[Vision2020] Pat Kraut, area churches, and teachings about homosexuality

[joekc at adelphia.net]

Dear Phil,

No one that I know would compare the evils of CC/NSA with the evils of the folks you note below. Some have made analogies between CC/NSA and the folks noted below but these same folks know well the difference between persecution and stoning, between defending the institution of slavery and actually holding someone hostage. I’m not sure to whom your lesson is directed, though I admit that much of what you say below is true and it is a service to remind folks of those atrocities, least we grow lazy and forget.

Given recent comments by you and Pat, I feel a need to clarify a few things.

I think it is important to separate three things. First, there are the various violations of zoning laws and tax codes that are committed by the CC/NSA group. Second, there is their particular set of theological beliefs. Third, there is the arrogant propensity of some — not all — members of the group (Wilson and Iverson are two such folks) to inflict their (let’s say) ‘different’ (mis)understandings of a holy text onto the rest of us. I have commented on all of these matters but I try hard to keep them separate. I have commented on the third matter as a proponent of Mill’s liberal theory of law, on the second matter as a philosopher and Christian, and on the third matter as a somewhat informed citizen. Sometimes I think that the second and third matter is all a smokescreen to hide the first matter. I think this especially when I see intelligent folks like you and Pat and Gary falling for their PR slant of being the persecuted ones, supposing that all that was at issue was the second matter.

The three matters above are connected in at least one way. Some — not all — members of the CC/NSA group (Wilson and Iverson, in particular) have an utter distain for the law. This fact is a result of the second matter but manifested in the first and third matters. You don’t have to believe me. Just go to your favorite Doug Wilson website and plug in ‘law’ in the search engine. Or read the Ed Iverson column in the DN where he repeats over and over again “the law is an ass.” I don’t know about you but folks who have a documented history of violating the law and a brazen disrespect for it scare me.

Lastly, I do think that both you and Pat underestimate what I consider to be the evil of Doug Wilson. Part of it is that you focus on the second matter, completely forgetting about the third one. It is one thing to believe — as Pat apparently does — that the Bible ‘says’ that ‘homosexuality’ is wrong. I would dispute that (not that you couldn’t find supporting words for the claim, but that those words best convey Christ’s message). Here we are back to the second matter, a disagreement about interpretation of a holy text. But interpretation is one thing. If the CC/NSA crowd did nothing more than collect bizarre religious views (forgetting, of course about the first matter) I would ignore them completely. I myself have a collection of bizarre religious beliefs, so I see no harm in this. BELIEF is one thing; ACTION is another. Once those beliefs are manifested in some actish fashion — whether it is in the form of changing Moscow’s laws about proper dress or speaking out in an offensive and repulsive way — I feel it is my right, in fact my obligation, to respond. 

Many of the folks in my own church believe that ‘homosexuality’ is wrong and I get along with all of them just fine. What they do not do is continually write and say offensive things about gays and lesbians. Of course, people have a right to express their beliefs. But no one has a right to be deliberately offensive and those that choose to express their beliefs had better recognize my right to rebut them.

For more on the evil of Doug Wilson you might check out poohsthink.com and note that our own Michael Metzler is about to be excommunicated from CC. What was his sin? Openly disagreeing with Doug Wilson. I won’t say that CC is a cult. That would be offensive to the members of that church, most of whom I do not know and many of whom seem to be to be wonderful, intelligent people. I will say that Doug Wilson often acts as if he was the leader of a cult and that concerns me. 

Best, Joe Campbell

---- Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com> wrote: 

=============
Joan and Pat

I know that that is not the case for you and Rose and several others, Joan, 
but there are folks who really do attack almost anybody with a religious 
faith, some of whom post here.  Pat is sincere in her concerns.

Pat, Joan and Rose and a number of other people who post here are not 
whistling Dixie when they say that their problem is with the outside of 
church actions of some groups.

The post I made with regard to the subject was intended to ask those who say 
that religion is an evil and a blight, why are they confining their attacks 
to what some of them have referred to as the “Hebraic G-d"?  Jews and 
Christians are not stoning people to death any more, for all the grumbling 
of some.

Both of you are compassionate people and I find it hard to believe that 
either of you would like to see public stoning, mutilation or any of that 
sort of justice here.  I know that Joan is as outraged as any with the kinds 
of actions that are occurring in the pure Islamic Religious States and from 
previous posts she has included that in her ire.

I previously posted an article about a 16 year old girl who was hung by the 
neck until dead at the end of a construction boom for promiscuity in Iran.  
Not one of the guys who slept with her got the rope.

I have seen very westernly dressed exchange students at Winco, come in one 
day with friends and load up on beer and the next day they are into the 
store with the little lady, who is covered from head to toe with only eyes 
showing walking dutifully behind him.

In Indonesia, Christians, Jews and Buddhists are routinely set upon by 
crowds of fanatics and hacked to death.

The central government in Sudan, an Islamic law nation, has murdered close 
to 250,000 non-Moslems in a very planned genocide in Dafur.

So, yes there is a culture war out there, but its not the minor skirmish 
happening in Moscow Idaho.  The extremist wing of Islam really does want to 
convert the world at the edge of the sword and they feel perfectly justified 
in doing so.  They make the Aryan Nations look like the boy scouts and 
unlike the weird skin head types, not many of us know enough about these 
guys to tell them from a red, white and blue American Moslem.

If we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow morning, we are still going to be in a war 
with Islamic Extremism.  We of the Western World, with our toleration and 
cultural diversity and religious freedoms are anathema to these guys.  What 
we stand for they do not want and they also do not want us as anything but 
second class citizens under their own Islamic Laws.

Write the wrong cartoon, or book or spoof and regardless of where you are, 
they can and will target you.  They imposed a death sentence on a well known 
film director in the Netherlands, rioted to keep a production of a play 
against honor killings from being shown in England and just threatened 
bombing of a Danish newspaper for the cartoon mentioned.  So this is not 
some problem in some distant corner of the world that we can seal ourselves 
off from.  People are being killed in the Philippines, in Thailand, in 
Indonesia, in Sri Lanka, in Africa and in one heck of a lot of the rest of 
the world so that this group can impose its beliefs on the globe.

I guess I have to ask all of you who post here, what’s more important, the 
battles and quibbles we fight over at the margins here or trying to see that 
Islamic Extremism does not prevail?  Have any of you figured out yet that 
our warring with each other simply frees these fanatics to pick us all off?

Phil Nisbet

PS  This is not an indictment of the general Islamic community, because the 
majority of moslems are indeed peace loving folks.  The problem is that the 
fanatic arms of their religion make up a block of close to 100,000,000 who 
are not peace loving.  Appeasement ala Chamberlian in Muncih is no answer, 
because just as in 1938, the real war will end up on our doorstep.