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<font face="Times New Roman, Times">Greetings:<br><br>
Below you will find a letter that I have sent to the <i>Idaho
Statesman</i> objecting to the title that they gave to my column, which I
had entitled "The Cultural Wars Come to Moscow, Idaho."
This is the full version. Now I have to cut it to 200 words.
Wish me luck!<br><br>
I object to the title given to my “Reader’s View” of August 12. At
no point in my piece did I say that Douglas Wilson was an Aryan
Christian. I am quite prepared to document his association with
neo-Confederates, but there is no evidence to link him with
neo-Nazis.<br>
I accept Wilson’s disavowal of racism, but his statement that the
antebellum South was a harmonious multiracial society would give great
comfort to many racists.<br>
Wilson also refuses to distance himself from Steve Wilkins, his co-author
on the slavery booklet, who was a founding director of the
neo-Confederate League of the South.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Wilson
claims that he not a neo-Confederate, but I offer the following:</font>
<dl><font face="Symbol">
<dd>·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Robert
E. Lee’s portrait is proudly displayed in Wilson’s Logos School and the
Confederate flag is displayed at social functions. </font>
</dl><font face="Symbol">·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">A
conservative Presbyterian minister has testified that he saw a
Confederate flag in Wilson's office, along with other Civil War
memorabilia.<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Wilson
wrote an editorial supporting the right of states to succeed from the
Union. Isn’t this an act of rebellion that Wilson’s religion
forbids?<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Wilson
has spoken at neo-Confederate Southern Heritage conferences and has
written for the neo-Confederate journal <i>Chronicles</i>.<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Moscow
Chamber of Commerce executive Paul Kimmell, a member of Wilson’s church,
featured Lee in a leadership conference. In his PowerPoint presentation
he had projected the Confederate flag and Old Glory side by side as if
they should be given equal value. <br>
Wilson’s claim to be a Presbyterian is also problematic. For
example, the Mississippi branch of the conservative Presbyterian Church
of America (PCA) has stated that Wilson’s views “are confused and
confusing, are unbiblical, are contra-confessional, and are (as Jonathan
Edwards put it) ‘of a pernicious and fatal tendency.' As such, we are
ready to declare some of these distinctive teachings to be outside the
bounds of acceptable diversity in this presbytery, and we trust also, in
the PCA.” <br>
On June 22, 2002, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of the United States
(RPCUS) declared that Wilson’s and Wilkins’ teaching “has the effect of
destroying the Reformed Faith through the introduction of false
hermeneutic principles; the infusion of sacerdotalism; and the
redefinition of the doctrines of the church, the sacraments, election,
effectual calling, perseverance, regeneration, justification, union with
Christ, and the nature and instrumentality of faith. . . . We therefore
resolve that these teachings are heretical.”<br>
Since Wilson is not a member of the PCA or the RPCUS, he cannot be
disciplined by these Presbyterians. Strictly speaking, Wilson’s own
Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals is not a recognized presbytery;
rather, it is a loose confederation of independent churches that will
never hold Wilson to account for his actions or his eclectic
theology.<br>
Nick Gier, Moscow<br><br>
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