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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Hi Ted & Visionaries,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Great comments – thanks for sharing them! Didn’t
you just love the Harry Potter-esque opening?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>The article was an entertaining – read </span><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Too bad there wasn’t a footnote explaining that while she
was here in Moscow, Ms. Worthen was a paying “guest” (that’s
for you, Pat, & GMA City Council Candidate Wayne Krauss)at the Roy
Atwood residence around the corner, a little factoid she neglected to mention
when talking with Rose and I. My bet would be Dr. Atwood is now thinking
he should have charged her a heck of a lot more for his “hospitality.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>For Rose Huskey’s always insightful take on the experience,
you might want to check out “</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>What Would You Do for a
Byline in the <i>New York Times</i>?”</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><a href="http://cleaning-house.org/?p=605">http://cleaning-house.org/?p=605</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Saundra Lund<br>
Moscow, ID<br>
<br>
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.<br>
- Edmund Burke </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] <b>On
Behalf Of </b>Ted Moffett<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:36 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> nickgier@adelphia.net<br>
<b>Cc:</b> vision2020@moscow.com<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] Moscow's Calvinist College Makes the NYTimes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Nick et. al.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Today I read this article (Onward Christian Soldiers) in the
NY Times magazine at the Silo coffee shop on Styner... They happened to have
the magazine in the racks. It's also available from the NYT online for
free. For those who want a quick read, I pasted in what they offered
gratis at the bottom. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>There were numerous issues that were not explored that I
thought deserved in depth discussion, such as, unless I missed the
mention, the implications of "Southern Slavery As It Was," and
the related protests during the NSA/Christ Church "History
Conference" that were held in Moscow, and the film "Our
Town." Also, though Rose Huskey and her research
into Christ Church and associated entities was mentioned, there was
no exploration of Huskey's findings, again, unless I missed
it. This I found disappointing. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>The anti-science leanings of NSA, that I find just as
troubling as other often mentioned controversies, were revealed in this
comment:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Darwin, for his part, remains only "a curious event in
the history of modern secularism," Matthew McCabe says.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>What I found laughable (literally... at the coffee shop I
laughed uproariously) was the mention of Wilson's "liberal critics"
several times. I expect that a magazine of the caliber of the New York
Times would not label the critics of Wilson et. al. with the
oversimplified convenient stereotypes of the so called "culture
wars." Many libertarian conservatives are appalled at
Wilson's theology and aims for society. Wilson et. al. unites
"liberals" and "conservatives" of intellectual integrity in
opposition together! <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Another outburst of uproarious laughter was inspired when I
read this choice comment:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>As Matthew McCabe, an alumnus, puts it, "We want to be
medieval Protestants."<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>I pictured various barbaric practices common, and the
primitive state of science, in the medieval world.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>I also thought the author rather uncritically presented the
eye brow raising claim we have heard over and over, that Wilson et. al. do not
have a political agenda:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>New St. Andrews is turning away from the Moral Majority's
legacy of political involvement, but it has not turned its back on the culture
war.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>As if those associated with Christ Church/NSA are not going
to vote, or not influence by other means political decisions by local
government that impact their future? Perhaps the author intended us to
"wink" with her at the inside joke that this claim is bogus. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>I was surprised to see discussion of the stealthy
agenda to take over Moscow highlighted, a claim many of the Christ Church
defenders think "paranoid." <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The object was to take over the town with the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, but to do it in an underground fashion," says Wilson's
father, now nearly 80 and still running his ministry. "One of the
principles of war is surprise. You don't tell people what you're going to do.
Doug told them, and he gave them someone to shoot at." <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>-----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>And also the mention of the enlightened view of homosexuals
and adulterers that Wilson has expressed. "Flexible"
indeed! The author with tongue in cheek again?<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Wilson emphasizes his flexibility when it comes to Old
Testament law. "You can't apply Scripture woodenly," he says; instead
of executing them, "you might exile some homosexuals, depending on the
circumstances and the age of the victim." He adds: "There are
circumstances in which I'd be in favor of execution for adultery. . . . I'm not
proposing legislation. We're saying, Let's set up the Christian worldview, and
our descendants 500 years from now can work out the knotty problems." <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br>
----<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>September 30, 2007<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Matriculation<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<h1>Onward Christian Scholars <o:p></o:p></h1>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>By MOLLY WORTHEN<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id=articleBody>
<p><b>EVERY FRIDAY AFTERNOON</b> in Moscow, <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/idaho/index.html?inline=nyt-geo"
title="More news and information about Idaho."><span style='color:#000066'>Idaho</span></a>,
a strange commotion overruns Main Street. A stream of young men and women
parade down the sidewalk, wearing black academic gowns that billow and flap as
they walk. Some pore over Latin textbooks or thumb flashcards of ancient Greek
vocabulary, nearly tripping at the curb. They are students at New St. Andrews
College on their way to <i>disputatio</i>, a weekly assembly held in a movie
theater downtown. The college itself has no room large enough to accommodate
all 150 students at once: it occupies a single unassuming brick building a few
blocks away, one that a stranger might mistake for the refurbished husk of an
old savings and loan. Passers-by on their way to the Pita Pit or Hodgins Drug
barely give the students a second glance. Not a few residents, however, have
fought hard to keep them out of downtown. Founded in 1994 by the elders of a
fast-growing and radically conservative church, New St. Andrews represents a
new philosophy of evangelical education — one that has inspired a
national movement and makes local liberals nervous. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The students and teachers call what they are doing "classical Christian
education." They believe it's much more than memorizing Latin declensions
and Aristotle's principles of rhetoric, though they do plenty of that. Doug
Wilson, 54, the pastor who spearheaded New St. Andrews' founding, puts the
college's purpose simply: "We are trying to save civilization." He's
not alone in his mission. The C.C.E. movement began in the early 1980s among
Protestant evangelical private schools and home-schoolers who scorned most
conservative Christian colleges, which were long on classes in business
management and Bible prophecy but short on history, literature and ideas. Now
the movement boasts a host of home-schooling associations and curriculum
companies, more than 200 private schools and college programs around the
country. Evangelicals at New St. Andrews are using dead languages and ancient
history to reinvent conservative Protestant education. As Matthew McCabe, an
alumnus, puts it, "We want to be medieval Protestants." <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>When you ask teachers and students what sort of school New St. Andrews is,
they often cite one school they are not: Patrick Henry College, the evangelical
college in Purcellville, Va., with a reputation for training home-schooled
Christian students to wrest the reins of power from "secular
humanists" in Washington. "We believe in a much longer view,"
says Joshua Appel, a professor at New St. Andrews. The curriculum is modeled on
the vision of "New England's First Fruits," a 1643 Massachusetts Bay
Colony pamphlet describing the college lately founded in Cambridge. Besides required
coursework in Latin and Greek, students at N.S.A. study natural philosophy
(mostly taxonomy and creationist science), the Western literary canon,
Euclidean geometry and theology; they also practice public speaking at a weekly
declamation. Students drag themselves out of bed for classes that meet at 7:30
am, only half an hour later than classes once did at Puritan <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about Harvard University."><span style='color:#000066'>Harvard</span></a>.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This curriculum is a "reformation in higher education," says Roy
Atwood, the college president. "The last thing we wanted to be was a
Liberty University or a Patrick Henry. We are not interested in political takeover."
Patrick Henry — which requires classical core classes and offers a major
in classical liberal arts as well as more political fields — hemorrhaged
faculty and students a year ago as a debate over academic freedom and the role
of the liberal arts in Christian education divided the campus. "I wonder
if the N.S.A. people are right," says G. T. Smith, a philosophy professor
who left Patrick Henry after the turmoil. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>New St. Andrews is turning away from the Moral Majority's legacy of
political involvement, but it has not turned its back on the culture war. The
Latin motto on water bottles and Frisbees for sale in the college bookstore
makes the point plain: <i>Numquam Bella Piis, Numquam Certanima Desunt</i>
— "For the faithful, wars shall never cease."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><b>IN CERTAIN WAYS</b>, Moscow is an unlikely home for New St. Andrews. The
town is "a little blue dot in an ocean of red," says Doug Wilson, who
looks more like a lumberjack than a pastor, even when he wears a suit. The
presence of the publicly financed University of Idaho has long made it a
typical college town. On Main Street, multicolored fliers flutter in the
doorway of the Golden Blue Lotus Tara Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>A handful of people gather for regular antiwar demonstrations on Friendship
Square, adjacent to New St. Andrews. The well-combed and collared students
inside seem too busy reading Plato to pay attention. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In the student directory, a note on the first page explains the absence of
street addresses of the homes where students board (the college opposes dorms
on principle). "It seems there are people in the community who make a
hobby of causing trouble for local Christian families who extend hospitality to
N.S.A. students," reads the disclaimer. "So as a courtesy to these
families, and as a hedge against whatever else the 'Intoleristas' have up their
sleeve, we're making it a tad bit harder for them."
"Intolerista" is Wilson's nickname for his liberal critics. Some have
filed zoning complaints against N.S.A. host families for supposedly running illegal
boarding houses. Rival coffee shops have sprung up. The Christians drink their
lattes at Bucer's, which is outfitted like an English pub and is named after
the Reformation theologian Martin Bucer. The Starbucks-like One World Cafe is
the reputed liberal hangout. "There are a bunch of people who hate
N.S.A.," says Laura Blakey, a 25-year-old alumna. "I think our
Christianity offends them."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Doug Wilson proudly declares himself more right-wing than most Idaho
conservatives. "They voted for Bush; I'd vote for Jefferson Davis,"
he chuckles. Over the past two decades, he has founded a successful classical
Christian K-12 school, and his congregation, Christ Church, has expanded to
about 1,000 members. "It's Wilson Inc.," says Rose Huskey, a longtime
Moscow resident who met with me for two hours to detail Wilson's crimes and
offer boxes of documentation she has filed away at home. Wilson's critics view
him as a right-wing Pied Piper luring like-minded Christians to overrun the
town: families from as far away as France have moved to Moscow to enroll their
children in New St. Andrews or to join Christ Church. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>New St. Andrews students are used to the challenge that their college is a
narrow-minded place. Brad Littlejohn, 19, often argues with his grandfather, a
Jewish agnostic. "My grandfather says, you're afraid of having your
beliefs challenged," Brad says. "That's a psychological claim, and
there's no way to refute that. I wanted a Christian-worldview education not
because I felt that if I got a secular-worldview education it would weaken my
faith, but it wouldn't nourish me in the same way." The students are
bright. The average SAT score is a respectable 1,214 out of 1,600, nearly on
par with schools like <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/george_washington_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about George Washington University"><span
style='color:#000066'>George Washington University </span></a>(though about 110
points behind Patrick Henry's average). The 88 percent admission rate is
deceptive, given the college's low public profile and self-selecting applicant
pool: students at N.S.A. have thought carefully about why they are here. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Students' postcollege goals are fairly ordinary, ranging from academia and
law to construction and choral conducting, but they approach graduation with a
sense of mission sharpened by N.S.A.'s distinctive culture. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The school has adopted trappings of Oxford and Cambridge: professors are
called "fellows," and students dress in academic gowns for thesis
defenses and public final exams. Proudly Anglophile, faculty members lead a
summer tour of English castles and abbeys. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are
ubiquitous on class reading lists — revered for their godly wit and their
fondness for fine drink. N.S.A.'s campus is proudly wet, in deliberate contrast
to the average fundamentalist Bible college. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The Oxbridge traditions; the college's nine-point Latin grading scale (from <i>Summa
Cum Laude</i> down to a failing <i>Minime</i>); the nameplates (in honor of
Augustine, Calvin and the Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen) that take
the place of room numbers outside its three modest classrooms; these constantly
remind students that they attend a Christian college with class. Donna
Foucachon, an American who moved to Idaho from Lyon, France, with her French
husband after their sons chose to attend New St. Andrews, said that the N.S.A.
education impressed her French brother-in-law, who "is an extremely
cultured, educated man who worked in government and ate with the shah. He's not
of the same [religious] persuasion as us, but he looks at what they're
studying, and he says, This is true education." N.S.A. aims to turn on its
head the historian Richard Hofstadter's old stereotype of the resentful
evangelical bumpkin who equates intellectual life and high culture with
privilege and social status he doesn't have.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>These flourishes are also intended as proof of intellectual seriousness.
"I'm critical of evangelical anti-intellectualism — the attitude
that it's not important to learn because we'll all be raptured soon," says
Matthew McCabe, the N.S.A. alumnus, who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in medieval
English literature at the University of Toronto. "I'm also critical of the
view of pragmatists, who are receptive to education but only to pragmatic
ends." Fundamentally, the college tries to reunite faith and reason: to
devise a medieval antidote to the post-Enlightenment confinement of religion to
Sunday morning. In a community this tightly knit, where weekends bring more
bonding at church, marathon Sunday brunches and endless "psalm sings"
(if you come to N.S.A. without having mastered four-part fugal harmony, you'd
better learn quick), the pomp and ritual further bond students from 31 states
and five foreign countries into a band of cultured missionaries. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Students at New St. Andrews grin and complain that their teachers assign
more than 1,000 pages of reading each week. Seniors write theses that run to
more than 80 pages. Yet intellectual merit badges cannot guarantee an education
in critical thinking. Evan Wilson, 52, has been estranged from his older
brother's church and college ever since a theological quarrel in the late 1980s
that he dubs "the Great Unpleasantness." We sat in his library, a
forest green room appointed with leather club chairs and pictures of the Battle
of Waterloo. Lighting his briar pipe, Evan called himself "the local
Pelagian" and explained his very un-Calvinist view that God cannot
predestine our future because the future does not exist; it is only an abstract
concept, shaped by our free will. He runs his own church — one of three
Wilson ministries in town, including that of his father, Jim, who brought the
family to Moscow in the early 1970s to found a chain of Christian bookstores. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Evan sees a lack of critical thinking among N.S.A. students, an inability to
systematically question their own assumptions. "When I meet these young
men who are trying to smoke pipes and talk about Chesterton, and they haven't
put Chesterton through the wringer, all I'll say is, 'Look, guys, his good turn
of phrase in "Orthodoxy" does not make him a good thinker,' " he
said. "When I went through college, some of my greatest moments of
advancement were with a professor who hated my guts and didn't agree with any of
my premises. . . . Our thoughts exist in broader company." <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The faculty at New St. Andrews is hardly diverse. Several are N.S.A.
graduates who went on to do master's degrees elsewhere and came back to teach.
Only 4 of 17 faculty members have Ph.D.'s (those few are always addressed as
"Doctor" — proof that N.S.A. has not entirely escaped the
intellectual insecurity typical of evangelical colleges). Doug Wilson's son,
son-in-law and youngest brother teach at the college. "Someone's going to
say, 'Isn't that a little cozy?' " Wilson admits. "Part of
modernity's negative legacy is the pretense of objectivity. All institutions
thrive on interconnectedness, affection and loyalty." N.S.A.'s philosophy
is that cultural change begins with right worship and community rather than
with political activism. College life revolves around Christ Church and Trinity
Reformed Church — both members of the Confederation of Reformed
Evangelical Churches, a denomination based on "historic Protestant
orthodoxy" that Wilson co-founded in 1998. The college handbook forbids
students to embrace or promote "doctrinal errors" from the 4th
through the 21st centuries, "such as Arianism, Socinianism, Pelagianism,
Skepticism, Feminism." If drawn to such ideas, they must "inform the
administration immediately and honestly in a letter offering to withdraw from
the College." Cultural revolution cannot tolerate heretics. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><b>JOSHUA APPEL, A MODEL</b> N.S.A. professor, graduated from New St.
Andrews in 2001. He did a master's degree at Reformed Theological Seminary in
Florida before returning to his alma mater to teach and raise a family. (His
wife is also an N.S.A. alumna — the school is a capable matchmaker, and
during May and June student weddings occupy nearly every weekend.) At 2 p.m.
one Friday, a group of students gathered for a seminar in Appel's living room.
One boy, perched on the piano bench, offered some armchair psychology on the
week's reading: the letters of Abelard and Heloise. Two girls balanced mugs of
tea on their knees and wondered how Heloise could disregard God's command
against fornication. Appel seemed frustrated. He wanted them to find
connections between this text and previous readings, not offer casual opinions.
As at any college, on some days discussion is better than others — and
sometimes students clam up in the presence of an observer. But perhaps strict
theological conformity has its drawbacks. The college "could have been a
more vibrant place for debate," recalls Matthew McCabe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Like the majority of his classmates, Eric Mabry, a 21-year-old from Texas
who hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, was home-schooled. Before he got his
driver's license he was studying Latin and reading Thomas Aquinas. At N.S.A.,
he is known for occasionally wearing a monk's habit. When he told professors at
his local community college that he was going to attend New St. Andrews,
"it created a small firestorm," Eric says. N.S.A. was not even
accredited back then. But the teachers close to him respected his choice
because "they knew me and they knew my presuppositions," he says.
"People in a secular school are just as constrained. The only difference
is, I'm aware of my worldview." Eric smiles. "Some call it a
straitjacket — I prefer to think of it as a nicely fitted suit." <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The phrases that N.S.A. students are trained to use — like
"Christian worldview" and "presuppositions" — are the
tag lines of the theological tradition that partly inspired their college. In
the early 20th century, a Dutch theologian named Cornelius Van Til introduced a
kind of theology called presuppositionalism. He argued that no assumptions are
neutral and that the human mind can comprehend reality only if proceeding from
the truth of biblical revelation. In other words, it is impossible for
Christians to reason with non-Christians. presuppositionalism is a strangely
postmodern theory that denies the possibility of objectivity — though it
does not deny the existence of truth, which belongs to Christians alone. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>According to critics, this school of thought equips young Christians to read
and discuss non-Christian ideas without ever taking them seriously. "The
trouble is that once you've figured out someone's presuppositions, you can
write them off as right or wrong without having to deal with their arguments. .
. . It becomes anti-intellectual," says Darryl Hart, a historian who has
taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the birthplace of
presuppositionalism. Token "anti-Christians" like Margaret Sanger,
Karl Marx and Charles Darwin appear on N.S.A. syllabuses, but students say
these rarely generate serious debate. Darwin, for his part, remains only
"a curious event in the history of modern secularism," Matthew McCabe
says.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Students at New St. Andrews rarely read Van Til's dense theological
treatises. They absorb his ideas from their teachers. A few faculty members at
New St. Andrews also had links with a largely defunct offshoot of Van Til's
thought called Christian Reconstructionism. The movement's founder, Rousas John
Rushdoony, wrote that Christians should gradually take control of society and
reinstate Old Testament law — including the execution of adulterers and
homosexuals. Most N.S.A. faculty members are quick to distance themselves from
the movement, but not Doug Wilson. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Wilson emphasizes his flexibility when it comes to Old Testament law.
"You can't apply Scripture woodenly," he says; instead of executing
them, "you might exile some homosexuals, depending on the circumstances
and the age of the victim." He adds: "There are circumstances in
which I'd be in favor of execution for adultery. . . . I'm not proposing
legislation. We're saying, Let's set up the Christian worldview, and our
descendants 500 years from now can work out the knotty problems." Gene
Veith, who is provost of Patrick Henry College and active in classical
Christian education, fears Wilson's views are a handicap for the movement.
"One of the frustrating things for me is that people sometimes associate
the classical Christian education movement with Doug Wilson, so some people are
sort of afraid of it," he says. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Wilson and others at New St. Andrews say they are laying the groundwork for
the long-term reinvigoration of evangelical intellectual life — and for
Christian cultural ascendancy. Time and again, they assert that they are not
trying to influence politics and that the antagonism they face is persecution.
"The Gospels make it clear that as we're faithful, we can expect
opposition," says Peter Leithart, who teaches theology. It's hard to deny,
however, that Wilson goes out of his way to provoke. "The object was to
take over the town with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but to do it in an
underground fashion," says Wilson's father, now nearly 80 and still
running his ministry. "One of the principles of war is surprise. You don't
tell people what you're going to do. Doug told them, and he gave them someone
to shoot at." <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Evan Wilson, who disagrees with his brother on most things, does credit the
leaders of New St. Andrews with remaining true to their vision. Rather than
seeking change "by force of vote," he says, they look to "a
natural percolation of this culture they're offering." Yet, to quote the
iconic conservative author Richard Weaver, "ideas have consequences."
New St. Andrews's chronic spats with liberals in town belie the claim that one
can wholly separate the noble liberal arts from the crass business of politics.
"For years, evangelicals have been fighting abortion and evolution with
rubber-band guns, but there's all this great stuff from thousands of years ago,
when they were wrestling with similar questions," says Joanna Gray, a
24-year-old alumna. "It's there to be found — you just have to study
and find it." <o:p></o:p></p>
<div id=authorId>
<p>Molly Worthen is writing a book about evangelical intellectual life. <o:p></o:p></p>
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