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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Brava!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Debi R-S</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=kjajmix1@msn.com href="mailto:kjajmix1@msn.com">keely emerinemix</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nickgier@adelphia.net
href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net">nickgier@adelphia.net</A> ; <A
title=mikedatailor@hotmail.com href="mailto:mikedatailor@hotmail.com">Michael
Borden</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, August 24, 2007 10:24
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] All Things
Southern</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>I appreciate Nick's clarification, below, of his experiences
with Southern culture. My mother's family is from Little Rock and I
worked in Texas for a year, and so while my familiarity with "all things
Southern" is fairly limited, it hasn't in any way demonized the South or those
who live there.<BR><BR>That said, I continue to be concerned about anyone's
affiliation with a group like The League of The South, whose family-friendly
and inclusive-appearing website is a facade that masks a combative need to
promote a Southern culture based on hierarchy, social strata, patriarchy, and
an interpretation of the Bible more like the far-right Libertarianism and
rabid anti-progressive strain running through the GOP than it is like the
teachings of Jesus. Not only did Christ demonstrate complete disregard
for hierarchy, social strata and patriarchy, his teachings also resulted in a
liberation of all peoples that is terrifically at odds with the League's
mission. I refuse to call the League's vision of a "Christian society"
<SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Christian</SPAN>, and think that any society
upheld by principles of exclusion, authoritarian leadership and social
stratification is a society desperately in need of the Gospel. But
rather than operate as agitators for change and agents for truth --
missionaries, perhaps -- the League and its supporters, including Wilkins and
Wilson, have chosen to back a worldview that dishonors the Gospel and
disenfranchises the very people they ought to be serving.
<BR><BR>Virtually every mature Christian I've ever met would recognize that
organizations like The League of The South are a detriment to the Gospel, and
they'd separate themselves from it or any other affiliation that would
compromise the message of Jesus Christ. Christians are enjoined to shun
those things that may be legal, socially acceptable, or convenient, but that
present an obstacle to people understanding and receiving the Good News of
reconciliation to God through Christ. To put it another way, most
Christian leaders would gladly turn down opportunities to wield a serrated
edge, would sooner die than bully those unbelievers and critics around them,
and would seek to be sensitive in how they describe themselves, all for the
realization of a higher goal -- presenting an image of Christ that is in
accord with his teachings and life. Nick is right -- anyone living in
the 20th century would recognize that "Kirk," while a legitimate Scottish word
for "church," primarily conjures images of racial apartheid and bigotry.
Mature Christians and people of good will loathe racism enough to purposefully
separate themselves from anything that appears sympathetic. But Wilson
is determined to enjoy his "right" to use whatever term he wants to use for
his congregation, and if it confuses or offends anyone, well, that appears to
him to be the problem of the hearer, not him. And since those who cringe
upon hearing "Kirk" are simply not as sophisticated and well-read as he is,
their dismissal is understandable, even justified. It seems that making
concessions out of respect for those not "in the club" is asking too much of
Moscow's most prominent pastor, whose conduct has often appeared to be fueled
not by the Spirit, but by a sneering superiority that, buffed and polished,
manages to somehow look impressive and unthreatening. I'm loath to
congratulate Wilson for much of anything, but I will say that he is a master
of public relations and spin. Too bad he's not running a campaign for
someone other than Jesus Christ.<BR><BR>It's really simple: If you're a
pastor who writes in defense of slavery, AND you appropriate a term that in
its most common contemporary usage denotes bigotry and separatism, AND you
trumpet your affiliation with a League of the South-type worldview, AND you
practice a suffocating brand of hierarchical, patriarchal, and controlling
leadership from the pulpit, AND you embrace "heroes" of dubious character and
undeniable racism -- R.L. Dabney, for instance -- AND you teach that Christ
was a master of the serrated edge in tossing off racial epithets . . . well,
you look like a fool and a liar objecting to your opponents' calling you a
bigot. You've not fooled anyone, and you look like a buffoon while
trying to. No fair hollering "foul" when you end up stained by the
sewage you've chosen to swim in.<BR><BR>keely<BR><BR><BR><BR>"Patriarchy and
its abuses, including the alienation of woman and man from each other,
resulted from the material demands of life outside of the Creator's
abundance, a state God never intended human beings to experience in the
first place ... Redemption means turning over the order of things in the
fallen world."<BR>-- Dr. Carrie Miles<BR><BR><SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic"></SPAN><BR><BR><BR>> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007
10:21:47 -0700<BR>> From: nickgier@adelphia.net<BR>> To:
mikedatailor@hotmail.com<BR>> CC: vision2020@moscow.com<BR>> Subject:
Re: [Vision2020] All Things Southern<BR>> <BR>> Now that I have a break
between concrete pourings, I can make good on my promise to respond to Michael
Borden's post. I don't know how he could think that I believe that all people
from the South are "catfish eating racists," but I apologize to him and
everyone if I gave that impression. There is, however, a certain ambiguity in
my use of the phrase "all things southern" that might imply that I meant all
the positive qualities of the South.<BR>> <BR>> My two major professors
in graduate school were from Georgia and they were the very opposite of Bible
thumpers and racists. They were very sophisticated Christian gentlemen, and I
would dare say that one of them, John B. Cobb, lives the teachings of Christ
more fully than any human being that I know.<BR>> <BR>> My daughter's
final choices for graduate school were Chicago and Duke and the latter won
hands down because of the way she was embraced—body, mind, and spirit—by the
Duke music faculty. She found the people at Chicago pasty-faced and
dour.<BR>> <BR>> Gail and I enjoy several visits to North Carolina (I
got to sit in on my daughter's dissertation defense!), and even though they
looked at me real funny at Bojangles when I said that I did not eat chicken,
the young woman said that I could have "fixins" instead and they were real
good.<BR>> <BR>> I visit my Indian student friend in Houston on a
regular basis, although Pasadena, south of the ship canal, is not the best
neighborhood. I've enjoyed academic conferences in Texas, Florida, Virginia,
Tennessee, and Georgia. Over the years I detected no differences in the
quality of scholarship and critical thinking from any region of the
country.<BR>> <BR>> With regard to Wilson and Co., my charges of guilt
by close association stand. In an e-mail to me Steve Wilkins conceded that he
misspoke about the exact date that he left the board of the neo-Confederate
League of the South (LOS). LOS's President Michael Hill attends Wilkins'
church and Wilkins has not repudiated any LOS principles. Hill once described
blacks as "a compliant and deadly underclass," and one LOS leader told a
reporter from the Southern Poverty Law Center that “we need a new type of
Klan.”<BR>> <BR>> So as long as Wilkins and his ilk come to Moscow on
Wilson's invitation, I believe that Kalvinist Kirk Kathedral is an appropriate
reminder of Wilson's closest associations. <BR>> <BR>> Most informed
people think of the South African apartheid Kirk when Wilson uses Kirk, and he
obviously knows that. Fewer people know that it is also Scottish for church,
and that's what Wilson will tell you, but why did he nevertheless use it with
its apartheid associations? <BR>> <BR>> Wilson simply loves to provoke
and loves to poke other people in the eye, even though the biggest splinter is
in his eye.<BR>> <BR>> Nick Gier<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>>
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made available by First Step Internet, <BR>> serving the communities of the
Palouse since 1994. <BR>> http://www.fsr.net <BR>>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>>
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