[Vision2020] Aaaaaa! Slavery!

[Douglas]

Visionaries,

>Below please find a response to this morning's article on slavery.
>
>Cordially,
>
>Douglas Wilson
>
>
>Your "Slavery Revisted" article in this last weekend edition unfortunately 
>requires some response. First, the commendation: the article was objective 
>in that it contained statements (from me, at any rate) that accurately 
>stated my position, and that denied the ludicrous charges of racism 
>against me. As a "did too/did not" article, the thing was fair enough.
>
>But at the same time, the impression left by the mere fact of the article 
>is still troubling. Your average reader could be left thinking that whether
>Wilson is a racist or not is a matter of legitimately disputed opinion. He 
>somehow thinks he is not, but the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) takes 
>a different view. By the way, I prefer to call that organization MDPB 
>(Morris Dees' Piggy Bank). But let's take this out of the "did too/did 
>not" realm. I would like to mention a few things that show this is not a 
>matter of opinion at all. The question before us is actually a matter of 
>fact, which can be readily  determined by a number of items, many of which 
>were supplied to this newspaper before the article ran.
>
>The article did not mention the booklet we published another booklet 
>alongside Southern Slavery: As It Was, a booklet entitled The Biblical 
>Offense of Racism. The article did not mention that Christ Church is a 
>multi-racial congregation. The article did not mention that we have 
>multi-racial families in our congregation. The article did not mention 
>that Steve Wilkin's congregation is integrated. The article did not 
>mention the public printed debate that I had with a white separatist, in 
>which I argued that Moses married a black woman (Num. 12:1), and that the 
>church in Antioch had a mixed race leadership (Acts 13:1). The article did 
>not mention our published attacks on racism in our magazine Credenda 
>Agenda. The article did not mention that one of our elders (part of our 
>governing board) lives in the Ivory Coast, and that our church funded and 
>built a community center for the Bakwe people there. The article did not 
>mention that our elders have determined that 10 percent of all the money 
>raised for our church's building fund is committed to capital expenditures 
>overseas, most likely among the Bakwe. The community center there was 
>funded by this means. The article did not mention that our church has a 
>ministerial training hall, and that one of my ministerial students is a 
>black man who came here to train for the ministry.
>
>I grew up in a segregated town in the South, and when the Supreme Court 
>struck down the separate but equal nonsense, I attended school in a 
>racially charged situation, and my sister was one of one or two other 
>white children in her entire elementary school. This was because we 
>refused to participate in the "white flight" to private education. There 
>are many good arguments for private education, but racism is not one of 
>them. It is a point of honor that our household had nothing to do with 
>such racism when it would have been easy to give way to it. I honor my 
>father (Jim Wilson) particularly for how he taught us as children during 
>that time.
>
>So, for the record (again!), racism is a sin. Because I am not an ethical 
>relativist, it is not an "it all depends" kind of sin. God hates it, and 
>will judge it along  with all other sins on the last day. Because God 
>hates it, so do I. Racial animosity and the more (superficially) benign 
>racial vainglory are both loathsome. God created from one blood every 
>nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26). This 
>means that we are all cousins, all of us created in the image of God. I 
>say "created" as a convinced creationist, and as one who wants nothing to 
>do with the racialist implications of the theory of evolution. If 
>evolution is true (which it isn't), and if evolutionary progress is a 
>coherent concept (which it isn't either), then how is it possible to 
>escape the implication that one race of men can progress faster (depending 
>on environment) than another race? That is what Darwin taught, but if you 
>are looking for an institution that teaches both premise one and premise 
>two, you will have to look at places like the University of Idaho, and not 
>at any educational institution that I have anything to do with.
>
>In short, I am willing to place our record on race relations (and our 
>lived-out racial mix) against any local so-called progressive group. If 
>you really
>want an example of Little Norway you will not be able to come to Christ 
>Church for it. Why not look instead at the candidates for city council
>endorsed by the Moscow Civic Association? I am afraid that there are many 
>who would be cheered up considerably if I were a racist, and they would 
>really, really, really like it to be true. But alas, it is not. And so my 
>counsel to them is to go yell up a different rain spout.
>
>Anyone who is interested is certainly welcome to register for this year's 
>history conference, and registration forms are available from Christ 
>Church. As you are filling it out, you may notice that there is no little 
>box to check for your racial or ethnic background. You see, we don't care. 
>Can the same be said by those registering for classes at the UI?
>
>Oh, and by the way, in response to a column of a few weeks back, we are 
>not interested in burning people at the stake in Friendship Square. Sheesh.
>
>