[Vision2020] John Guyer is there, too

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

Another Cary, NC/ Moscow link.  Remember John Guyer, erstwhile Moscow City 
Councilman and naysayer on Darwin and female breasts?  (I was always 
envious of him because I wanted my last name to be spelled as his 
is.)  Well, he is the only elder at Christ Church, Cary NC.  Does that mean 
that the only person they can trust in a position of church authority is a 
carpetbagger from Idaho?

Several people apparently have no problem with the position paper on 
teaching slavery at Cary Christian School that I posted recently.  Here is 
my response and the response of a former school supporter:

My beef with Wilson has always been an intellectual and scholarly one. 
Wilson cannot honestly defend the distinctions and positions that have made 
their way into this Position Statement. By the way, I don't think he is a 
racist and I've never called him one.

Wilson cannot defend the distinction between Hebrew and pagan slavery. In 
both slaves could, under certain conditions, win their freedom and under 
both slaves could, in some instances, be killed with impunity. Wilson 
wishes that he could say that Hebrew masters would never have had sex with 
their slaves, but that is dashed by Abraham bedding Hagar.

As far as revolution versus reformation, the coming of the Kingdom of God, 
as the Jews and early Christians saw it, was not a gradual reformation and 
those who believe in the Rapture today are pretty revolutionary in my 
book.  I suppose that Wilson & Co. would have been against the American 
Revolution, even though evangelicals such as he would have been on the yoke 
of an established Episcopalian Church.

And please note the equivocation and moral relativism on slavery. Is it 
wrong or is it right? If the Bible condones it, it must be OK. So why 
should a slave society reform? This was exactly the position of Souther 
slave owners. They saw themselves as good Christian masters, and they had 
no plans to give up their privileged positions of power.

I could go on, but this is pure Wilsonian sophistry--very clever but also 
very transparent.

One of the former supporters of the school has plenty to say about the 
statement and I have appended his response below. Also another teacher was 
called to the principal's office and told that she must read and teach 
Wilson's books in the classroom. She had presumably written up different 
lesson plans according to her own intentions.

Dear CCS, or Doug Wilson if you wrote this,

Thanks so much for your retraction of the book and clarifying your current 
position on topic of slavery. I do have a few comments and questions for 
further clarification.

Preamble:

This statement is intended to provide direction to any CCS schoolteacher 
who in the course of his or her duties at CCS is addressing the subject of 
slavery. In the course of directing class discussion, we would like the 
teachers to bring the students to the following conclusions.

Comment: I thought CCS wanted to expose students to various views of a 
topic to allow them to form their own conlcusions. What happened to that?

Purpose:

The students should be taught that the reason for studying this issue is to 
remain faithful to the teaching of scripture. By seeing how obedience to 
scripture could quite possibly have protected our fathers (both North and 
South) from a costly and bloody war, had they only obeyed, we may be 
assured of the importance of submitting to the scriptures when it comes to 
our controversies (e.g. abortion, homosexuality), whatever the unbelieving 
world may say about them.

Question: If slavery is acknowledged to be a sinful institution why do the 
students need to study a book that describes it in a positive light. What 
books are used to show the positive side of abortion, homosexuality and 
other such behaviors they find repulsive and sinful in the world?

Slave Trade:

Students should learn that the slave trade was an abomination, and that 
those evangelicals in England who led the fight against it are rightly 
considered heroes of the faith. The Bible clearly rejects the practice of 
slave trading (1 Timothy 1:10, Ex. 21:16). In a just social order, slave 
trading could rightly be punished with death.

Comment: Really, so Abraham Lincoln had nothing to do with it stopping it.

Hebrew Slavery and Pagan Slavery:

The students should recognize the difference between slavery regulated by 
the Mosaic Law, that is, a slavery that was little more than an indentured 
servant-hood, and slavery as it existed in a pagan empire such as Rome. In 
ancient Israel, it was the duty of those who feared God to simply obey the 
law as God gave it. But when the existing law was that of an unbelieving 
pagan order, it was the duty of Christians living within that system to 
follow biblical instructions carefully so that the Word of God would not be 
blasphemed (1 Timothy 6:1).

Question: What is the purpose of this distinction in the context of 
studying slavery? How does this relate to slavery as practiced in the 
United States? Did it follow the pagan or Hebrew model? How is such a 
sophisticated distinction related to middle school students?

Racism:

The students should know that as a matter of biblical principle, and as an 
integral part of our official school position, we denounce every form of 
racism, racial animosity or racial vainglory. God created man in His own 
image, and has made from one blood all the nations of the earth (Acts 
17:26). We believe firmly that in the gospel God has reversed the curse of 
Babel, and that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, 
slave or free, black or white, Asian or Hispanic (Galatians 3:28).

Comment: Unfortunate that this was not made clear before. Now people as far 
away as Southeast Asia on the other side of the world think Cary Christian 
School is a hot bed of racism and neo confederates.

Slavery as an Institution:

Christ died on the cross to set all men free from their sins, and all forms 
of external slavery build on the bedrock of slavery to sin. Therefore, the 
logic of the Great Commission requires the eventual death of slavery as an 
institution in every place where it might still exist. While Christian 
slaves were commanded to work hard for their masters, Christian slaves were 
also told to take any lawful opportunity for freedom (1 Cor. 7:20-24). This 
indicates that slavery as an institution is inconsistent with the 
fundamental spirit of the gospel, and as such it should be considered a 
sinful institution generally, one that invited the judgment of God.

Comment: Read the verse in Corinthians again. It does not say "seek any 
lawful opportunity for freedom". It just says: "if you can gain your 
freedom, do so".

Reformation or Revolution:

The godly pattern of social renewal is never revolution. The revolutionary 
insists on immediate action, through coercive, bloody, and political means. 
In contrast, the work of the gospel is done as silently as yeast working 
through the loaf, and the end result is liberation from sin, love for God, 
and love for one?s neighbor. This love for neighbor necessitates the 
recognition that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, 
male or female, white or black (Galatians 3:28). But those revolutionaries 
who are impatient in their spirits always refuse God?s teaching in such 
matters. They are proud and ignorant, loving verbal strife, envy, railing, 
and perverse disputes (1 Timothy 6: 3-5).

Comment: The Christian slave holders had over 200 years to reform and rid 
their society of slavery. Apparently God was not pleased with their slow 
progress and allowed a war to occur as result. Why don't you let this yeast 
work in you and drop this effort. Why do we hear the Slavery booklet will 
be reprinted and perhaps used again with proper footnotes etc. Are you 
kidding What is the point now?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20041215/bc00ec4c/attachment.htm