[Vision2020] Douglas Wilson: Making Moscow Proud Again

Thu Oct 18 14:56:56 PDT 2012

*For evangelicals, racism isn’t a dealbreaker, but feminism is*

October 18, 2012 By Fred
Clark<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/author/fredclark1/> 70
Comments<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/18/for-evangelicals-racism-isnt-a-dealbreaker-but-feminism-is/#comments>

Remember our old friend Douglas Wilson? He writes and speaks for the
patriarchal neo-Calvinist “Gospel Coalition,” and is the author of many
books sold at Christian bookstores across the country — including the
large LifeWay
chain <http://www.lifeway.com/Keyword/douglas+wilson>.

Wilson caused a stir earlier this
year<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/07/18/the-men-of-the-gospel-coalition-really-really-hate-women/>when
his description of godly marital sex was, well, horrifically
*rapey*. Wilson wrote:

However we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian
pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman
receives, surrenders, accepts.

That prompted many of us to take a closer look at this guy and to wonder
how it was that he had come to be a respected voice in American
evangelicalism. We wondered this even more when we learned that Wilson
isn’t only a proponent of rape culture, but also an apologist for
slavery<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/07/19/more-on-the-bad-news-boors-of-the-gospel-coalition-and-doug-wilsons-demented-views-on-slavery/>
.

<http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/slacktivist/files/2012/10/dixie.png>LifeWay,
to their very slight credit, at least doesn’t carry the book the Douglas
Wilson co-wrote with white supremacist and League of the South co-founder Steve
Wilkins<http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/spring/taliban-on-the-palouse/wilkins-world>,
*Southern Slavery: As It
Was*<http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/07/13/doug-wilson-fashionable-calvinista-has-disturbing-views-on-slavery/>.
Yet the fact that Wilson co-wrote a book with a white supremacist, and that
this book argues that slavery was not really all that bad, apparently does
not affect LifeWay’s thoughts about carrying other books by the same guy.

Douglas Wilson remains an unchallenged member in good-standing of the
evangelical tribe. Just like anti-anti-colonialist and Afro-phobic
“scholar” Dinesh
D’Souza<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/17/no-no-no-we-were-fine-with-the-racism-but-the-adultery-is-upsetting/>was
before allegations of adultery clouded his name in a way that
confirmations of race-baiting never did.

Mainstream evangelicalism — including institutions like *Christianity
Today*and LifeWay — pays lip-service to “racial reconciliation,” but
it has never
been mandatory. You cannot be pro-gay, pro-choice or feminist and remain an
unchallenged or un-”controversial” member of the evangelical tribe. But as
Wilson, D’Souza (and let’s not forget Richard
Land<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/richard-land/>)
confirm, you can espouse racially biased views without that ever prompting
anyone to ask if you are *really* an evangelical.

As long as you continue to repeat the right phrases about God, gays and
gynecology, you can say whatever vile things you want to about slavery, or
Africa, or “race hustlers,” without any worry that it might provoke
questions about your godly evangelical bona fides. You can be a vicious
racist, but as long as you’re an anti-abortion, anti-gay racist who talks
about the “authority of scripture” like its the fourth member of the
Trinity, then you’re golden.

Just think back to the long Republican primary contest with its endless
series of debates. In January, Chauncey DeVega listed his picks for the “10
Most Racist Moments of the GOP Primary (So
Far)<http://www.alternet.org/story/153895/the_10_most_racist_moments_of_the_gop_primary_%28so_far%29>.”
It’s an appalling, but by no means comprehensive, list. And the primary
campaign still had more than a month to go.

Most of what DeVega chronicles there were statements or actions taken in an
effort to appeal to *evangelical* voters. The main strategy for winning
such voters was to try to position yourself as more anti-abortion than the
other candidates — contraception is *murder!* De-fund anything with the
word “clinic” in its name! — but once all the candidates clustered together
around the same extreme positions on that point, the next step was to try
to appeal to white grievance and white resentment. Candidates sought to
nurture such resentment wherever it existed, and to create it from scratch
in the rare places where it couldn’t otherwise be found.

Remember all the principled evangelical push-back against those efforts?
No? Me neither, because that never happened. Here are some things you never
heard during the GOP primaries: “Newt Gingrich drew criticism from
evangelical voters for his racially charged attacks on ‘welfare queens.’”
Or “Michele Bachmann lost evangelical support due to her comments about
immigrants.” Or “Ron Paul’s newsletters flirting with white supremacists
alienated the GOP’s evangelical bloc.” Or “Mitt Romney’s use of ‘illegal’
as a noun angers evangelical voters.”

The closest to anything like that ever happening was a brief moment in one
debate when Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a Bush-like appeal for something
vaguely DREAM-ish — in-state tuition for undocumented students who have
lived most of their lives in Texas. That got Perry smacked down by Romney
and contributed to his *loss* of support among evangelical Republicans.

And do we even need to mention Bryan Fischer? Mainstream evangelicals will
hurry to argue that people like Fischer are really fundamentalists, not
evangelicals. But Fischer uses the E-word himself, and he’s convinced the
general public that this is who he is and who he represents. As Warren
Throckmorton wrote
yesterday<http://wthrockmorton.com/2012/10/16/why-do-they-even-bring-bryan-fischer-on/>
:

Conservatives might lament the title “conservative” applied to AFA and
Fischer. However, I think it is up to conservatives to police ourselves.

But mainstream evangelicalism is never interested in policing its huge
right fringe. It’s too busy picking nits and vigilantly patrolling its
“liberal” border for potential heretics. That gives people like
Fischer, Charlie
Fuqua, John Hubbard and Loy
Mauch<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/09/good-solid-pro-family-evangelical-southern-baptists/>a
free pass. They all exhibit the proper “stance” against abortion and
homosexuality, so they’re nowhere near the danger zone on the liberal
frontier.

Get those two “stances” correct, and race-baiting, stoking white
resentment, and immigrant-bashing won’t ever cause evangelicals to question
your legitimacy as part of the tribe. For that to happen, you’d have to say
something nice about women or LGBT people.

Take, for example, the case of Brian
McLaren<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2012/10/08/brian-mclaren-clarifies-his-view-on-homosexuality/>.
We recently looked at Terry Mattingly’s odious questioning of McLaren’s
faith<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/09/29/gatekeeper-gatecrashes-a-wedding-stay-classy-get-religion/>following
his celebration of his son’s same-sex wedding. Here is McLaren’s
gracious, generous
response<http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/i-read-recently-about-your.html>to
a correspondent breaking ties with him over that “stance.”

Or consider again the case of Rachel Held
Evans<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/16/whos-afraid-of-rachel-held-evans/>,
whose legitimacy is now being questioned by the very same Gospel Coalition
to which penetrating colonizer Doug Wilson belongs. The Gospel Coalition
imagines itself to be the gatekeeper and the authoritative arbiter of
tribal legitimacy, so that means their boy Wilson must be above all
question, but this uppity woman must be treated as a threat.

Then there’s the matter of Christopher Rollston. I confess I had never
heard of him before, and that I’d missed his recent Huffington Post
article, “The Marginalization of Women: A Biblical Value We Don’t Like to
Talk About<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-rollston/the-marginalization-of-women-biblical-value-we-dont-like-to-talk-about_b_1833648.html>.”
That article doesn’t make any novel or unorthodox claims. Rollston simply
points out that “women in the Bible were normally viewed as second class,
if even that.” Yes. And, also too, *no duh.* It doesn’t matter if one reads
the Bible as a “radical feminist” or as an infallible fundamentalist —
Rollston’s point there is objectively, uncontroversially true.

And yet, for reasons not entirely clear, that article has Rollston “facing
disciplinary action and perhaps even termination at Emmanuel Christian
Seminary<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/10/in-support-of-christopher-rollston.html>”
where he is a tenured, and by all accounts well-respected, biblical
scholar. He did not violate his professional ethics. He did not run afoul
of the seminary’s statement of faith. He didn’t even say anything that any
serious biblical scholar — conservative or liberal — would disagree with.

But apparently Rollston’s article angered one wealthy conservative donor at
the school<http://robertcargill.com/2012/10/15/inside-higher-ed-exposes-emmanuel-scandal-christian-seminary-to-terminate-professor-in-exchange-for-donation/>.
Tenure *schmenure,* this donor told Emmanuel, get rid of this guy and I’ll
make it worth your while. And Emmanuel, apparently, thought that was a good
idea. It really, really wasn’t — and the only surprising thing about the
ensuing firestorm is that Emmanuel’s administrators seem surprised by it.
(James McGrath has good collections of links on this affair
here<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/10/in-support-of-christopher-rollston.html>and
here<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/10/support-for-christopher-rollston-update.html>
.)

Again, all Rollston did was point out that men sure had a lot of rules for
women 3,000 years ago — which is much the same point that Rachel Held Evans
is making in her new book on “biblical womanhood.” Patriarchal Christians
apparently don’t like it when anyone notices that. They’re hoping not to
draw too much attention to the marginalization of biblical womanhood until
after they have it fully reinstated.

So to recap: If you think women today should have more freedom than they
had 3,000 years ago, or if you fail to condemn LGBT people with sufficient
relish, then your standing as a legitimate evangelical will be formally
challenged and your books will be prohibited from sitting on the shelves at
LifeWay alongside those of Dinesh D’Souza and Douglas Wilson. Lovely.

October 18, 2012 By Fred
Clark<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/author/fredclark1/> 70
Comments<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/18/for-evangelicals-racism-isnt-a-dealbreaker-but-feminism-is/#comments>