[Vision2020] Crusaders vs. Infidels: Moscow's Muscular Christianity

[Tom Hansen]

Crank up your speakers for . . .

http://www.tomandrodna.com/protest/

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


On Tue, November 30, 2010 2:02 pm, Joe Campbell wrote:
> Great essay, Nick! I absolutely love that NSA still has the offensive
> advertisement on the front page of their website. And that no
> conservatives have condemned it yet. Makes it pretty clear how much
> influence radical religious groups have on the Republican party. As if we
> needed the lesson anyway, given local support of Bouma in the last
> election. So much for the myth that it is the party of the people. It is
> the party of the white Christian elite!
>
>
>
> On Nov 30, 2010, at 1:36 PM, <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>
>> Greetings:
>>
>> Despite Darrell Keim's belief that enough has been said about Christ
>> Church and NSA, their recruiting blurb is simply beyond the pale.
>>
>> This is my radio commentary/column for the week and the full version is
>> attached as a PDF file.  I direct you to my Logos School revision of
>> West Side Story at the end.
>>
>> Read everything that I've written about Pastor Wilson at
>> www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/Wilson.htm.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> THE CRUSADERS VS. THE INFIDELS:MOSCOW’S MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY
>>
>> A long war is a small price to pay for eternal peace.
>>
>> --found on a toilet stall wall
>>
>> I don’t often cruise the website of New St. Andrews College
>> (www.nsa.edu), Moscow’s small Christian college, so the new recruiting
>> campaign gave me quite a jolt.  The headline is “Yo, Secularism, Why
>> Don’t We Step into the Alley?”
>>
>> The blurb describes the NSA faculty as “not timid in a rumble,” and
>> they want to make the students “dangerous” so that they can “throw
>> the lies of this age up against the wall, lifting wallets and the
>> occasional gift card.” It ends with “an invitation to a brawl.”
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> After the initial shock receded, my first thought was “How can they
>> possibly recruit young women with this raw machismo”? Out of seven
>> images (two with real tough guys) only one includes female students.
>>
>> Silly me, I forgot that some females might want to go to a college where
>> they can meet “real” Christian men to whom they can be properly
>> submissive. These religious brawlers would defend their honor in an
>> alley or anywhere for that matter.
>>
>> NSA men, however, would not defend their ladies’ right to vote.
>> According to NSA’s founder, Douglas Wilson, misguided women might
>> decide to cancel out their husband’s wise choices in church and
>> political matters.
>> Wilson also believes that only propertied males should vote. Deliciously
>> ironic, however, is the fact that Wilson encourages all of this
>> congregates at Christ Church to vote for conservative candidates.
>>
>> The phrase “muscular Christianity” came out of the Victorian Age,
>> where Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes encouraged young men to combine
>> Christian ideals with physical conditioning. Thanks to muscular
>> Christianity, I built up some pretty nice biceps at the local gym of the
>> Young Men’s Christian Association, but I still ended up with the
>> Unitarians, who of course can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
>>
>> NSA does have sports teams, but “pumpkin” rugby has replaced
>> lacrosse (too feminine?), and there is a “girls” volleyball team.
>> Some of the senior faculty, however, look like they have not been to a
>> gym in ages.
>>
>> In 1964 Douglas’ father Jim Wilson wrote a small book entitled
>> "Principles of War: A Handbook on Strategic Evangelism." I once told
>> Wilson Pere that I thought that upraised sword on the front cover of the
>> book was rather provocative, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said
>> that he only meant spiritual warfare. Being thrown up against a wall
>> sounds pretty physical to me.
>>
>> Has Douglas Wilson’s “Trinitarian skylarking” now turned into
>> godly gang warfare?  An example of the former is an outrageous April
>> Fool’s stunt. NSA students stole University of Idaho letterhead and
>> used the English department’s FAX line to announce a feminist scholar
>> who would lecture topless. Wilson later admitted encouraging his
>> students to do the deed.
>>
>> Douglas Wilson also established Logos School, whose K-12 students, I’m
>> told, put 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 two snags in this version of the play. Although the killing of
>> Maria’s brother by the Jet’s Tony could go ahead, the love story
>> between Christian Tony and non-Christian Maria would be a real stretch.
>> NSA men must get the permission from a potential date’s father, or
>> from Wilson in loco parentis. Even more problematic is the fact that
>> 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 a “post-millennialist” Wilson believes that there will a 1,000
>> year Christian theocracy with strict enforcement of biblical law until
>> Christ deigns to appear.  I might prefer to get it over with more
>> quickly in the “pre-millennial” Rapture.  I’ll paraphrase
>> Milton’s Satan: I would rather fry in the Rapture and take my chances
>> in Hell rather than serve oppressive Christian masters.
>>
>> Sometime in the late 1970s, I found a saying on a toilet stall wall near
>> my campus office.  Compared to most toilet graffiti, this one was quite
>> sophisticated and a bit puzzling: “A long war is a small price to pay
>> for eternal peace.” One might ask: What kind of peace is this when
>> everyone who has not converted to your religion has been killed?
>>
>> Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for
>> 31 years.
>> <NSARumble.pdf>
>> =======================================================
>> List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>               http://www.fsr.net
>>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> =======================================================
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================


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