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Greetings:<br><br>
I've never been tripled teamed before, but I think I've covered most of
the bases. The gentlemen's column were posted yesterday.<br><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times"><x-tab> </x-tab>In
December, 2003, over 1200 Moscow citizens signed a petition condemning
Douglas Wilson’s views on slavery, homosexuals, and women. Although
some condemned Wilson as a racist, no one, as far as I know, called him a
neo-Nazi. This term did not enter the debate until the
<i>Statesman</i> included it in the title of my column on August
12.<br><br>
Roy Atwood, president of Wilson’s Moscow college, claims that area
newspapers been on their side. Here are some samples from the
editorial page of the <i>Lewiston Morning Tribune</i>: “As pamphleteer,
Wilson deserves repudiation for historical inaccuracy. . . . the board of
[Wilson’s] Christ Church has forsaken an opportunity to set the example
for generosity and goodwill in a community immediately in need of both”
(11/18/03). . . “Even hard-core conservatives distance themselves
from Wilson” (7/26/05). <br><br>
I always accepted Wilson’s repeated disavowals of racism, but his
statement that the antebellum South was the most harmonious multiracial
society in history would give great comfort to many racists. This
claim is found on page 24 of <i>Southern Slavery As It Was</i>, which
Wilson co-authored with Steven Wilkins, who responded to my column, along
with Atwood and Wilson, on August 22. This booklet has been
condemned by professional historians, including a conservative
Presbyterian civil war expert at the University of Washington.<br><br>
We also discovered that 20 percent of the slavery booklet had been
borrowed from another source. Wilson blamed this on transmission
errors between Wilkins and him, but in his book on Robert E. Lee Wilkins
lifted passages from at least two other books.<br><br>
Wilkins claims that he resigned from the board of the neo-Confederate
League of the South (LOS) five years ago. When I checked the LOS
website in 2003, Wilkins was listed as a board member, each having
Confederate flags as hot buttons. Later Wilkins was listed as
“consultant” to the board (2004), then “affiliate scholar” (2005), and
now no affiliation.<br><br>
Wilkins was a regular speaker at LOS annual conferences, sometimes
appearing with Michael Hill, who has called blacks "a compliant and
deadly underclass," who rejects interracial marriage, and states
that slavery is a “God ordained” institution. <br><br>
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has declared the LOS a hate group,
and I have relied on its <i>Intelligence Report</i> (Summer, 2000, 2004)
for my information. My critics have charged me with falsehoods, but
the SPLC and the film I reviewed in my column are my two sources. The
film has been out for two months and neither Wilson nor Wilkins have said
that they were misquoted.<br><br>
The LOS has essentially taken over the more moderate Sons of Confederate
Veterans (SCV), and many SCV members are saddened that their organization
has been hijacked by political and religious extremists. LOS board
member Jack Kershaw said that “we will need a new type of Klan.” <br>
<br>
Wilson says that he is not a neo-Confederate, but I offer the following:
<br>
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<dl>
<dl><font face="Symbol">
<dd>·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Robert
E. Lee’s portrait hangs in the classrooms of Wilson’s Logos School and it
is his birthday rather than Washington’s and Lincoln’s that is
celebrated.<br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol">
<dd>·<x-tab> </x-tab></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">The
Confederate flag has displayed at social functions and has hung in
Wilson’s office. <br><br>
</font>
</dl>
</dl><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Wilson wrote an editorial
supporting the right of states to leave the Union. <br><br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Wilson
has spoken at neo-Confederate Southern Heritage conferences and has
written three articles for neo-Confederate journal
<i>Chronicles</i>.<br><br>
Wilkins claims to be a member in good standing of the conservative
Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), but the Mississippi PCA presbytery
declared that Wikins’ and Wilson’s views “are unbiblical. . . and are . .
. of a pernicious and fatal tendency.” On June 22, 2002, the conservative
Reformed Presbyterian Church of the United States declared that these two
men’s teachings were heretical. <br><br>
Wilson is a former student of mine and we were on cordial terms until I
experienced his reaction to the slavery booklet. I’ve been shocked
by his nasty comments, but I have rather enjoyed being called a “pagan”
and a “banshee.” I’m not amused, however, when I am likened to a
lawn chair flattened by Wilson’s divine tsunami.<br><br>
Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for
31<br>
years. For more on the Wilson controversy see<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse" eudora="autourl">www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse</a></u></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">.<br><br>
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<font size=2>"The god you worship is the god you
deserve."<br>
~~ Joseph Campbell<br>
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