[Vision2020] Last Response to Atwood

[Joe Campbell]

Below is my last response to Atwood. Atwood's original letter to the editor of the Daily News and our subsequent exchange are found here:

http://www.dnews.com/story/opinion/25619/#comments

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Joe Campbell

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Roy,

I have a hard time reading this and believing that your call for civility was genuine. You seem to want people to stop criticizing Christ Church while remaining able to play the ‘bigot’ card, suggesting that this criticism is entirely based on religious persecution. Your standard for civility seems to be: We can continue to insult you but you can say nothing about us in response.

Previous to this recent reply you wrote: "Your responses here have been to repeat familiar charges, and even raise new accusations. But that's going to get us nowhere, I believe." Yet you do the same in this post -- repeat familiar charges against the critics of Christ Church and raise new allegations. How is this going to get us anywhere? Why should others stop if you don’t?

One of the familiar charges is that Nick had something to do with the comment 'Hitler Youth' which was written in CHALK on a public SIDEWALK near NSA. Above you claim that no one has the right to say that offensive anonymous comments directed toward me in this post are the work of Christ Church members. Yet you continue to blame Nick for the actions of an anonymous fool. There is a double standard here.

Also, if you allow that some column from an editor in Lewiston is evidence that Christ Church is the victim of religious persecution, then I can use comments by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their famous "Taliban on the Palouse" article in support of the claim that Wilson and others in Christ Church are bigots; I can use comments by Wilson’s own father made in the New York Times to the effect that Christ Church and NSA are taking over the town; I can use sanctions levied against Christ Church by governing church bodies to show that Pastor Wilson is acting in a way that is un-Christian. All of this would be reason for the kind of boycott that you consider baseless. 

The fact is there is a lot of anger directed toward Christ Church and plenty of reason behind the anger. This is why there is a wide-scale boycott of Christ Church owned businesses. Anyone who seeks for themselves the answers to the questions raised above that you did not answer will realize this. Until you, Wilson, Iverson, Courtney and others admit your own role in creating our current situation, the problem will not go away.

I have no plan to talk to you in private. What I want is for you to stop making unsupported claims that harm my reputation and the reputations of my friends. What I want is for you and others to publicly admit that Christ Church is not an innocent victim. Unless you do so, your call for civility is a joke.

Thanks for the ‘response,’ limited as it was, and I hope that you enjoy the Advent season, too!

Best, Joe