[Vision2020] I hope I'm not too late

[Austin Storm]

On 6/9/06, nickgier at adelphia.net <nickgier at adelphia.net> wrote:

> I joined the Vision just as Wilson was on his way out.  I would like to
> share with you part of one of the last exchanges that we had until Wilson
> and Atwood put me on their Bozo filter.  This is #6 of "12 Articles for
> Repudiation" that I presented to Wilson in December, 2003.
>
> Article 6.  George Grant and Steve Wilkins are regular guest speakers at
> annual meetings of your Association of Classical and Christian Schools
> and Colleges.
>
> Do your unscholarly views of the Civil War appear in the
> curriculum?  Yes or No?
> NOT ONE OF MY UNSCHOLARLY VIEWS APPEARS IN THE
> CURRICULUM.  (full caps in the original)


Good thing you caught him with that /loaded question/. You should've asked
him if he had stopped beating his wife.

The "12 Articles" is one of my favorite V2020 memories. Here is the whole
thing, for your reading enjoyment:

>*Dear visionaries,
*>*
*>*Before answering Nick's questions, allow me to invite you all to a town
*>*hall meeting we are having at the Kenworthy, Thursday night at 7. We would
*>*love to see you there. We will genuinely attempt to answer all the serious
*>*questions seriously. For more on frivolous questions, see below.
*>*
*>*And as a preface to answering these questions, allow me to commend Nick
*>*for this great new development in Socratic dialog. One party contributes
*>*the monosyllables while the other front loads all the questions. "Simple
*>*yes or no, Mr. Wilson. Do you repudiate your knavish behavior?" *Yes*
*>*means that I acknowledge my knavish behavior in the past and *no* means
*>*that I intend to continue it. Easy peasy, and philosophy looks around for
*>*new ways to obscure the truth.
*>*
*>*But in keeping with the spirit of the thing, I will try to keep my answers
*>*as brief as possible. After all, *yikes* is a monosyllable. My answers are
*>*in ALL CAPS for ease of identification. I am not shouting. Some might
*>*think I have a right to be SHOUTING BY THIS POINT, but they would wrong. I
*>*am viewing the current events in a philosophical spirit, much as Boethius
*>*might have amused himself by counting his toes.
*>*
*>*
*>*
*>>*TWELVE ARTICLES FOR REPUDIATION
*>>*Article 1.  Christ Church member Roy Atwood now states that "Southern
*>>*Slavery, As it Was" is not a scholarly work.  This concession implies
*>>*that it is not as credible as a scholarly work.  When any press publishes
*>>*a Monograph Series, it usually means that this is the best specialized
*>>*work that it can find.  What is the status of this essay? What is the
*>>*status of other works published by Canon Press?
*>>*
*>>*a. Scholarly or unscholarly, are you responsible for the work?  Yes or
*>>*No? YES, YES! I CONFESS IT1
*>>*b. Do you repudiate this work and your support for Southern Slavery? Yes
*>>*or No? NOT THE FIERY TONGS AGAIN! YES, I REPUDIATE IT ALL!
*>>*c. Are other works published by Canon Press credible?   Yes or No? CANON
*>>*PRESS? VILE STUFF, ALL OF IT.
*>>*
*>>*Article 2.  R. L. Dabney is cited favorably in the slavery booklet and
*>>*its co-author Steve Wilkins is an instructor at the Dabney Center for
*>>*Theological Studies in Monroe, Louisana.  Dabney was a racist and
*>>*condemned interracial marriage, something the Bible celebrates. Dabney
*>>*also condemned the education of African Americans, something the New
*>>*Testament advocated. But your neo-Confederate friends have proudly
*>>*republished Dabney's works, which have blatantly unscriptural positions?
*>>*
*>>*Do you repudiate Dabney and all that he stands for?  Yes or No? NO . . .
*>>*WAIT! I MEANT YES!
*>>*
*>>*Article 3.  Your position on slavery is equivocal.  As a moral absolutist
*>>*you must say that it is always wrong, but your support for biblical
*>>*slavery and Southern slavery implies that it depends on culture and
*>>*therefore is relative.  Dabney's position is very interesting:  the
*>>*righteous Anglo-Saxon Christian has a duty to enslave people that cannot
*>>*govern themselves.  The "evil is not slavery, but the ignorance and vice
*>>*in the laboring classes, of which slavery is the useful and righteous
*>>*remedy. . . . ("A Defense of Virginia," page  207).
*>>*
*>>*a. Do you repudiate this Dabney on this point?   Yes or No? WHAT IS THE
*>>*RIGHT ANSWER HERE?
*>>*b. Do you believe that owning another person is always wrong?  Yes or No?
*>>*IT CAN'T BE ALWAYS WRONG BECAUSE YOU WON'T LET ME OUT OF HERE . . . NO,
*>>*WAIT! NOT THE RACK!
*>>*
*>>*Article 4. Steve Wilkins is the director of the League of the South.  It
*>>*stands for the repeal of the 14th Amendment (guaranteeing equal rights
*>>*for all Americans) and the secession of 15 Southern States to form a New
*>>*Confederate States of America.  Some would call this treason.
*>>*
*>>*Do you repudiate the League of the South?   Yes or No? TREASON IS
BAD, RIGHT?
*>>*
*>>*Article 5. George Grant and Steve Wilkins support the novel "Heiland,"
*>>*which has been compared to the "Turner Diaries," the book that inspired
*>>*the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. The book's hero leads a
*>>*violent overthrow of a "godless" federal government.
*>>*
*>>*a. Do you believe in the violent overthrow of the U. S. government? Yes
*>>*or No? NO!
*>>*b. Do you repudiate the ideas contained in the novel "Heiland"?   Yes or
*>>*No? YES! ESPECIALLY THE KOOKY PARTS ABOUT CHELATION THERAPY.
*>>*
*>>*Article 6.  George Grant and Steve Wilkins are regular guest speakers at
*>>*annual meetings of your Association of Classical and Christian Schools
*>>*and Colleges.
*>>*
*>>*a. Do your unscholarly views of the Civil War appear in the
*>>*curriculum?  Yes or No? NOT ONE OF MY UNSCHOLARLY VIEWS APPEARS IN THE
*>>*CURRICULUM.
*>>*b. Do your schools support neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist
*>>*views?  Yes or No? MY SCHOOLS? I DON'T HAVE ANY SCHOO . . . . OKAY, OKAY.
*>>*WE REPUDIATE ALL ICKY VIEWS. NEVER HEARD OF 'EM.
*>>*
*>>*Article 7.  Grant, Wilkins, and you are the principal speakers at the
*>>*February conference. The conference is called a "history" conference but
*>>*no professional historians are speaking.  The slavery booklet was one of
*>>*the publications of the first conference in 1994, but the fact that this
*>>*booklet is now declared "not scholarly" indicates that this conference
*>>*and its predecessors may not be scholarly conferences.  Furthermore, if
*>>*you reject the neo-Confederates, why are you inviting them to Moscow?
*>>*
*>>*a. Is your meeting scholarly and credible?  Yes or No? YES. WE WANT IT TO
*>>*BE SCHOLARLY VERY MUCH. ANYTHING FOR RESPECTABILITY.
*>>*b. If No, would you consider moving it off campus so as to save
*>>*embarrassment to academic community and North Idaho? NO, WE WANT TO KEEP
*>>*IT ON CAMPUS SO THAT THE CREDIBILITY WILL RUB OFF THE OTHER WAY. PERHAPS
*>>*WE CAN LEARN TO ASK YES OR NO QUESTIONS TOO.
*>>*c. Doesn't this conference give credibility to a movement you
*>>*reject?  Yes or No? NO!
*>>*
*>>*Article 8.  In your slavery booklet you condemn slave owners who had sex
*>>*with their slaves as "ungodly."  But Abraham had sex with his servant
*>>*Hagar and was convinced by his wife Sarah to abandon Hagar and his son in
*>>*the desert.
*>>*
*>>*Do you repudiate Abraham and Sarah as ungodly?  Yes or No? IS IT ALL
*>>*RIGHT TO SAY NO? OKAY, NO.
*>>*
*>>*Article 9.  You have said that your main goal is to defend the Bible in
*>>*all that it says.  Yahweh declared genocide against all the inhabitants
*>>*of Canaan and he made sure that it was carried out by the Israelite
*>>*armies.  Most people believe that slaughter of any group of people,
*>>*regardless of their reputed sins, is always wrong.
*>>*
*>>*a. Do you repudiate Yahweh for commanding genocide?  Yes or No? NO, BUT I
*>>*ADVISED HIM AGAINST IT.
*>>*b. Do you support the international conventions against genocide?  Yes or
*>>*No? THIS ISN'T A PRO-LIFE TRICK QUESTION, IS IT? IT IS?  THEN NO.
*>>*
*>>*Article 10.  In your slavery booklet you claim that since the Bible
*>>*condones slavery but condemns kidnapping, it was not sinful for people to
*>>*own Africans that they themselves did not ship from Africa.  I believe
*>>*that is as absurd as Buddhists who rationalize meat eating because they
*>>*claim they were not involved in the slaughter of the animal itself.
*>>*
*>>*a. Do you agree with me?  Yes or No? ALWAYS!
*>>*b. Do you repudiate the owning of another person, any time, any
*>>*place?  Yes or No? CAN I GO NOW? NO? THEN NO.
*>>*
*>>*Article 11.  In 1995 the Southern Baptist Convention passed a Racial
*>>*Reconciliation Resolution requesting that members repent for the evils of
*>>*racism and Southern Slavery. My understanding is that these are
*>>*conservative evangelical Christians, are they not?
*>>*
*>>*Would you have voted for this resolution.  Yes or No? CAN I READ IT
*>>*FIRST? NO? WAIT, NOT THE BOOT! YES, I WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR IT. TWICE!
*>>*
*>>*Article 12.  When the League of the South was founded in 1994, it
*>>*recognized, as a way of honoring both Confederate soldiers and Scottish
*>>*rebels, the Confederate flag as a Christian symbol, specifically as the
*>>*Cross of St. Andrews.  In 1994 you founded your college and called it New
*>>*St. Andrews.
*>>*
*>>*Is New St. Andrews a neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist
*>>*college?  Yes or No? NO! THAT WOULD BE BAD AND EVIL. DO YOU WANT ME TO
*>>*SIGN ANYTHING?
*>>*
*>>*Note: my information on the League of the South comes principally from
*>>*Edward H. Sebesta and Euan Hague, "The US Civil War as a Theological War:
*>>*Confederate Christian Nationalism and the League of the South," Canadian
*>>*Review of American Studies 32:3 (2002), pp. 253-284.*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20060609/528c1637/attachment-0001.htm