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<font face="Times New Roman, Times">Hail to the Vision!<br><br>
This column has appeared in the on-line magazine <i>New West</i> and will
appear in the <i>Sandpoint Reader</i> very soon. My interaction
with Pastor Lillback has been a model of civil interchange. Perhaps
the good pastor can teach Pastor Wilson a few manners during his stay in
Moscow. Since the eloquent dressing down that he received from an
anonymous Christian, I've noticed that Wilson has reduced his name
calling dramatically. (I'm now just an enemy rather than a
banshee.) But he has a long way to go to meet the challenge of his
kind Christian critic.<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>Historical Revisionism at Moscow’s Trinity
Festival<br>
by Nick Gier<br><br>
</b></div>
The Trinity Festival (August 8-10) sponsored by Moscow’s Christ Church is
bringing conservative Christians from all over the country. <br>
I studied theology with Christian Trinitarians in graduate school, and
I’ve taught with many of them as well. My Lutheran colleagues in the
theological faculties at Heidelberg, Århus, and Copenhagen were fervent
Trinitarians, and I respected their belief in divine threeness as much as
they respected my affirmation of divine unity. <br>
None of these fine Christians used the Trinity as a club to hit me over
the head and to tell me that I, as a Unitarian, could be nothing but a
conformist or a power hungry, humorless rapist. But this is exactly
what these Moscow Trinitarians are saying about both religious and
secular people who do not follow their narrow version of
Christianity. They claim that their theology will bring beautiful
to the world, but so far what I've seen is pretty ugly.<br>
Moscow’s Trinity Festival continues the annual “history” conference that
Douglas Wilson’s church has held in Moscow since 1994. I set off
“history” with quotation marks because the conference speakers have made
a mockery of the academic study of history.<br>
Wilson’s 1994 “history” conference led to the publication of the now
infamous <i>Southern Slavery As It Was</i>, which has been roundly
condemned by real historians, including a civil war expert in Wilson’s
mission church in Seattle. In addition, 20 percent of the text was copied
from another controversial book on slavery. <br>
This year’s topic is the American Revolution, and Wilson, Steven Wilkins
(Wilson’s co-author on the slavery booklet), and Peter A. Lillback, all
conservative Presbyterian pastors, will present papers. <br>
In 1994 Wilson and Wilkins told their audience that the antebellum South
was the most harmonious multiracial society in human history, and now
Pastor Lillback is prepared to claim that George Washington, the least
religious of the early presidents, was in fact an orthodox
Christian.<br>
Lillback has been generous enough to share some of his views with me, and
I do hope that professional historians have a chance to review his
methods and evidence before he publishes his book. <br>
To his credit Lillback has conceded that there is no historical evidence
for Washington praying in Valley Forge (the subject of a famous painting
that hangs in the nation’s capitol), and there was no evidence that an
alleged prayer diary comes from Washington’s hand. The text is perfectly
spelled (Washington was a horrible speller) and reads very much like the
Common Book of Prayer. The Smithsonian Institution has rejected it
as a forgery.<br>
Lillback claims to have evidence from several pastors who attested to
Washington’s Christian devotion, but many more Christian ministers
claimed just the opposite.<br>
Here are some items that count heavily against Lillback’s
thesis:</font>
<dl><font face="Symbol">
<dd>·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">At
least three ministers testified that they never saw Washington kneeling
in prayer or taking Communion, an absolute necessity for being an
Anglican Christian. After being criticized for not taking this
sacrament, Washington stopped attending church on Communion Sunday.
After his retirement he did not go to church at all, preferring to
collect his land rent instead.<br><br>
</font>
</dl><font face="Symbol"><x-tab> </x-tab>·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">The day he left the presidency
he was happy to answer many questions, but he refused to answer
<x-tab> </x-tab>the question
“Are you a Christian?” If Lillback’s thesis is correct, this issue
would have been long <x-tab> </x-tab>settled in people’s
minds.<br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol"><x-tab> </x-tab>·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">It was James Madison's opinion
that Washington never "attended to the arguments for
<x-tab> </x-tab>Christianity, and for the different systems of
religion, [n]or in fact ... [had he] formed definite
<x-tab> </x-tab>opinions on the
subject."<br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol"><x-tab> </x-tab>·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">In 1831 Episcopal priest Bird
Wilson proclaimed that “among all our presidents from
<x-tab> </x-tab>Washington downward, not one was a professor
of religion, at least not of more than
<x-tab> </x-tab>Unitarianism.”<br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol"><x-tab> </x-tab>·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Article Eleven of Treaty of
Tripoli states that “the government of the United States is not in any
<x-tab> </x-tab>sense founded on the Christian
religion." Washington introduced this treaty to the Senate,
the <x-tab> </x-tab>Senate
ratified it without recorded debate, and it was signed by President John
Adams, a person
<x-tab> </x-tab>with much
stronger Christian credentials than Washington.<br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol"><x-tab> </x-tab>·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">At Washington’s death no
pastor was called, no scriptures were read, no prayers were said, and
<x-tab> </x-tab>no rituals were
performed.<br>
I asked Lillback if he really wanted to share the stage with speakers who
have been so thoroughly discredited. His response was that
Christian charity compelled him not to judge them until he personally
appraises their performance in Moscow. <br>
I reminded him that the evidence of plagiarism and response of critics
are already well documented at
</font><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse" eudora="autourl"><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF"><u>www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse</a></u></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">,
but he appears determined to join the swelling ranks of Christian
revisionist “historians.”<br>
Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for
31 years. His essay “Religious Liberalism and the Founding Fathers”
can be found at
</font><a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/foundfathers.htm" eudora="autourl"><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF"><u>www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/foundfathers.htm</a></u></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">.
His full response to vicious Trinitarianism can be found at
<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/trinity.htm" eudora="autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/trinity.htm</a>.<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=2>"The god you worship is the god you
deserve."<br>
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