[Vision2020] My Response to "Our Town"

[Nick Gier]

         Greetings:

I'm working on a repsonse to Melynda's insightful critique of the Virtue 
Project, but I wanted to post this first.     Nick Gier

         Our Town, a new documentary on America's cultural wars, had its 
premier in Moscow, Idaho on June 23. The newly refurbished Kenworthy 
Theatre was filled to capacity with an enthusiastic crowd of 340 people.
         Michael Hayes, an education professor from Washington State 
University, worked on the film for about 18 months, interviewing the 
principal players in the debate about Douglas Wilson's religious empire.
         Wilson is pastor of Moscow's 800-member Christ Church, which has 
mission churches across the country. Wilson trains the ministers for these 
new churches in a two- year program called Greyfriars. He also holds the 
franchise for 154 classical Christian schools, his own Logos School in 
Moscow being the model.
         In 1996 Wilson founded New St. Andrews College (NSA) in 1996, and 
it now enrolls 130 four-year students in a building in the heart of 
historic Moscow. He also runs Canon Press in the same building as 
Greyfriars and it grosses almost $1 million a year. Last year two Moscow 
residents challenged the tax exemptions on this building and the NSA site 
and they won their appeal.
         The controversy about Wilson exploded in October, 2003, when some 
students at the University of Idaho discovered Southern Slavery As It Was, 
a booklet published by Canon Press. Wilson co-authored the book with Steve 
Wilkins, a Monroe, Louisiana pastor and founding director of the League of 
the South, whose vision is new 15-state Confederacy ruled by Calvinist 
patriarchs.
         Details about Wilson's ties to the Neo-Confederates have been 
given in a previous column (link), so I would like to focus on what new I 
learned from Hayes' film.
         In rejecting the charge of racism, Wilson claimed that it was 
Christianity, not genes, that made a culture superior. He said that if 
Christianity had moved south instead of west, Africans would now be the 
most advanced people in the world.
         Wilson did not offer any evidence for this, but history appears to 
disconfirm this odd view. The culture of medieval Europe is Wilson's ideal 
world, but the rest of the civilized world--China, India, and the Islamic 
countries--were far more advanced than these Europeans. In fact, if it had 
not been Mongols bringing Asian goods and inventions and the Muslims 
preserving Greek philosophy and science, Europe would have remained stagnant.
         At Wilson's "history" conference in February, 2004, he and Wilkins 
were joined by George Grant, who has called for the stoning of homosexuals, 
and who has written this: "Christian politics has as its primary intent the 
conquest of the land--of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, 
courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the 
authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all 
legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations."
         In the film Wilson prophesied that the conquest of Christianity 
would hit secular culture like a tsunami hitting a folding chair on a 
beach. When Wilson encouraged Americans of all beliefs to replace the 
public schools with their own private schools, his tolerance for their 
short tenure does not appear to be much of a virtue. Wilson's tolerance was 
also pretty thin when a reporter asked him how he would react to a future 
Muslim mayor. His response implied no anxiety: that would be impossible 
when everyone is a Christian.
         Hayes' assistant had an opportunity to interview all three men 
together at the February conference. Wilkins was asked if he really 
believed that only propertied males should vote, and he answered "yes," 
while the other two nodded approvingly.
         Always the jokester, Wilson said that democracy was just like two 
coyotes and a sheep voting on what to eat for lunch. Wilson's "federal 
vision" for church and society is that husbands would vote for their wives, 
who would submit to them in all things.
         The three men were asked about slavery and Wilson answered for 
them. Wilson said that slavery is a sinful institution, but rebellion is 
just as sinful. Slaves who have Christian masters will at least be treated 
with love and respect. According to Wilson, sinful institutions will fade 
way naturally.
         In December, 2003, Wilson, to a direct question, refused to say 
whether he believed it was right for a person to own another. Wilson's is 
in a bind because he has always said that a Christian should never be 
ashamed of what the Bible says. The other problem is moral relativism: 
Wilson seems to be saying that biblical slavery was moral but immoral now.
         For pastors such as Wilson and Wilkins who believe in the absolute 
sovereignty of God, they should be the last ones to take divine judgment 
into their own hands. Only God chooses whether we are saved or damned, or 
whether all rebels are sinful.
         Wilson and Wilkins, however, are following in the footsteps of 
Jerry Falwell who once declared that God does not answer the prayers of 
Jews. Again this is surely for God alone to decide, not mere sinful 
mortals. We humanists are always condemned for preempting divine 
prerogatives, so what is going on here?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20050625/3cc28a70/attachment.htm