church has been a part of the University of Idaho’s campus, largely due to the formation of their student group, the Collegiate Reform Fellowship (CRF).

Christ Church’s recognizable Pastor Douglas Wilson, has been a staple within CRF and Christ Church.

Wilson spoke and hosted a variety of different events on UI’s campus with some of the most recognizable being “Credenda Agenda History Conference” (2004), “Is Civil Marriage for Gay Couples Good for Society?” (2013), “Toxic Matriarchy” (2019) and “The Lost Virtue of Sexism” which took place Tuesday.

“Churches are responsible for preaching the word, evangelizing everybody in the town —evangelizing everybody who wants to listen — and that would include the college students,” Wilson said. “So, if we’re a church in Moscow, we want to do outreach to college students, so that is what CRF is for.”

While Christ Church does have a relationship with Logos School and New Saint Andrews College, they choose to host their events at UI because Logos and Andrews are Christian schools.

“We’re teaching the Christian worldview all the time, all day, every day,” Wilson said. “If you want to do evangelism — to people who are interested and openly searching — U of I is where you would have to go.”

But at each of these events there has been backlash, and “The Lost Virtue Sexism” event was no different.

MacKenzie Sexton, treasurer for UI’s Young Democrats club, was one of Tuesday’s protestors. Sexton, who was raised Christian, said supporters feed off the energy of the protestors, and that some verses in the bible don’t think negatively of protestors.

“If the world is pushing back on (supporters), that means they are doing something right — it just kind of adds to their sense of bravery,” Sexton said explaining the bible verses.

Sexton said she believes in freedom of speech, but that includes her right to speak back and protest.

“He’s entitled to his worldview and I know people who maybe think that the biblical word for women is a better one, and they can hold that belief” Sexton said.

Sexton added that Wilson does not support women serving in the Naval Academy. Wilson stated this opinion on an online blog on his website entitled, “Restoring Sexism: The Lost Virtue.” Sexton does not agree with this viewpoint, and “The Lost Virtue of Sexism” event title made her laugh because she has confidence in herself.

I know that my success makes them uncomfortable,” Sexton said. “But just for other women around me, I feel kind of mad that they’re just putting this inflammatory title out there, and other people could be discouraged.”

Ethan Whear, a New Saint Andrews student and a member of CRF, admitted that the events titles are inflammatory.

Whear, who attended “The Lost Virtue of Sexism,” found the protestors disheartening. Instead of making noise and distracting the lecture, he wished they would have listened to Wilson so they could analyze and then make their argument.

Even with the pushback, Whear said they still have these events because they are Christian and it’s their duty to evangelize.

“If you see your neighbor walking towards a hole who’s going to fall
in it and die, is it loving to let your neighbor just walk towards the hole? We don’t believe that it is, so we

believe that as Christians it is our calling to call people and develop the Christian spread,” Whear said.

For UI clubs Generation Action and the Young Dems, the need to protest was vital to them.

Gen Action is a UI outreach of Planned Parenthood.

While some students on campus were choosing not to protest to avoid giving Christ Church attention, Gen Action Publicity and Communications Chair Katie Hettinga wanted to make sure her voice and others were heard.

“It shows that our club and we as individuals are taking a stance against this hate speech. I understand that he probably will get some gratification just from people showing up to the talk,” Hettinga said. “But the fact that we’re here and trying to break up his message — so that people won’t actually hear what he’s trying to get across — is us taking action against it instead of sitting just idly by and not showing up.”

Gen Action President Marguerite Watts and Community Liaison Aspynn Owsley agreed with this sentiment. All three Gen Action officers are freshman at UI this year and have not experienced any of Wilson’s talks until “The Lost Virtue of Sexism.”

Both Gen Action and Young Dems were protestors in yesterday’s event, and while they couldn’t scream out during the talk, they made themselves known in other ways. Protestors audibly ripped paper, dropped metal water bottles and made clacking noises to distract Wilson during his talk.

Young Dems President Zachery Bishop, who was a part of the protest, said the Young Dems and other groups on campus are hoping to denounce CRF as an on-campus hate group. They hope to bring these concerns to the university and ASUI soon.

“We’re not going to just protest. We’re not going to go out there and yell at them — while that gets the image across — that’s not our main point. We want to show that we have something important here, and we want to show that we can keep the fight going past just the protest,” Bishop said.

Alex Brizee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @alex_brizee