A good friend and Kirk observer sends this direct link to my July 2006 debate with the Christ Church pastor, defender of patriarchy, New St. Andrews and Logos School founder, Canon Press author and Sage of the Neo- and Paleo-Confederates, Doug Wilson:
http://www.notonthepalouse.com/Church_Debate_Mix_Wilson_071106.htm
As I told him at the debate, I'm always open for a sequel, or an NSA Disputatio . . .
No invitations yet, though.
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10 comments:
Keely,
In all fairness, you kicked Doug's rump in this debate. I've listened to it several times and he's completely defensive. This is a very good example that shows the difference between debate and truth. Doug is, more or less, more truthful than you in my opinion. But you had the audience the entire debate. Strange how Dougie can fend off the athiests, but derail when handling a feminist.
Statistically, women have been proven to be better speakers than men. On top of this, as a man Doug is a lousy speaker. His mind always out works his mouth. Keely's mind is sharp and her mouth does not lag behind. So if I could could give any advice to my feminists opponents it would be to debate them!
JPC
P.S. Doug, you really suck for this deba
debate their male opponents that is...
cheers
I'm grateful, cautiously, for your kinda-sorta compliments. I felt the debate went well for me, and I'm always open to further talk. I'm afraid I'm not one of those folks who thinks Wilson is an intellectual and rhetorical whiz; I've found him, frankly, to be lacking in substance in my interactions with him, and I continue to wonder how it is that his work is so exalted by so many.
Keely
Rev. Wilson was being defensive because he was fighting like a gentleman would be expected to fight with a woman. If it had been Christopher Hitchens he would have hurled himself off the ropes with an armbar to the neck, so to speak.
Keely is a pretty clever debater, although she let her contempt slip through occasionally. I found myself saying "Maybe you should cut affluent white evangelicals the same slack you would for homos."
Around the 100-minute mark, listening to Keely talk out of both sides of her mouth for two minutes was amazing. Talk about being evasive! If she really thinks that someone is not a worse Christian for taking the more conservative view concerning (homo)sexual sin, then where is her beef?
Around the 120-minute mark, Keely tells us Wilson is perhaps *worse* than a racist because he is so comfortable with being white, male, affluent, academically prestigious, etc., that he doesn't care one whit how he's perceived.
It's too bad David Chilton isn't with us anymore; he could write a sequel to Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators.
Doug Wilson, worse than racist because he's comfortable being white. Presumably he's worse than sexist because he's comfortable being male, worse than envious because he's comfortable being affluent, and worse than having an intellectual inferiority complex because he's comfortable being academically prestigious. If only he cared more about how he's perceived, he wouldn't be so doggone content with his lot in life.
And presumably Keely is not comfortable with being white?
Around the 138-minute mark. Keely claims that in Christ Church the gifts and talents of the women are going to waste, on account of the "patriarchical" stance of Christ Church. Well, what are we to make of the books and articles written by Nancy Wilson (among other women) that are published by ministries and organizations affiliated with Christ Church? Let me get this straight -- does Christ Church forbid its men to read these books and articles written by women? Is it a violation of scripture if a women teaches a man something? Obviously Christ Church's answer is "no, it is not a sin." I think it is clear that the issue largely revolves around 1) the ecclesiastical function of women in the church, and 2) the concept of covenantal representation. Keely's position is disingenuous because, as she admits, women can be heads of households.
Around the 146-minute mark. Keely says gifts are not given on the basis of gender. Oh really? I have some "family jewels" that were given to me on the basis of my gender, and I have seven jewels that were given to me by God through my wife because only she, on account of her gender, has the gift of child-bearing. I think that pretty well disproves Keely's claim that gifts are unrelated to a person's gender. I have a gift for carrying refrigerators and moving pianos that my wife does not have. This too is gender gift. My daughters relate to my wife in special ways that they cannot relate to me on account of gender gifts. How many women are operating at the highest echelon of mathematics in the world? Maybe -- maybe -- one. How many women were among the ranks of even second-tier composers of classical music? None. The closest would be Barbara Strozzi, but she does not cut the mustard. These things are not explainable solely because of "discrimination." It obviously has a hard-wired gender aspect. What would Mars be without Venus?
As for imprecatory prayer, there is simply too much of it in the New Testament for Keely to dismiss it as unbiblical: Mark 11:13-21, Galatians 1:8-9, Acts 13:10-11 (cf Deut. 28:28-29, and note that Paul "was filled with the Holy Ghost" when he did this, and note also the principle of lex talonis here), Acts 8:20-22, Revelation 6:10 (cf Rev. 16:5-6, 18:20,24, 19:1-2), and Revelation 15:3.
"Thy kingdom come" is necessarily a call for God to come in judgment of all the earth. Eternal salvation for God's people necessarily involves the eternal separation of God's people from God's enemies, and also a separation of God's people from our own besetting sins. That's why judgment begins from the house of God. And since we are aware of that fact, rather than simply praying to God that He might give "champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham friends," we pray that God would examine us and purge us of dross at every level from the individual to the global. We pray that God would separate the wheat from the tares, the fruit from the chaff, and the wood/hay/stubble from the gold/silver/jewels, so that ultimately, only universal joyous acknowledgment of Christ's Lordship would remain. In that sense, the imprecatory prayer is one part of a continuous, seamlessly integrated prayer life, and it cannot be eliminated without damaging everything else.
For more on the above see see Dr. John N. Day's dissertation published in Bibliotheca Sacra 159 (April-June 2002), "The Imprecatory Psalms and Christian Ethics" ( http://tinyurl.com/lj92z ).
Didn't know where to put this but I thought you might find this item by a CREC pastor intersting:
http://timgallant.org/2008/02/27/patriarchalism-etc/#more-18
DB,
So Wilson's defensive posture is dismissed as gentlemanlike?
He was defensive because his opponent was sharper than he, and because he was trying to assuage the town of Moscow.
If Keely wishes to debate a man about such key issues, that doesn't mean that her male opponent retreat into a thousand qualifications because she's a lady. The wine was a nice gesture, but from there out it's battle. Her calling him a blowhard was good stuff, and she backed it up so it's not name-calling or disrespect. Doug should have refuted the charged and returned fire. But we got a shield, and his usual stuttering oratory.
Con, I cawls 'em as I sieze 'em. In the audience of any debate will be two groups of people that have made up their minds about a lot of things and will not be persuaded otherwise. And then there is a third group of people who can be reached by either of the debaters. It is important to come across to the people in that latter group as reasonable. I think Rev. Wilson managed to do just that. Furthermore, it could be called a debate but it was really more like "Let's put Doug Wilson in the hot seat night." The discussion basically ranged over all the areas of concern that some people in the local community had concerning Doug Wilson, and I think that to a man all the callers were people infamously antagonistic to Doug Wilson. Under the circumstances I think the approach that Rev. Wilson took was appropriate. FWIW, YMMV, etc.
The only comment I want to make here is that the callers to the debate were not, "to a man," all "hostile" to Wilson. I would hope that DN is not condescendingly dismissing the calls of Wilson's two daughters, and he must have forgotten the call from the young man grilling me over David and Psalms. I think there was another, and some of the calls from the "liberal" side were hardly favorable to my or any other position.
Keely
Everything Keely said in her comment above is correct. I later realized that I had misspoken and was going to clarify but Keely beat me to it. However, even with those qualification I think the gist of what I wrote is correct. And, I might add, I thought the interaction between Rev. Wilson and Keely was overall extremely profitable and constructive.
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