[Vision2020] Violent Rhetoric is Out of Place in Moscow

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (December 3, 2010) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with
thanks to Nick Gier.

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Violent rhetoric is out of place in Moscow

Thanks to Joe Campbell (Opinion, Nov. 29) for alerting the community to
the violent rhetoric found on the website of Moscow's New Saint Andrews
College (www.nsa.edu).

The blurb describes the NSA faculty as "not timid in a rumble," and they
offer prospective students "an invitation to a brawl." I wonder how young
Christian women will respond to this raw machismo?

Is NSA a Christ-centered liberal arts college or a fighting club? If it is
the latter, then its conditional use permit should be reviewed.

Jim Wilson, father of NSA's founder Douglas Wilson, has written a small
book titled "Principles of War: A Handbook on Strategic Evangelism." He
has assured me that he is just talking about spiritual warfare.

Some may say that the recruiting language is only metaphorical, but it is
still violent rhetoric that every reasonable person should condemn.

Logos School, I'm told, puts on some very good plays. I would like to
propose that they do an adaptation of "West Side Story." Instead of the
white working class Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, the gangs should be
renamed the Crusaders and the Infidels.

I foresee at least one major snag in staging my version: There can be no
truce between the gangs at the end. For Wilson and other conservative
evangelicals, there will be bitter warfare until Christ comes to smite the
Infidels. As I understand them, there will be nothing metaphorical about
this violence.

In contrast to Obama, candidate Gresham Bouma was never held accountable
for his minister's attack on the Mormon faith. I surely hope that most
Christians of the Palouse do not consider Pastors Lloyd Knerr and Douglas
Wilson appropriate representatives of their faith.

My weekly column on this topic for the Idaho State Journal can be read at:

http://www.home.roadrunner.com/nickgier/NSARumble.pdf

Nick Gier, Moscow

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Could you imagine the fallout if such statements were posted on a public
school website?

Heads would roll.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown