Violence to History

Our next post addresses the letter that Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, wrote to the Governor of the State of Idaho during the Southern Slavery scandal of 2003–2004. In the letter Wilson references a Daily News op-ed by Dr. Dale Graden, Professor of History at the University of Idaho, which is worth republishing here for three reasons:

1. First, between this column and the book review by Drs. Quinlan and Ramsey, you can see that the community was still piecing together the big picture surrounding Wilson and this op-ed specifically identified the community’s primary concerns relative to Wilson and the Kult at that time.


2. Second, the existence of the op-ed helps demonstrate the inflamed state of the community at that time. I have noted repeatedly that the Daily News kept the story front and center via headlines, editorials, and letters to the editor for about five straight months, and this op-ed is one more fully documented example of this historical fact.


3. Third, make careful note of this statement from Dr. Graden: “Efforts to have Mr. Wilson clear the record on his views about slavery, misogyny, and homosexuality have met with statements or denials that contradict the opinions clearly expressed in his extensive writings. In Wilson’s spin, the real issues have become obscured.” Does that sound familiar?

The Daily News ran this column on Saturday, December 27, 2003, which means that the News gave it a primo spot since they have no Sunday paper. A second thing you should notice about this column is that (according to my records) this was the first time that the News did not give the Kult (Wilson) a response column, which forced them to respond on their website (I shall not republish it because it has too many fabrications for me to correct).

Finally, a word about Dabney. Some of his writings make me cringe and I understand completely how he would send an academic community over the edge. There’s no escaping his racism and there’s no justification for it either. However high one may hold his Presbyterianism, he’s the farthest thing from an authority on race relations. To be sure, he’s living proof of the old Puritan’s maxim: “The best of men are still men at best.” When this controversy erupted a dear friend of mine, who is a trained historian as well, put it best, saying (I paraphrase from memory), “I understand that Dabney was a product of his culture; his environment engrained his racism into him, making it part and parcel of his theology. But this is 2003 — enough time has passed that everyone should know better.” Indeed. And the very education that Dabney withheld from an entire race of mankind should have enlightened some Southern boys to a biblical understanding of race relations. But this assumes certain people are educated. Moreover, since Wilson and Wilkins have jettisoned completely Dabney’s theology proper, they compel us to inquire exactly what it is that draws them to him.

Here is Dr. Graden’s column:

Coalition says conference undermines diversity
Members of the Moscow-Pullman community have recently raised important questions about pastor Douglas Wilson’s views on racial slavery, women, and violence against gays. In response, Mr. Wilson and some of his supporters have conducted an extensive media campaign to denounce these people as “secular humanists,” “Darwinists,” or “radical progressives” who are driven by “hatred for the historic Christian gospel.” Efforts to have Mr. Wilson clear the record on his views about slavery, misogyny, and homosexuality have met with statements or denials that contradict the opinions clearly expressed in his extensive writings. In Wilson’s spin, the real issues have become obscured. It is necessary that we place the facts before our community and explain our deep concern.

On Feb. 5–7, 2004, Credenda/Agenda’s “Ninth Annual History Conference” will be at the University of Idaho. The event is sponsored by Wilson’s congregation. Some of the featured speakers are:

• Steven Wilkins, co-founder of the League of the South, a group identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Confederate hate group. In our opinion, this group is dedicated to southern secession and racial separatism. It’s our understanding that, over the past decade, the neo-Confederate movement has recast the anti-civil rights agenda of hate groups like the KKK into religious terms.



• George Grant, of King’s Meadow Study Center in Tennessee. Grant is a major figure in the national Christian Reconstructionist movement, which seeks to subvert the U.S. constitution and replace it with a Christian theocracy. In his 1993 book Legislating Immorality (co-authored by Mark Horne), Grant advocates the death penalty for gays, saying “[t]here is no such option for homosexual offenses” except capital punishment (pp. 186–87).



• Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Like Grant, Wilson is a national figure in the Reconstruction movement. He has been active in neo-Confederate networks since 1995. In 1996, he co-wrote (with Wilkins) a short booklet called Southern Slavery, As It Was. The book claims “[o]wning slaves is not an abomination” and alleges that African-American slave emancipation has led to “abortion, feminism, and sodomy” in today’s society (pp. 21, 11).



• Peter Leithart, a fellow at the New St. Andrews facility. In the conservative Weekly Standard (March 26, 2001), Leithart praised Holocaust denier and Reconstructionist J. Rousas Rushdoony as an “American original.” Rushdoony’s writings on the Holocaust and German casualties draw upon views expressed by Nazi collaborator Léon de Poncis and Holocaust denier David Irving. In the New York Review of Books, Joseph Lelyveld identifies Rushdoony as a “religious zealot and Holocaust denier” (June 12, 2003).

The centerpiece of the conference is Mr. Wilson’s talk on R.L. Dabney. Dabney was a marginal religious figure in the antebellum South who has been appropriated by the neo-Confederate and Reconstructionist movements. Dabney was a secessionist, proslavery apologist, and opponent of African-American education and interracial marriages.

We are concerned that this conference could negatively affect the general climate in our community. Several of the conference speakers, moreover, do not simply express intolerant views but actively issue “a call to arms” (in the words of George Grant) for their followers to put them into action. We are concerned because this type of hate speech has led to horror in our local past — most notably with Benjamin Matthew Williams, a Moscow resident and former UI student, who murdered a gay couple and burned three synagogues in northern California in 1999.

While the conference participants have the constitutional right to express their opinions, we feel we have an equal right to voice our disagreement. In so doing, we hope to raise community consciousness and promote a greater spirit of tolerance, diversity, and mutual respect within our community. In our view, the ideas expressed by Wilkins, Wilson, and Grant advocate intolerance, undermine diversity efforts, promote aggression based upon race, gender, and sexual orientation, and do violence to historical accuracy.

We invite you to join our efforts in promoting human rights, diversity, and true toleration in the Palouse.

Dale Graden is writing for the Equality Coalition. Those wishing additional information on these topics or interested in helping may visit the “Not on the Palouse” Web site at www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse or the UI’s office of Diversity and Human Rights at www.webs.uidaho.edu/diversity.

I should note as a follow-up that the 2004 history conference was George Grant’s last appearance in Moscow. To my knowledge he has not stated publicly his reasons for this and I have no knowledge that it’s connected to this scandal, but I certainly couldn’t blame the man for wanting distance from both his past written record and this set of loons.

Thank you.

“My head! My head!”

Here is an excellent book review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings; it appears in Interpretation, a theological journal published by Union Theological Seminary. Without even opening the commentary, it’s clear from this review that James Jordan shaped Leithart’s hermeneutic. Indeed, reading this makes me cry, “My head! My head!” (2 Kings 4:19).

Review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings
Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 62.1 (January 2008) 98–99

1 & 2 Kings
By Peter Leithart
Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, Brazos, Grand Rapids, 2006.
304pp. $29.99. ISBN 978-1-58743-125-8.

This commentary on the books of Kings by Peter Leithart is part of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. The aim of this series is to produce commentaries that interpret the Bible using the Nicene tradition as the “proper basis for the interpretation of the Bible as Christian Scripture” (p. 10). Commentators are chosen for “their expertise in using the Christian doctrinal tradition,” not for “historical or philological expertise” (p. 10). Commentators use whatever translation of the Bible and method of interpretation suits them. The only unifying element of this series is the premise that “doctrine provides structure and cogency to scriptural interpretation.” (p. 12).

Leithart’s method is rather eclectic. He draws here and there from historical and literary criticism, but typological analysis is clearly his preferred method of interpretation. Typology may have served the early church well, but we are not the early church. Is it really possible to do typology today without the philosophical and hermeneutical underpinnings that dominated the early centuries of Christianity? For Leithart, every use of the number “three” becomes an allusion to resurrection, every body of water a reference to baptism, and every anointing is messianic. The most tenuous of similarities lead to typological comparisons: David/Jacob; Adonijah/Adam; Solomon/Joshua, Solomon/New Adam, Solomon/Christ; Jehu/Christ; sacrificial animals/Israel, ritually clean wild animals/Gentile “God-fearers”; Saul/Ahab; Jesus/Judah; Elijah/Jesus; Elisha/Jesus; Elisha/Joseph; and judgment against Ahab’s house/eschatological judgment of the world/judgment passed against all nations in the cross of Jesus. No quotation better sums up his approach than “Moses is Elijah is John; Joshua is Elisha is Jesus. Yet also, Moses is Elijah is Jesus, and Joshua is Elisha is the church” (p. 172). I was amused to discover that Elisha’s floating ax is a sign of Christ’s resurrection (pp. 200, 203) and that “the inclusion of Gentiles into the new Covenant is signaled symbolically by many of the apostles being [Jewish!] fishermen” (p. 73).

In addition to spurious typologies, Leithart often uses the biblical text to leap into contemporary discussions that defy any logical connection to the book of Kings, e.g., a discussion of church/state/secularity/Locke with the notice that Solomon built other buildings (1 Kgs 7:1–12); modern and Christian views of the self and the condemnation of Solomon (1 Kgs 11:1–43); public/state/church relations and the Queen of Sheba’s visit (1 Kgs 10:1–29); Pope John Paul II’s speech on the culture of death and the Elisha stories (2 Kgs 4:1–44); and rationalists’ views of Jesus and Jehu’s rebellion (2 Kgs 9:1—10:36).

Other problems with this book include: misrepresenting his sources (e.g., Walsh, p. 43; Nelson, p. 69; Blenkinsopp, p. 227); the anachronistic use of the term “Gentile(s)” throughout the book; a superficial discussion of violence and God; an odd discussion of idolatry, chiasms with no point, a frightening view of God as an “equal opportunity trapper” (p. 180), the nature of God and evil; God as trickster, and vengeance against the wicked as “dear to Yahweh’s heart” (p. 223). Space prevents me from elaborating further. I have gained a much greater appreciation of the historical-critical method and of the literal sense of the text from reading this commentary. The literal sense is, after all, what God inspired the author to actually say and it contains enough theological depth that I do not have to imaginatively reconstruct the “hidden meaning” or make artificial connection where none exist. I am also now more firmly convinced that commentaries on the Bible should be left to biblical scholars.

Pauline A. Viviano
Loyola University
Chicago, Illinois

On a personal note, I have several friends who have Peter Leithart’s knife ware stuck firmly in their backs. And they don’t wear it well. Liethart operates as one of Wilson’s silent assassins, befriending members of the Kult who are suspects in Wilson’s paranoid mind. Leithart counsels them. Prays with them. Shows kindness to them. And then reports their every word back to Wilson, who sees to a bullet in the back of their heads, shot in the darkness of Anselm’s basement. Leithart was a primary instrument in this family’s demise. What a friend.

At one time you could say that Leithart brought detergent to Moscow to help sanitize Wilson’s PR, but you can’t disinfect raw sewage without spillage contaminating your person; you can’t bring sanity to the insane; and in the end St. Paul’s axiom holds true: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” If Peter ever had any good, it’s all gone now. So on that note, here’s a king whose end Peter Leithart should contemplate: “And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.” (Jer. 52:10–11.)

Thank you. (HT: Anon)

What Doug hath joined together

Today marks the first day of this year’s Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference. Of course, the Federal Vision controversy began at the 2002 AAPC where the Monroe Four objectively announced their doctrinal innovations. Six months later the RPCUS resolved the doctrine heresy and called up the heretics’ respective church courts to hold them accountable. Unfortunately, two of the Monroe Four, Wilson and Schlissel, are essentially Congregationalists with no formal ties to any legitimate ecclesiastical authority; the third, John Barach, read the writing on the wall and abandoned accountability in the URC by joining the CREC; and the fourth, Steven “Machen” Wilkins, learned a couple of days ago that the PCA doesn’t “quibble” about the Westminster Confession of Faith. The PCA Indictment of Louisiana Presbytery cites Wilkins’ 2002 AAPC lecture “The Legacy of the Half-Way Covenant” no less than seven times.

The theme for this year’s conference is “Liturgy and Life” and the church website describes it thus:

It is our great privilege to announce our Tenth Annual Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference January 7–9, 2008. This year our topic is “Liturgy and Life” and the speakers will explore the importance of worship not only for the church but for all of life. What is the role of liturgy in the life of the child of God? Why is the particular order of the service important? What is the relationship between liturgy and pastoral care? How do you bring liturgical reform in a congregation that has been heavily influenced by American, revivalistic Christianity? These and other questions will be addressed by our four main speakers in our conference this year: Dr. Peter Leithart, Pastor Douglas Wilson, Pastor Jeffrey Meyers, and Dr. James Jordan. . . . The purpose of the conference is to provide encouragement and instruction to pastors and church officers but we encourage all interested laymen to attend as well since the issues covered are of wide interest to all who are concerned for the well being of Christ’s Church. . . . We look forward to having you with us!

Steve Wilkins
Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, Pastor

Reading this, you can’t miss the bugaboo “American, revivalistic Christianity,” which is probably an early descendant of that other bugaboo “post-Enlightenment Gnosticism.” But the remarkable thing is that these men think themselves authorities on liturgy at the very moment the PCA indicted their host’s presbytery for failing to hold him accountable for the false doctrine driving his form of worship. It’s surreal. I am honestly surprised that none of them had the nerve to address the question, “What is the relationship between liturgy and contempt of constitutional standards?” or “What role does flaunting church discipline play in the life of the church?”

However, the magnitude of Louisiana Presbytery’s dereliction of duty is even more remarkable than these clowns’ hubris. The PCA has never indicted an entire presbytery (and to my knowledge no presbytery has ever pushed their communion this far). This is an historic event. But these clowns don’t care. They are the people and wisdom shall die with them. They believe that their high-church liturgy, which includes a stiff middle finger at the Christian church and a thumb on the nose directed at ecclesiastical authority, will reform the world. Ironically, they don’t see what everyone sees, i.e. their real message: “Reform as we say, not as we reform,” which means that their new Reformation must end in chaos.

Like begets like, whether the FVists like it or not, and their ecclesiastical defiance can only produce yet more defiance. The apostle Paul put it this way: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). But Mark T. puts it this way, “What Doug hath joined together, not even God will put asunder.”

Thank you.

The War Room

The Federal Vision sectarians have a private email list called Biblical Horizons, which operates as a “members only” war-room club for the members to regularly let their hair down and say what they really think and what they really believe. All of the usual suspects are on the list — Wilson, Leithart, Wilkins, Meyers, Horne, Jordan, Barlow, Shade, etc., and if it’s at all possible I encourage the opponents of Federal Vision to join this list and see what they say about you behind your backs. In fact, the Inquisition that Jeffrey Meyers loathes so much would do well to subpoena some of these emails — it would probably save the trouble of cleaning up all those entrails scattered on the floor of the Star Chamber. Get it straight from the heretics’ mouths.

Here is a post that Douglas Wilson wrote a few years ago. Please note his use of the phrase “principles of war.” This is not a casual or accidental reference; he is dead serious. This is how he conducts all of his campaigns — through the principles of war — and he has systematically advanced the Federal Vision according to the rules laid down by Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli. And his favorite principle is deception.

January 27, 2003

Gentlemen,

Sorry about filling up everyone’s box. I know I am the new kid here, and shouldn’t be doing this, but the exigencies of the case demand it. Actually, come to think of it, Burke told me that new kids had to post at least ten times daily.

Just a few brief comments about what I am seeking to do with the series of posts.

1. The most important thing in this fracas is the naming. By this I do not mean calling names, but naming in the biblical sense. Jesus was not calling the Pharisees names, He named them. And two thousand years later, His naming stands.


2. Another important thing is to refrain from fighting their fire with their fire. In other words, orthodusty loves prebyterial machinery, and knows where all the levers under the desk are. We must fight this primarily with word and sacrament. That word includes naming, and see above.


3. I also believe it is important in every conflict to observe the principles of war. In this case it is pursuit, but there are many other principles and factors to keep in mind as well. Strategic thinking is not the same thing as tactical thinking. Jim’s post on the big picture was important in this respect.

Cordially,

Douglas

Faces of Schism

My self-appointed mentor, DaFedSez, has criticized my blog for its deficiency in snide and smug. Hopefully this post will remedy that want, with a hat tip to the sick flick Faces of Death.

Here are the faces of the men who signed “A Joint Federal Vision Statement.” These are the men bent on disrupting the peace and purity of the Reformed church because they believe they understand better than anyone the true meaning of the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Confession of Faith. They claim they are teachable, but they refuse to learn. Seven Reformed denominations and a host of micro-denominations have repudiated Federal Vision for error, but the men behind these faces know better.

John Barach appeared out of nowhere when he was a last-minute replacement for Norm Shepherd at the 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference, landing him in the middle of the Monroe Four and the worst doctrinal disruption to disturb the Reformed church in years. Barach received his training at MARS, which recently joined the swelling ranks of Reformed seminaries repudiating the Federal Vision, and he held his ministerial credentials in the URC until January 2006, when he found safe haven with the covenant breakers of the CREC.

Jon Barlow did not sign the Joint Federal Vision Statement, but you’ll notice his name on the pdf in Acrobat under “File”, “Document Properties”, “Description”, which means he served in a monkey-boy capacity for the Federal Visionists by generating their joint statement on his software. Additionally, Barlow runs the Reformed News — a lame attempt to put FV in a favorable light.



Randy Booth is the moderator of the CREC, most likely because Wilson has more dirt on him than on any other CREC minister (let’s just say the word “joint” carries special meaning for Booth), and dirt in this case translates into strings. According to Wilson in Mother Kirk, “Randy and I got to know each other by phone as we fell down the paedo staircase together, hitting our heads on every step” (page 95). This being interpreted means that when Wilson successfully split his church (CEF) in 1993, Booth failed in his attempt to split his church. Consequently, his elders sent a letter to the congregation identifying him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” probably because he didn’t sport a habit then.

Tim Gallant cut his teeth with John Barach in the URC and, like Barach, he attended MARS. This means that, while the FVists insist that no one in the Reformed world understands them, it’s safe for everyone else to insist that at least two FVists did not understand what they learned in seminary. From his bio, it looks like Gallant ditched the URC in April 2006, seeking refuge in the CREC. (Note to Tim: take heed to what you heard one week ago; it is a cult and there’s still time for you to get out.)


Mark Horne is an ordained elder in the PCA, but no one knows why.









Jim Jordan is a minister in the ARC, holds his membership in the CREC, and is identified as “the Godfather of Federal Vision.” However, I think DaFedSez got much closer in his analysis when he called him Magister Contradictus, and “big river” or “flumen magnus.”





Peter Leithart is a Roman Catholic who has not figured out that the PCA is a Protestant & Reformed denomination. Currently, he practices theology in the CREC where they have no standards, while the PCA contemplates how to uphold theirs.



Rich Lusk executed the Federal Vision agenda with perfect precision by hijacking a church out of the PCA and crash-landing it into the CREC.










Jeff Meyers spent a night in morbid introspection and discovered the offensive nature of “Reformed snobbery.” Now he’s a FV snob, which apparently is better. Recently he mistook theological defiance for “FREEEEEEDOM!” citing the movie Braveheart as his inspiration. Unfortunately, Pastor Braveheart had no courage at the PCA GA; he never screamed “FREEEEDOM” to the appropriate audience when it really mattered.


Ralph Smith got sucked into the CREC from Japan, where he pastors a church and writes books that tamper with the Trinity for Canon Press. Apparently he believes that his heretical position on justification by faith alone qualifies him to cast new light on the Godhead.



Steve Wilkins . . . well, I heard the man speak once at UI and it’s clear to me that he’s dumber than a sack of wet mice (I know, I know, everyone calls him “a gentleman”), and then I read “Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation” in Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons and I realized that the sack could be empty.



Douglas Wilson, also known as Beelzeblog or the Little Man Behind the Curtain, is the founder of the CREC, a sower of discord among the brethren, and a son of Belial (“SOB” — a primary subset of “NECM”). If he repented today or dropped dead tomorrow, the Federal Visionists would perish for lack of vision because the answer to the prophet’s question — “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” — is “Yes.”