[Vision2020] The Keely Mix/Doug Wilson Debate

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

I'm busy writing my commentary on the U.S. and Torture (Preliminary title "Beheadings, Hoodings, and Water Boarding: CIA Torture from Vietnam to Gitmo"), but I wanted to take a moment to give my initial response to the Wilson-Mix debate.

I've met a lot of people over the years that I consider to be the embodiment of the teachings of Jesus, and Keely is up there among the true Christians that I've had the pleasure of knowing.  It should come to no surprise to those on this list that I do not rate Doug Wilson very high in this category.

I listened to the first hour of the debate, and I will certainly have more to say after I listen to Tom's recording, but let me comment on five points:

1. Predestination.  Wilson's response here was completely off the point.  Keely's main point was not that Wilsonian predestinarians were passive, but that they were irresponsible, rude, and juvenile.  I'm reminded of a quotation attributed to Luther (it may indeed be somewhere in those 54 volumes): "Sin boldly for grace abounds!"  The belief that some are already saved and some are already damned can be turned very easily into the enemy theology that Wilson & Co. so shamelessly practice.

2. The Dickinson Article.  The issue is not how old it is, but whether or not Wilson has disowned it.  As far as I know, he has not.  The article was published under the Latin heading "Magistralis," an honorific meaning "pertaining to the master or teacher." The Magisterium of the Roman Catholics lays down the "Laws of the Church."  Greg Dickinson is the lawyer for Christ Church and here he presumably is laying down the laws of his church with the authority of the church attorney.

3. Credentials.  Keely should have been more proactive on this one.  Keely does not claim to have any academic standing in the world, but Wilson does. Wilson's college has been accredited by the low level Transnational Association for Christian Colleges and Schools. This agency required that NSA faculty have proper credentials for teaching.  There had to be at least one third PhDs (a very low requirement) and all had to have MAs in their subject areas. (By the way, Ben Merkle's is not in his teaching area.) There is a rumor that Wilson is trying to get a PhD from some willing evangelical institution (I suspect that he has approached Liberty University) based on this published writings alone.  Therefore, Wilson is evasively equivocal on the issue of academic credentials, and also rudely irresponsible in condemning most evangelical colleges and seminaries as not being Christian.

4. Imprecatory Prayers.  Wilson again was evasive and disingenuous.  Several Christ Church members have told me that there is no praying to make their enemies their friends.  On the contrary, the prayers request that they be destroyed, as a symbolic expression of God's wrath that will rain down on the non-elect when the "tsunami" of divine judgment will destroy all their "beach chairs" in the Last Days.  You can witness for yourself Wilson saying and gesturing this in the documentary "Our Town."

5. Wilson's Two Churches.  When Wilson says that God has been good to his church for over 30 years, he neglects to mention that he has essentially served two churches: a nondenominational Community Evangelical Fellowship and a neo-Confederate Calvinist Christ Church.  (The Confederate flag was once displayed behind the pulpit.) There has been discussion on this list about how the elders of the former rejected Wilson's Calvinism and his desire to baptize infants, and then sought, unsuccessfully, to remove him as pastor.  Steve Wilkins, Wilson's buddy from Louisiana and Founding Director of the League of the South, was one of the primary influences on Wilson's theological conversion to Calvinism.  Wilkins also is one of the principal recruiters for Logos and NSA students.

Finally, I thought that Wilson was unusually bumbling, hesitant, and inarticulate.  These adjectives do not describe Keely at all.  You go, girl!

Nick Gier, Banshee and God Hater
Titles given to me by Pastor Wilson