<html>
<i><x-tab> </x-tab></i>Greetings:<br><br>
I'm working on a repsonse to Melynda's insightful critique of the Virtue
Project, but I wanted to post this first. Nick
Gier<br><br>
<i><x-tab> </x-tab>Our
Town</i>, a new documentary on America’s cultural wars, had its premier
in Moscow, Idaho on June 23. The newly refurbished Kenworthy Theatre was
filled to capacity with an enthusiastic crowd of 340 people.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Michael
Hayes, an education professor from Washington State University, worked on
the film for about 18 months, interviewing the principal players in the
debate about Douglas Wilson’s religious empire. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Wilson is
pastor of Moscow’s 800-member Christ Church, which has mission churches
across the country. Wilson trains the ministers for these new churches in
a two- year program called Greyfriars. He also holds the franchise for
154 classical Christian schools, his own Logos School in Moscow being the
model. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In 1996
Wilson founded New St. Andrews College (NSA) in 1996, and it now enrolls
130 four-year students in a building in the heart of historic Moscow. He
also runs Canon Press in the same building as Greyfriars and it grosses
almost $1 million a year. Last year two Moscow residents challenged the
tax exemptions on this building and the NSA site and they won their
appeal.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>The
controversy about Wilson exploded in October, 2003, when some students at
the University of Idaho discovered <i>Southern Slavery As It Was</i>, a
booklet published by Canon Press. Wilson co-authored the book with Steve
Wilkins, a Monroe, Louisiana pastor and founding director of the League
of the South, whose vision is new 15-state Confederacy ruled by Calvinist
patriarchs.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Details
about Wilson’s ties to the Neo-Confederates have been given in a previous
column (link), so I would like to focus on what new I learned from Hayes’
film.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In
rejecting the charge of racism, Wilson claimed that it was Christianity,
not genes, that made a culture superior. He said that if Christianity had
moved south instead of west, Africans would now be the most advanced
people in the world.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Wilson did
not offer any evidence for this, but history appears to disconfirm this
odd view. The culture of medieval Europe is Wilson’s ideal world, but the
rest of the civilized world--China, India, and the Islamic
countries--were far more advanced than these Europeans. In fact, if it
had not been Mongols bringing Asian goods and inventions and the Muslims
preserving Greek philosophy and science, Europe would have remained
stagnant.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>At
Wilson’s “history” conference in February, 2004, he and Wilkins were
joined by George Grant, who has called for the stoning of homosexuals,
and who has written this: "Christian politics has as its primary
intent the conquest of the land--of men, families, institutions,
bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is
to reinstitute the authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgments,
over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and
confederations."<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In the
film Wilson prophesied that the conquest of Christianity would hit
secular culture like a tsunami hitting a folding chair on a beach. When
Wilson encouraged Americans of all beliefs to replace the public schools
with their own private schools, his tolerance for their short tenure does
not appear to be much of a virtue. Wilson’s tolerance was also pretty
thin when a reporter asked him how he would react to a future Muslim
mayor. His response implied no anxiety: that would be impossible when
everyone is a Christian. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Hayes’
assistant had an opportunity to interview all three men together at the
February conference. Wilkins was asked if he really believed that only
propertied males should vote, and he answered “yes,” while the other two
nodded approvingly. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Always the
jokester, Wilson said that democracy was just like two coyotes and a
sheep voting on what to eat for lunch. Wilson’s “federal vision” for
church and society is that husbands would vote for their wives, who would
submit to them in all things.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>The three
men were asked about slavery and Wilson answered for them. Wilson said
that slavery is a sinful institution, but rebellion is just as sinful.
Slaves who have Christian masters will at least be treated with love and
respect. According to Wilson, sinful institutions will fade way
naturally.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In
December, 2003, Wilson, to a direct question, refused to say whether he
believed it was right for a person to own another. Wilson’s is in a bind
because he has always said that a Christian should never be ashamed of
what the Bible says. The other problem is moral relativism: Wilson seems
to be saying that biblical slavery was moral but immoral now.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>For
pastors such as Wilson and Wilkins who believe in the absolute
sovereignty of God, they should be the last ones to take divine judgment
into their own hands. Only God chooses whether we are saved or damned, or
whether all rebels are sinful.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Wilson and
Wilkins, however, are following in the footsteps of Jerry Falwell who
once declared that God does not answer the prayers of Jews. Again this is
surely for God alone to decide, not mere sinful mortals. We humanists are
always condemned for preempting divine prerogatives, so what is going on
here?<br><br>
</html>