Not From Under The Rock

My gentlemanly critic, the Covenant fellow who goes by the pseudonym Dontbia Nass, has requested that I crawl back from under the rock from which I came, unless I can "prove" that Doug Wilson and his attendant ministries and cohorts are guilty of letting Kinist/Reconstructionist/Anti-Government/Neo-Confederate thought and theology trickle into the Kirk, and do so with little or no regard for the witness of the Gospel. And since I also accused Kinists -- making sure to note that Wilson has condemned their theology and beliefs -- of preaching a false Gospel, I'll spare myself a slither or two under the rock and discuss that, too. Huh. I might even mention my problems with the soteriology of Wilson, et al, and the Federal Vision.

Not all in one post, of course; I'll have a series of "Not From Under The Rock"s.

First of all, I don't condemn Wilson "for giving me bad vibes." Goodness, no. He's actually been quite pleasant to me in person and over email. It's the sour taste for the Gospel that he's seasoned Moscow with by his puckish, gleeful approach to engaging with his non-believing critics.

So: Point 1 -- He and His Fellows Act Like Frat Boys, Not Ministers of the Gospel

Wilson and his merry men have offered Moscow numerous examples of his scorn, if not disgust, for those unbelievers who criticize him and for those who don't, but still don't know Christ. Granted, a man who insists that the religious transformation of the Palouse area of North Idaho will occur through Psalm-singing, Sabbath dinners, and strong, male-headed families probably isn't too concerned with evangelism and service. Nonetheless, most Gospel ministers, and certainly no others in town, are not even remotely as cheerful in tossing out their offenses to the community.

When one of Wilson's New St. Andrews fellows copped -- stole -- letterhead from the University of Idaho and printed up fake news releases about a topless, feminist lecture series on campus, and did so as an April Fools joke, Wilson lauded his pal's zany sense of humor -- after, of course, the UI investigated the illegal use of its letterhead by a Classical Christian Scholar. The community, already embroiled in controversy over NSA's move to the downtown Moscow business district, increasing the tax burden on businesses there and violating the City's zoning code, got another taste of the Wackiness that Westminster Wroughts when Wilson and a couple of Kirk men of chest, during the Trinity Fest that swooped down on Moscow months later with 300 or more neo-Confederate classicists, strapped on their guitars to belt out "Sweet Home, Alabama" as their public paean to the South.

Most ministers, if aware that their congregations are disliked and held in suspicion by their neighbors, probably wouldn't choose to sing a South-lovin' song written in angry response to Neil Young's "Southern Man," a blistering attack on the Confederate South and those who love it. Most ministers wouldn't hold conferences about the glories of the Confederacy, the wonders of racist theology and the honor of racist theologies. R.L. Dabney, for example, is a Wilson hero, even though Wilson says he decries his racism. Why even bother with him, then, when you know he's a racist and a hero to other racists who claim the name of Christ? Most ministers who want to understand theology, or understand American history, can find more honorable men (and women) to learn from and promote than a man whose sickeningly racist denouncement of the inherent worth and dignity of black people is fodder for both neo-Confederates, Kinists, and even "classical Christian" schools in the Kirk- influenced ACCS, whose office is in the Ambrose House building in Moscow. Men and women who care about the effect of the Gospel on their communities would run like bloody hell from Dabney, from Robert E. Lee, from Stonewall Jackson, from the League of the South, the neo- and paleo-Confederate movement -- anything that smacks of racism, bigotry, or racial insensitivity. If, that is, they either thought about the effect on their unsaved neighbors, or thought that sort of stuff was too awful to be even remotely associated with, even privately.

Of course, if you've co-authored, with a League of the South member, dear friend, and frequent associate a book that attempts to defend Southern slavery from both Scripture and history, the two points above probably don't matter much to you. And while I'll discuss "Southern Slavery As It Was" in a future post, I'll conjecture here that that type of careless insouciance makes it seem OK for a Christ Church elder to post on his blog a thoroughly racist cartoon with Barack Obama introducing himself by saying, "Ise Yo New President!" -- a post that prompted from one of the elder's pals an even worse joke about the President's assassination. That joke, and the original, were removed by a petulant blogmeister who honestly couldn't figure out what the problem was. Huh.

Wilson likes to think that he and his fellow Kirkers are being singled out because of the tough, uncompromising Gospel he preaches and the unwavering reverence he holds, in and out of the pulpit, for Scripture. Bullshit. Most evangelical pastors on the Palouse actually preach the Gospel and hold the Word of God as dearly as Wilson says he does -- and they don't provoke the ire of the community, ever. No, Wilson, et al, are the objects of scorn because Wilson, et al, behave badly in the public square, and any other community, not just a community of "washed up hippies," would learn to despise a man who delights in offering it a stiff middle finger.

How I wish he'd just offer them the Gospel of Christ, with service and humility.

Want one more? When NSA's presence in the downtown business district was causing such an uproar in the community -- because someone had filed a complaint against their presence -- what did Wilson's son, Nate, and an NSA pal do? Offer any acts of service to the community? Pass out any tracts? Do a canned-food drive? A street festival for the community not based on neo-Confederate history? Nah. They filed, just for the hell of it, to make a point, to extract the vengeance that is only God's and that only the gravely immature attempt, a complaint against the occupancy of Moscow's public alternative high school. They responded to a valid civil complaint by filing another one in a snit of snottiness, putting a school that works to educate 30 or 40 at-risk kids at risk itself. And when Nate's comrade-in-arms, NSA Registrar Aaron Rench, assured me that, gosh, if any of the kids lost their chance for school or were threatened in any way, he knew Logos would take them.

I think you probably don't want to know what I said to Aaron Rench that day.