[Vision2020] The Trouble With Doug, or Theocratic Park III

[g. crabtree]

Michael, your characterization of me seems a little harsh. In the very few exchanges we have had via e-mail you did not provide much by way of evidence to bring me around to your way of thinking. When we stood face to face and I tried to broach this subject you didn't rise to the topic. In our last communication you stated that you "really didn't care to get into any discussions with me" I took this to be a subtle indication to mind my own business. To intimate that I am a jeering, insensitive brute for not seeing things your way is more then a bit puzzling. All that considered to imply that it doesn't matter what the ignorant locals think and that federal law enforcement will soon be taking the matter in hand is the stuff of black helicopters and tin foil fedoras. Having a difference with your pastor is one thing but to imagine that this little tempest in a teapot might play out on a national stage is a bit overwrought. You seem like an OK regular guy when it comes to unrelated topics, tell me I've got this all wrong. It won't be the first time.

Regards,
G. Crabtree
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Michael 
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 2:03 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] The Trouble With Doug, or Theocratic Park III


  Joan,

   

  Thanks for the summary.  After a Grayfriar student who was member of Christ Church for many years and loyal defender of Doug Wilson for a decade says "accurately stated," I wouldn't let those who still want to baulk bother you. As I'm learning the hard way, there are some folks who are just not gonna listen.  Rhetoric, argument, evidence, story, pleading, tears, or whatever, mean about as much as a jeer for some: particularly for those who are used to substituting argument for jeers themselves (but I should note that crabtree is the only non-kirker I haven't been able to yet convince, to my knowledge).  Of course, Wilsonistas are interesting on a national front, so ultimately I think it is fine if it all passes by some locals.  If the Kirk is able to keep notching up the strange combination of an unanchored theonomy, the ad hoc theology of the local Enemy, imprecatory prayers, the cultish inability for kirkers to think when their leader is criticized, an elitist school, Wilson's "I'm Jesus" epistemology, and a sanctified practice of serrated insult (against believers, non-believers, ex-members, churches, city counsel members, you name it) I'd imagine that some interested parties will soon be the FBI and the CIA.  

   

  I've heard from a couple different sources that Dr. Atwood is starting to use the legal threat stuff.  If so, I'd like to be the first Moscow local to say (member in good standing at Christ Church): come and get me.  I can't find a better reason to go to jail than the joy of confronting arrogant religious leaders. I think Jesus felt the same way.

   

  Blessings,

  Michael Metzler

   

   

   

   

  Would someone mind walking down a long, dark tunnel and turning on the generators?  There are dinosaurs out there, but you can take a shotgun with you.  Not that it will be much good against enormous man-eating raptors, but you're brave, aren't you?  Well, aren't you?

   

  Pat Kraut, G. Crabtree, and Donovan Arnold all begin their defenses of Doug by insisting that he is the victim of mass religious persecution.  

  In order to believe this, they must assume, without evidence, three

  things:

   

  1. That opposition to Doug Wilson is completely and wholly theologically based.  Because his religious beliefs seem sexist, racist, and homophobic to Moscow's "liberals," some amorphous "we" are out to get him.  But "we" are not out to get the Pope, who speaks sexism and homophobia into power ex cathedra.  Funny, that.  Also, the Catholic Church has 300 million members; Doug has between 850 and 1200. 

    Are "we" starting small before "we" go global sometime in the future?  

  (I don't know.  I've missed several Liberal Conspiracy meetings, but I'll have a word with Sinead O'Connor and get back to you.)

   

  2. PK, GC, and DA assume that Christ Church is just another mainstream church; that it is no different in theology and practice than the aforementioned Catholics, or the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Mormons, or the Baptists (Southern, American, Independent, and Free Will).  G. Crabtree's line is, "If you don't like what Doug is preaching, then pack up your Bibles and leave."  Oddly enough, I used to say this myself.  I used to believe it, until I learned better.  The first time a shunned and spiritually-battered Kirker weeps on your sofa, you might dismiss it as an anomaly.  But what about the second, third, fourth or fifth?  I see that as a pattern.  And -- unlike PK, GC, and DA -- I've taken the time and trouble (oh, what a load of

  trouble) to actually read Doug's massive assortment of writings.  Log onto www.credenda.org, read all of it, and then get back to me.  We'll talk.

   

  3. PK, GC, and DA either choose to ignore Doug's well-publicized political agenda or they don't believe it exists.  This, I fear, is willful ignorance.  They might pick up a copy of "My Town" from the Moscow Public Library -- a film Doug Wilson, Roy Atwood, Ben Merkle, etc., cooperated with wholeheartedly -- and spend the hour and five minutes watching it.  The film as made by WSU professor Michael Hayes.  

  It was not made for profit but for educational purposes, and it is not a hatchet-job on Wilson and company.  They speak for themselves in the film without critical commentary.  (Donovan's assertion that someone, somewhere is making money off this film is false, and I suggest he knock it off before I go "Atwood" on him and threaten him with my "crack legal team."  Crack.  Legal.  Team.  Crack.  Legal.  Crack.  

  Mostly crack.)

   

  Three assumptions, all incorrect.  There is no Liberal Conspiracy.  I tried to get one together, but the Vegans wouldn't meet me at Mikey's.  

  Go figure.  Someone must have told them that "Opyr" is Ukrainian for vampire.  (It is, you know.)  Here's how things stand, at least on Vision 2020.  Keely Emerine-Mix objects to Doug Wilson's use and abuse of the gospel.  So, too, I believe, does J. Ford.  Why?  Because they believe in the gospel; they believe in Jesus Christ.  It hurts them to see Doug swinging their savior about like a battle-axe.  Wayne Fox, Nick Gier, and Ralph Nielsen are not defending the gospel, as such, by objecting to Doug Wilson's actions and interpretations.  Ralph, I know, is an atheist in good standing.  He doesn't defend the gospel as the gospel; he defends ancient documents from mistranslation, misinterpretation, and sheer bloody-minded ignorance.  People who don't know the difference between a version and a translation get on Ralph's last nerve, as they do mine.

   

  Second, Christ Church is not a church like any other, at least not on the Palouse.  In the wider world, it's not unique.  It has theocratic kinfolk across the United States -- a sister church in Monroe, Louisiana, run by Doug's good buddy and co-founder of the racist League of the South, Steve Wilkins.  Doug has plant churches in Cary, NC, Spokane, WA, and other places.  That's why he has a seminary, Grayfriars -- to spread his church far and wide via his very own trained ministry.  As Doug is not himself a trained minister, this strikes many as wild hubris, but you don't need to be ordained to pastor.  I believe that, as I know do Keely and Rose and Melynda (the latter two, as Quakers, don't believe in "hireling priests," period).

   

  What's going on in Christ Church right now?  What about Michael Metzler's blog, Poohsthink.com, doesn't G. Crabtree understand?  Where to begin?  I expect that R. C. Sproul, Jr., a big wheel in the Christian Reformed world, will soon be joining Doug's presbytery.  

  Sproul has been tossed from his own presbytery (and de-frocked) for admitting to shunning, spiritual abuse, using a fake tax i.d., my goodness how the list goes on.  (Doug has been defending R. C. Sproul on his blog, http://dougwils.com, by declaring that self-incrimination is not Biblical, ergo, R. C. is innocent?  Or at least not proven guilty?  It's so incredibly goofy, it's hard to follow.  I like to think of it as the "R. C. and a Moon Pie" defense.)  In the meantime, Doug continues his own practice of shunning, of threats, and of generally unkind and perhaps unGodly behavior.  There's nothing new there; nothing new at all.

   

  Ever been shunned, Pat, Gary, Donovan?  Ever had friends of a decade stop speaking to you on pastor's orders?  Had those friends' wives stop speaking to your wife, or those friends' kids stop playing with your kids?  I understand it's very painful -- and, if the shunning doesn't work, the dramatic fall-off in your business often does.  Say you run a little home business, and you've been listed for years in the church directory.  You're now de-listed, and the calls for plumbing or house-painting or carpet-laying or computer repair stop coming.  You've lost your friends, your money, and your covenantal relationship with your God, all for asking a few inconvenient questions.  Many churches shun.  The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example.  It's cruel but effective; it keeps the doubters in line, long after they should have -- by all reason and Gary's lights -- packed up and moved on.

   

  Doug chose to establish his church in Moscow because it was "strategic," and that's not my word; it's his.  As he extends his spiritual/business disciplinary techniques out into the broader community -- as we begin to see organized campaigns of shunning and threats to employment -- it'll be interesting to see who remains willfully blind and for how long.  As long as Doug and his flunkies are nice to them personally, it might be forever, eh, Donovan?  As long as they keep offering up those encouraging pats on the back?  As long as no one you know is personally targeted, G. Crabtree?  As long as all goes well for Pat in Pat's World?  (Pat's World is like Wayne's World, only instead of Garth and Tia Carerra, there's Dick Cheney with a mullet and George W. Bush in a thong.)

   

  Now, I'll sit back and wait for the Crack Legal Team to come get me.  

  That'll be Greg Dickison, right?  I won't even bother to go outside.  I believe my border collie, Fergus, can handle him.  Or I might send my Scottish terrier, Davey; he's only a little dog, but he whacks at the voles like no one's business.  Grrrrr.

   

  Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

  www.joanopyr.com

   

  PS: For those of you who were speculating about where I am on the Political Compass, I'm sitting on the bushy beard of Peter Kropotkin.  

  I'm to the right of Mahatma Gandhi, but very much to the left of Emma Goldman and Noam Chomsky.  Who knew?



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