[Vision2020] Hypocrisy (was RE: September 11th Memorial Events)

[Gier, Nicholas]

Hi Paul,

I've known Jim Wilson for at least 38 years and, despite our religious differences, I respected the man, even after his son made friends with a board member of the neo-Confederate League of the South, became an extreme Calvinist, and proceeded to violate every virtue in the book.I know that this troubled Jim very much and what stressed him most was the rift it caused between Doug and his brother Evan, whom I still respect as conservative evangelical Christian.  

But after Saundra's and Rose's revelations about Wilsons' tax evasions and after I read Jim's book on basing evangelivism on a military model, that was the last straw for me. Especially when I asked him directly if thought that the upheld sword on his book cover was a mistake.  He brushed it off as just "symbolic."

I don't pray but my humble request to the Life Force is that more of Doug's congregation move over to Evan's nice little church on 6th Street.  I'm not inviting them to my church, because I don't think they would make good Unitarian Universalists--and that's perfectly OK with most UUs.

I offer my condolences for your loss, but I was moved to tears this morning in church when a 9/11 song that began "Even though I did not know you. . . . was played over the sound system.  I'll try to get the entire lyrics off the web.

In memory those who were lost and in sympathy with their families and those Muslims (or those taken for them)whose scripture and mosques have been burned,

Nick

In part, Paul wrote:

"I know Jim Wilson personally.  He's an extremely nice and respectful individual, and (despite not agreeing with him on matters of faith) is as sane as anyone on this list.  He's the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it more than he.  If he thinks a certain way about something, it's because that's his honest interpretation from reading his Bible."

 

Huh - you must know a different Jim Wilson than do I because I personally don't give a rip how "nice" or "respectful" someone may be if honesty & integrity are lacking, as is the case with Jim Wilson wanting a free tax ride & expecting government - which means you & me -- to pay for his ride.  My friends will remember how completely shocked & disappointed I was that Wilson had no difficulty being dishonest under oath.  Pathetic.

 

Personally, I don't think it's OK to be disingenuous - at best - just to stick the rest of us with CCM's tax bill, and I don't think God thinks it's OK, either.  Lying, cheating, stealing - or being intentionally obtuse -- are OK as long as long as you're ripping off those who don't share a particular faith, eh?  Not in my faith, and not in my world, it isn't.

 

Hypocrisy is hypocrisy is hypocrisy, and we know that it pains you, Paul, but it's even more reprehensible when it comes from so-called "religious leaders" like Jim Wilson.

 

 

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

~ Edmund Burke


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