[Vision2020] Roy Atwood's Broken Record
Nick Gier
ngier@uidaho.edu
Sun, 07 Mar 2004 22:29:33 -0800
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Greetings:
In trying to respond to Roy Atwood's comments in this weekend Daily News, I
ended up writing a 1,700 word account of my history with Wilson & Co. If
you want to see my response to Atwood, just scroll to the end.
By the way, I've added new material to my review of Gibson's movie,
including a picture of the infamous church marquee in Denver and the
pastor's unrepentant response. Check it out at
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/madmax.htm.
THE WILSON CONTROVERSY: A PERSONAL HISTORY
Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
One day in 1975 a nice young man came up to me after a session of
my "Introduction to Philosophy." He introduced himself and asked me one
question: "Is it OK if I defend the faith in this class?" I answered a
fate-filled Yes, and thus began my history with Douglas Wilson. We had
friendly theology debates on a regular basis, in and out of the
classroom. He wrote a fairly respectable M.A. thesis on free will and then
took on his local ministry. He had defended the faith well and we only
hoped that he would use his degree responsibly. Sadly, this appears not to
have been the case.
THE ABORTION DEBATE OF 1983
In the early 1980s we team taught (along with two other people) a
course on 20th Century theology, and then we had a debate on abortion in
February of 1983. Canon Press may still have tapes of the debate, or
anyone can borrow my cassette. Wilson had a regular column in what was
then called "The Idahonian," and Wilson came out with a piece that listed
points that I tried to refute in the debate. (For the specifics see my
article at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/103/abortion.htm.) In a letter to
the editor, I cried foul, not because I could claim that my refutations
were sound; rather, because Wilson did not mention my responses at all. It
was at that point that I began to question Wilson's intellectual integrity
and honesty, and that has been my main point of criticism in the current
controversy.
2000 GUEST LECTURE AT NEW ST. ANDREWS
During the late 1980s and 1990s I had very little contact with
Wilson other than causal meetings in town and attending a debate that
Wilson had with an atheist. In the spring of 2000 Doug Jones invited me to
speak at New St. Andrews College (NSA), where I gave a lecture on
"Confucius and the Aesthetics of Virtue." My talk was well received and I
thought I handled myself well in the exchange afterwards. I challenged the
students to look at Christian virtue ethics, and I offered to help any
student who was willing to write a senior thesis on the topic. (I had
spent over 60 hours helping a NSA student write his thesis on Buddhism.) I
congratulated Wilson on the success of his new college and I received a
bottle of French wine for my efforts.
2003 REGIONAL MEETING OF THE AAR/SBL
In December of 2002 I sent an invitation to NSA dean Roy Atwood
for his faculty and students to participate in the regional meeting of the
American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature
(SBL). I had been elected AAR President and I was excited about bringing
the annual conference to Moscow for the first time. I was sorely
disappointed that no NSA faculty submitted papers, and no NSA students had
entered the student essay contest. I was even more disappointed when not a
single NSA faculty or students attended the conference. In my thirty years
with the conference, the host institution's neighbors were always actively
involved in the annual conference, primarily because there is no expensive
and time-consuming travel involved.
NSA ACCREDITATION
I wrote a letter to the editor about my disappointment about the
NSA no show, and I mentioned the fact that faculty participation at
academic conferences was a very important factor in a college's
accreditation. Roy Atwood answered that NSA had more important things to
do, and that NSA was already an accredited institution. After doing a
little research I discovered that NSA was only a "candidate" for
accreditation by the little known Transnational Association of Christian
Schools and Colleges. I alerted Atwood to my discovery and I allowed him
several months to make a public correction. He did not do so, and in a
letter to the editor I made the correction and also gave my own personal
accreditation report. It was during this e-mail exchange that Atwood said
that he would not communicate with me ever again, a promise that he has so
far kept. So much for his criticism that his critics do not want a genuine
exchange of views.
2003 DEBATE WITH FORREST CHURCH
For their annual debate Doug Jones invited the Rev. Forrest Church
of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City. In the run up to the
debate I received an e-mail with an URL about the Morton Street
Casino. Some of our Unitarian church members wondered whether it was a
good idea for our top minister to be debating Wilson considering these new
revelations. (I let the casino charge go, but I wondered why the local
newspaper had not done a story on it.) Rev. Church decided to go ahead with
the debate, whose topic was supposed to be the nature of the good
life. Even though Church was sincere in reaching out to establish common
ground with Jones, it was obvious that Jones was only interested in reading
his a prepared script in which Unitarian theology was unfairly and
unmercifully lambasted. Jones kept hammering away at a "hermit god," even
Church kept saying that was not his belief at all.
Many Palouse Unitarians thought that they had been taken for a bad
ride, so I responded by challenging Jones to the debate on the Trinity that
he really wanted to have with Church. I wrote up a 5,000-word response to
Jones (www.class.uidaho.edu/ ngier/trinity.htm), and he agreed to publish a
much briefer debate in Wilson's journal "Credenda Agenda." I gave him my
first 400-word statement in November, 2003 and I still have yet to see his
promised response.
THE SLAVERY BOOKLET
Several years back I had heard rumors that Wilson was involved
with the neo-Confederate movement, but I dismissed such talk as off-
the-wall comments. The discovery of the slavery booklet took me by
surprise, and the Wilson-Jones-Atwood response to this discovery was
shocking. Atwood's complaints in the "Daily News" (March 6) echo the
broken record that all three have been playing since the controversy
broke. Atwood claims that the critical response was nothing but nasty
comments and name calling, when in fact two UI historians wrote a detailed
critique of the booklet, showing how, for example, the slave narratives of
the 1930s were egregiously misused by the authors. Instead of giving a
scholarly response, Wilson & Co. attacked the professors and demanded that
they be disciplined and their article pulled from its website. Carefully
sifting through the documents available, Tom Hansen has documented the
attacks on the UI and posted many other relevant articles at
www.tomandrodna.com/ notonthepalouse.
I responded with three essays
(www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/slavepatge.htm), one of which Atwood said he
would read but never did. As a sign of his unwillingness to debate, Wilson
ceased all communication with me saying that I had become a "slanderer" and
in addition to being the same old "lefty." I sent him drafts of each of the
essays above so that he could correct them before I put them on Vision2020,
but I got no reply. I e-mailed him about his views on suffrage for women
but got no response. He did, however, write a bad faith response to Twelve
Articles for Repudiation that I put to him in early December, 2002. (See
www.class.uidaho.edu/ ngier/WilsonRepud.htm.) So I submit that Atwood has
it all reversed: the name calling, nasty comments, and refusal to respond
properly have come primarily from his side not the critics' side.
ROY ATWOOD'S CHARGES
Speaking of the critics, Atwood keeps calling them enemies of
evangelical Christians. The fact that many of Wilson's critics are former
church members and other evangelical and reformed Christians puts the lie
to this charge. (I know for a fact that several conservative Presbyterians
have asked both Wilson and his co-author Steve Wilkins to withdraw the
slavery booklet, but they have stubbornly refused.) I have written a book
critical of evangelical Christians (www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre.htm),
but I have nothing but praise for those evangelicals who do not make the
same mistakes that Wilson & Co. make. Furthermore, 40 percent of the
presentations at the Moscow AAR/SBL conference were from conservative
evangelical schools, whose representatives voted for me as president of the
conference.
In my responses I refrained from name calling, while others did say
that Wilson is a "racist" and worse. I accept Wilson's disavowal of racism
just as I accept Mel Gibson's protestations that he is not anti-Jewish.
(See my critique of the movie at www.class.uidaho.edu/ ngier/madmax.htm.)
Nevertheless, Wilson's defense of Southern racial slavery is just as
hurtful to African Americans as Gibson's movie is to Jews.
Steve Wilkins is a founding director of the League of the South, a
neo-Confederate organization labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty
Law Center. Since 1998, the League has had close ties with the
32,000-member Sons of Confederate Veterans, who in 2000 elected Kirk Lyons
to its national executive board. An outspoken racist, Lyons was married by
neo-Nazi Richard Butler in 1990, when Butler still had his compound in
Hayden Lake. The League and the Sons of Confederate Veterans organize
public protests with the Council of Conservative Citizens whose website
decries "negroes, queers and other retrograde species of humanity." (Try
replacing the "Cs" in their acronym with "Ks"!) One League leader said
that we "need a new type of Klan."
While others on both sides have aimed too many hits below the belt,
I've tried to keep my remarks aimed at the heart and mind. I do admit that
my goal is to discredit Wilson, because I believe that the type of religion
he espouses is dangerous and destructive. (I have found chilling parallels
between Islamic and Christian fundamentalism at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/
parallels.htm.) I have fought religious fundamentalism all my life and
this movement does not deserve our respect or tolerance, but it requires
our strongest condemnation.
I must respond to Atwood's incredible statements about the
atmosphere at the University of Idaho. Was he quoted correctly when he
charged that multiculturalists there "wanted him to deny Christianity as
the only valid religion"? If this is true, can Atwood name any
administrator who told him to do this? Since when does a statement of
faith become a requirement to teach at a public university? Does Atwood
also think that UI faculty and students are responsible for the vandalism
done against NSA's property? Will he apologize to the Moscow police chief
for distorting his comments about whom the chief thought was responsible?
As far as healing the community is concerned, my friend Jim Weddell
had the best advice in a letter to the editor. He had grown up in the South
hating the Yankees and hearing the story that the war had been forced his
unwilling compatriots. But later he learned that the story was a lie, and
that he was truly sorry for his former beliefs. He asked Wilson to repent
his neo-Confederate sins and to apologize to those he harmed by his
intemperate words. Wilson could have saved himself, his church, and his
community a lot of trouble. But so far there does not seem to be any
movement away from celebrating Robert E. Lee's birthday at Logos School, or
changing the curriculum at hundreds of Wilson's Christian schools where
history is taught according to the standards of Wilson's and Wilkins's
"Southern Slavery As It Was."
--Boundary_(ID_W0UK4xDhGV08KZ/LN3YFzg)
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<font face=3D"Courier New, Courier" size=3D1>Greetings:<br><br>
In trying to respond to Roy Atwood's comments in this weekend Daily News,
I ended up writing a 1,700 word account of my history with Wilson &
Co. If you want to see my response to Atwood, just scroll to the
end.<br><br>
By the way, I've added new material to my review of Gibson's movie,
including a picture of the infamous church marquee in Denver and the
pastor's unrepentant response. Check it out at
<a href=3D"http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/madmax.htm" eudora=3D"autourl">=
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/madmax.htm</a>.
<br><br>
THE WILSON CONTROVERSY: A PERSONAL HISTORY<br>
Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus<br>
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>One day in
1975 a nice young man came up to me after a session of my =93Introduction
to Philosophy.=94 He introduced himself and asked me one question:
=93Is it OK if I defend the faith in this class?=94 I answered a
fate-filled Yes, and thus began my history with Douglas Wilson. We
had friendly theology debates on a regular basis, in and out of the
classroom. He wrote a fairly respectable M.A. thesis on free will
and then took on his local ministry. He had defended the faith well
and we only hoped that he would use his degree responsibly. Sadly, this
appears not to have been the case. <br><br>
THE ABORTION DEBATE OF 1983<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In the
early 1980s we team taught (along with two other people) a course on 20th
Century theology, and then we had a debate on abortion in February of
1983. Canon Press may still have tapes of the debate, or anyone can
borrow my cassette. Wilson had a regular column in what was then
called =93The Idahonian,=94 and Wilson came out with a piece that listed
points that I tried to refute in the debate. (For the specifics see
my article at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/103/abortion.htm.) In a
letter to the editor, I cried foul, not because I could claim that my
refutations were sound; rather, because Wilson did not mention my
responses at all. It was at that point that I began to question
Wilson=92s intellectual integrity and honesty, and that has been my main
point of criticism in the current controversy.<br><br>
2000 GUEST LECTURE AT NEW ST. ANDREWS<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>During the
late 1980s and 1990s I had very little contact with Wilson other than
causal meetings in town and attending a debate that Wilson had with an
atheist. In the spring of 2000 Doug Jones invited me to speak at
New St. Andrews College (NSA), where I gave a lecture on =93Confucius and
the Aesthetics of Virtue.=94 My talk was well received and I thought
I handled myself well in the exchange afterwards. I challenged the
students to look at Christian virtue ethics, and I offered to help any
student who was willing to write a senior thesis on the topic. (I
had spent over 60 hours helping a NSA student write his thesis on
Buddhism.) I congratulated Wilson on the success of his new college
and I received a bottle of French wine for my efforts.<br><br>
2003 REGIONAL MEETING OF THE AAR/SBL <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In
December of 2002 I sent an invitation to NSA dean Roy Atwood for his
faculty and students to participate in the regional meeting of the
American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature
(SBL). I had been elected AAR President and I was excited about
bringing the annual conference to Moscow for the first time. I was
sorely disappointed that no NSA faculty submitted papers, and no NSA
students had entered the student essay contest. I was even more
disappointed when not a single NSA faculty or students attended the
conference. In my thirty years with the conference, the host
institution=92s neighbors were always actively involved in the annual
conference, primarily because there is no expensive and time-consuming
travel involved.<br><br>
NSA ACCREDITATION<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I wrote a
letter to the editor about my disappointment about the NSA no show, and I
mentioned the fact that faculty participation at academic conferences was
a very important factor in a college=92s accreditation. Roy Atwood
answered that NSA had more important things to do, and that NSA was
already an accredited institution. After doing a little research I
discovered that NSA was only a =93candidate=94 for accreditation by the
little known Transnational Association of Christian Schools and
Colleges. I alerted Atwood to my discovery and I allowed him
several months to make a public correction. He did not do so, and
in a letter to the editor I made the correction and also gave my own
personal accreditation report. It was during this e-mail exchange
that Atwood said that he would not communicate with me ever again, a
promise that he has so far kept. So much for his criticism that his
critics do not want a genuine exchange of views.<br><br>
2003 DEBATE WITH FORREST CHURCH<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>For their
annual debate Doug Jones invited the Rev. Forrest Church of All Souls
Unitarian Church in New York City. In the run up to the debate I
received an e-mail with an URL about the Morton Street Casino. Some
of our Unitarian church members wondered whether it was a good idea for
our top minister to be debating Wilson considering these new
revelations. (I let the casino charge go, but I wondered why the
local newspaper had not done a story on it.) Rev. Church decided to go
ahead with the debate, whose topic was supposed to be the nature of the
good life. Even though Church was sincere in reaching out to
establish common ground with Jones, it was obvious that Jones was only
interested in reading his a prepared script in which Unitarian theology
was unfairly and unmercifully lambasted. Jones kept hammering away
at a =93hermit god,=94 even Church kept saying that was not his belief at
all.<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Many
Palouse Unitarians thought that they had been taken for a bad ride, so I
responded by challenging Jones to the debate on the Trinity that he
really wanted to have with Church. I wrote up a 5,000-word response
to Jones
(<a href=3D"http://www.class.uidaho.edu/%20ngier/trinity.htm" eudora=3D"auto=
url">www.class.uidaho.edu/
ngier/trinity.htm</a>), and he agreed to publish a much briefer debate in
Wilson=92s journal =93Credenda Agenda.=94 I gave him my first 400-word
statement in November, 2003 and I still have yet to see his promised
response.<br><br>
THE SLAVERY BOOKLET<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Several
years back I had heard rumors that Wilson was involved with the
neo-Confederate movement, but I dismissed such talk as off- the-wall
comments. The discovery of the slavery booklet took me by surprise, and
the Wilson-Jones-Atwood response to this discovery was shocking.
Atwood=92s complaints in the =93Daily News=94 (March 6) echo the broken reco=
rd
that all three have been playing since the controversy broke.
Atwood claims that the critical response was nothing but nasty comments
and name calling, when in fact two UI historians wrote a detailed
critique of the booklet, showing how, for example, the slave narratives
of the 1930s were egregiously misused by the authors. Instead of giving a
scholarly response, Wilson & Co. attacked the professors and demanded
that they be disciplined and their article pulled from its website.
Carefully sifting through the documents available, Tom Hansen has
documented the attacks on the UI and posted many other relevant articles
at
<a href=3D"http://www.tomandrodna.com/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.tomandrodna.c=
om/</a>
notonthepalouse.<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I responded=
with three essays (<a=
href=3D"http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/slavepatge.htm"=
eudora=3D"autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/slavepatge.htm</a>), one of=
which Atwood said he would read but never did. As a sign of his=
unwillingness to debate, Wilson ceased all communication with me saying=
that I had become a =93slanderer=94 and in addition to being the same old=
=93lefty.=94 I sent him drafts of each of the essays above so that he could=
correct them before I put them on Vision2020, but I got no reply. I=
e-mailed him about his views on suffrage for women but got no response. He=
did, however, write a bad faith response to Twelve Articles for Repudiation=
that I put to him in early December, 2002. (See www.class.uidaho.edu/=
ngier/WilsonRepud.htm.) So I submit that Atwood has it all reversed:=
the name calling, nasty comments, and refusal to respond properly have come=
primarily from his side not the critics=92 side.<br><br>
ROY ATWOOD=92S CHARGES<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Speaking of=
the critics, Atwood keeps calling them enemies of evangelical=
Christians. The fact that many of Wilson=92s critics are former=
church members and other evangelical and reformed Christians puts the lie=
to this charge. (I know for a fact that several conservative=
Presbyterians have asked both Wilson and his co-author Steve Wilkins to=
withdraw the slavery booklet, but they have stubbornly refused.) I have=
written a book critical of evangelical Christians (<a=
href=3D"http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre.htm"=
eudora=3D"autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre.htm</a>), but I have=
nothing but praise for those evangelicals who do not make the same mistakes=
that Wilson & Co. make. Furthermore, 40 percent of the=
presentations at the Moscow AAR/SBL conference were from conservative=
evangelical schools, whose representatives voted for me as president of the=
conference.<br><br>
In my responses I refrained from name=
calling, while others did say that Wilson is a =93racist=94 and=
worse. I accept Wilson=92s disavowal of racism just as I accept Mel=
Gibson=92s protestations that he is not anti-Jewish. (See my critique of=
the movie at www.class.uidaho.edu/ ngier/madmax.htm.) Nevertheless,=
Wilson=92s defense of Southern racial slavery is just as hurtful to African=
Americans as Gibson=92s movie is to Jews. <br><br>
Steve Wilkins is a founding director of=
the League of the South, a neo-Confederate organization labeled a hate=
group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Since 1998, the League has=
had close ties with the 32,000-member Sons of Confederate Veterans, who in=
2000 elected Kirk Lyons to its national executive board. An outspoken=
racist, Lyons was married by neo-Nazi Richard Butler in 1990, when Butler=
still had his compound in Hayden Lake. The League and the Sons of=
Confederate Veterans organize public protests with the Council of=
Conservative Citizens whose website decries "negroes, queers and other=
retrograde species of humanity." (Try replacing the =93Cs=94 in their=
acronym with =93Ks=94!) One League leader said that we =93need a new=
type of Klan.=94<br>
<br>
While others on both sides have aimed=
too many hits below the belt, I=92ve tried to keep my remarks aimed at the=
heart and mind. I do admit that my goal is to discredit Wilson, because I=
believe that the type of religion he espouses is dangerous and=
destructive. (I have found chilling parallels between Islamic and=
Christian fundamentalism at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/=
parallels.htm.) I have fought religious fundamentalism all my life=
and this movement does not deserve our respect or tolerance, but it=
requires our strongest condemnation.<br>
<br>
I must respond to Atwood=92s incredible=
statements about the atmosphere at the University of Idaho. Was he=
quoted correctly when he charged that multiculturalists there =93wanted him=
to deny Christianity as the only valid religion=94? If this is true,=
can Atwood name any administrator who told him to do this? Since when=
does a statement of faith become a requirement to teach at a public=
university? Does Atwood also think that UI faculty and students are=
responsible for the vandalism done against NSA=92s property? Will he=
apologize to the Moscow police chief for distorting his comments about whom=
the chief thought was responsible?<br>
<br>
As far as healing the community is=
concerned, my friend Jim Weddell had the best advice in a letter to the=
editor. He had grown up in the South hating the Yankees and hearing the=
story that the war had been forced his unwilling compatriots. But=
later he learned that the story was a lie, and that he was truly sorry for=
his former beliefs. He asked Wilson to repent his neo-Confederate=
sins and to apologize to those he harmed by his intemperate words. =
Wilson could have saved himself, his church, and his community a lot of=
trouble. But so far there does not seem to be any movement away from=
celebrating Robert E. Lee=92s birthday at Logos School, or changing the=
curriculum at hundreds of Wilson=92s Christian schools where history is=
taught according to the standards of Wilson=92s and Wilkins=92s =93Southern=
Slavery As It Was.=94<br><br>
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--Boundary_(ID_W0UK4xDhGV08KZ/LN3YFzg)--