[Vision2020] The Seeds are Sown for Moscow's Culture War

[g. crabtree]

*sigh* Another cycle of the only topic on the Palouse that never grows old 
starts anew. How lucky for all of us.

g
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 5:40 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] The Seeds are Sown for Moscow's Culture War


> Greetings:
>
> I've been invited to write a series of columns for "Talk to Action: 
> Reclaiming Citzenship, History, and Faith," which is dedicated to tracking 
> and critiquing the Religious Right. It can be found at 
> www.talk2action.org.
>
> Below is the first installment.
>
> Happy New Year,
>
> Nick
>
> Preface.  Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho has established a very 
> impressive religious empire, about which I will write a series of columns. 
> Wilson is pastor of Christ Church, which together with a sister church 
> Trinity Reformed, has about 650 adult members in a town of 21,000 
> (including 10,000 University of Idaho students). He is founder of the 
> Classical and Christian School Association, which, beginning with Moscow's 
> Logos School, now has 204 affiliated schools in the U.S., Indonesia, and 
> Nigeria.
>
> Wilson is also founder of New St. Andrews College in Moscow, on which the 
> City Council has placed an enrollment cap because of its central downtown 
> location.  Wilson also runs a 3-year seminary program Greyfriars Hall, the 
> graduates of which are sent to plant new churches after the Christ Church 
> model.  Furthermore, Wilson co-founded the Confederation of Reformed 
> Evangelical Churches, a small denomination that follows the “Federal 
> Vision,” a theology now rejected by every major conservative Presbyterian 
> denomination. Finally, Wilson has his own publishing house, Canon Press, 
> which at one time grossed an average of $1 million per year.
>
> The articles that follow will reveal that Douglas Wilson embodies all the 
> qualities of the discredited evangelical pastor, everything except having 
> a TV program, great hair, and sexual escapades.
>
> PART ONE
> THE SEEDS ARE SOWN FOR MOSCOW'S CULTURAL WAR
>
> After retiring from the Navy, James Wilson was active in the Officers 
> Christian Union during the 1950s. His vision of a "literature" ministry 
> led to the founding of many Christian bookstores in college towns all over 
> America.  In 1971, Wilson started One-Way Books on the Washington State 
> University campus, 8 miles across the border, and then Crossroads 
> Bookstore in Moscow not long after.
>
> In 1954 Wilson started writing a small book that would have the title 
> "Principles of War: A Handbook on Strategic Evangelism."  He thought that 
> college towns, especially those with state universities, would be both 
> strategic and feasible evangelistic targets.  In a recent interview, Jim 
> Wilson said that he was fortunate to find two such towns and universities 
> so close together.  With some relish he recalled a thought he had then: 
> "We could fight one battle and win two states [for Christ]!"
>
> I told Jim Wilson that I thought that upraised sword on the front cover of 
> his war book was rather provocative, but he just shrugged his shoulders 
> and said that it was only a symbol. (A very dangerous symbol I was tempted 
> to add.) Wilson argued that even though the methods of warfare should not 
> be used to evangelize, its principles could be applied very well. I missed 
> another chance for a comeback as I thought about the Christian Taipings in 
> the 1850s having altar calls with the aisles guarded by soldiers with 
> upraised swords.
>
> The New York Times Magazine carried an article (9/30/07) entitled "Onward 
> Christian Scholars," which featured New St. Andrews College, founded by 
> Wilson's son Douglas.  In it Father Wilson took issue with his son's 
> application of his evangelical war principles: "The object was to take 
> over the town with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but to do it in an 
> underground fashion.  One of the principles of war is surprise.  You don't 
> tell people what you're going to do.  Douglas told them, and he gave them 
> someone to shoot at."
>
> I first met Douglas Wilson after the first session of my “Introduction to 
> Philosophy” class in late August, 1975.  He introduced himself and asked 
> me one question: “Is it OK if I defend the faith in this class?”  I 
> answered with a fate-filled Yes. When I told this story to faculty and 
> students at Wilson's New St. Andrews College in April 2000, I got a big 
> laugh when I said that saying No would not have made any difference.
>
> While Jim Wilson sold his religious books and started a congregation in a 
> local Grange, Doug and I were having friendly debates in and out of the 
> classroom. Wilson took nearly every course that I offered, but we agreed 
> that I would not be the best person to chair his thesis committee. Wilson 
> wrote a fairly respectable M.A. thesis on free will and then returned to 
> his local ministry at Faith Fellowship, later renamed Community 
> Evangelical Fellowship (CEF).  Faith Fellowship started as sister church 
> of Pullman's Evangelical Free Church.
>
> In the early 1980s Wilson and I team taught (along with two other people) 
> a course on 20th Century theology, and then we had a debate on abortion in 
> February of 1983.  (My side of the debate has developed into the essay at 
> www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/103/abortion.htm.)  Wilson had a regular column 
> in what was then called The Idahonian, and he came out with a piece that 
> listed points that I tried to refute in the debate.  In a letter to the 
> editor, I cried foul, not because I could claim that my refutations were 
> necessarily sound; rather, because Wilson did not mention my responses at 
> all.  It was at that point that I began to question Wilson’s intellectual 
> integrity, and subsequent actions and events have convinced me that he and 
> his closest associates are not honest men.
>
> In December 1993, the CEF elders, concerned about doctrinal shifts in 
> Wilson's theology, presented him with an ultimatum that he either conform 
> to the CEF statement of faith or resign as pastor. (There was also a 
> dispute about Wilson mixing church and non-church funds.) Wilson organized 
> church members against the elders and successfully outmaneuvered them.
>
> In order to validate his usurpation of power, Wilson drafted a letter 
> attesting to his godly character and his qualifications to remain pastor. 
> Even though the elders refused to sign the document, Wilson and his 
> closest associates continued to swear that the signatures were obtained. 
> Two of the three elders then resigned in disgust.
>
> With the dissenters gone, Wilson moved forward with changing the name of 
> his church to Christ Church, and he pushed his own doctrinal agenda, 
> including infant baptism and padeo-communion, the rare practice of giving 
> children the consecrated wine and bread.  This was a dramatic change 
> considering the fact that, from its very beginnings CEF was Arminian 
> (non-Calvinist) and Baptist.
>
> In February, 2003, two Christ Church members brought "Solemn Charges" (a 
> 108-page document) against Wilson for maladministration, pastoral abuse, 
> and doctrinal errors, and the unsigned document of December 1993 reemerged 
> as an issue. Wilson demanded that members of Pullman's Evangelical Free 
> Church (EFC) investigate some of the charges.  When EFC members asked to 
> see the "signed" letter, no one in Christ Church could produce the goods. 
> Six months later the Christ Church website contained a statement conceding 
> that the CEF elder signatures were never obtained.
>
> To this day, all that Wilson can muster as an explanation is that he 
> corrected the "mistake" as soon as it was discovered—"soon" defined in 
> this case as 127 months.  See Wilson's convoluted defense of January 31, 
> 2006 at www.dougwils.com.
>
> As I conclude Part One of this series, I will only note, because I cannot 
> fully explain, what I call "The Navy connection." Jim Wilson, Christ 
> Church elders Dale Courtney and Patch Blakely are retired naval officers. 
> (There are undoubtedly more.) Jim Wilson brought Doug Busby out from 
> Annapolis and he now is pastor at Pullman's Evangelical Free Church, 
> estranged from Christ Church because of the crisis explained above. 
> Douglas Wilson and Michael Lawyer, Wilson's administrative assistant and 
> Christ Church elder, met on a submarine during the early 1970s.  We know 
> that the Air Force Academy is a veritable den of conservative Christians. 
> Does the Naval Academy also have its fair share?
>
> Stayed tuned for Part Two: Pastor Wilson becomes a Calvinist and a 
> Neo-Confederate. Wilson describes the Antebellum South as the most 
> harmonious multiracial culture in human history.
>
>
>
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