Burying the hatchet . . . in Doug Wilson's skull

But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes . . . Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (1 John)

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another . . . Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are . . . wrath, strife, seditions, heresies . . . But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be . . . provoking one another. (Galatians 5)

It must be freely admitted that Doug Wilson has his faults and has made his mistakes. It is impossible for anyone to pastor a church without sinning, and the more successful a Christian minister is, the more his failings are going to be in the spotlight. But as Christians we must strive for balance and fairness in our judgments of others. It is a fact, our Lord Himself told us, that the more faithful we are to Him, the more we will be persecuted and reviled by this rebellious world and those Christians (so-called) who have made their peace with it. Any Christian looking at the opposition aligned against Doug Wilson needs to ask himself how much of it is because of his faithfulness to Christ, and how much of it is because of his failure to faithfully follow Christ. It is my contention that any honest appraisal of Doug Wilson and his visible walk as a Christian has to conclude that he is motivated by a genuine love for Christ, profound faith in the Bible and a desire to live a life as fully in tune with the commandments of Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit as possible. Now if that is the case, how could it possibly be that Doug Wilson is hated primarily for failing to faithfully follow Christ?

In her 2006 dialog with Doug Wilson, Keely Emerine-Mix kicked things off with a statement emphasizing that both she and Doug Wilson claim Jesus as Lord and Savior; both have a high view of scripture (believing that the Bible is the Word of God) and believe that Christ shall one day return to judge the living and the dead, that it is important that the gospel be shared and that there be a faithful Christian witness in the community. This emphasis is extremely significant because it affirms that she and Doug Wilson are brother and sister in Christ: if Keely Emerine-Mix is in a relationship with Jesus, and Doug Wilson is in a relationship with Jesus, then through Jesus the two of them are members of the same family -- the same body.

And yet Mrs. Mix’s attacks on Doug Wilson over the years have often been characterized by a superciliousness and lack of charity that is, to put it mildly, inappropriate for one Christian to manifest toward Christian brethren, especially one who is a minister of the gospel.

It is clear that Mrs. Mix and Rev. Wilson are adherents of very different flavors of the Christian faith. He is very clearly Reformed, following in the tradition of Calvin and Augustine; together with those two men he would of course say that he is trying to be faithful to Paul's writings, and to the rest of Scripture. I'm not sure what kind of a theological label would be appropriate to apply to Mrs. Mix (her exact coordinates in the "space" of Christian theology are hard to determine from her online writings) but that she does not look favorably on Calvin is abundantly clear. However -- especially if we fancy ourselves to be champions of tolerance -- we must strive for catholicity in our dealings with Christians from other traditions. Actually, Doug Wilson deserves a great deal of praise for his role in helping to build up the most catholic of any Reformed denomination since the Reformation. Whilst most of the Reformed world has been characterized by a tendency to splinter and cut off fellowship over different views of the Sacraments, church government, etc., the CREC seems to be pioneering a new direction toward building bridges among different Reformed groups.

Now all tolerance has its limits; if Doug Wilson is to be attacked because of such things as his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of homosexual behavior (for example), it must be recognized that in holding to such positions he is being faithful both to historic Christianity and to the received scriptural texts that are taken as authoritative by Christians, and any criticisms directed toward Doug Wilson for such positions must necessarily be taken as implied criticisms of the entire tradition of historical Christianity in which Doug Wilson stands, and even of the scriptural texts upon which the edifice of Christianity is built.

I agree with one of the basic premises of Doug Wilson, which might be expressed as "Love means never having to say you're sorry . . . for anything in the Bible."

So at any rate, after calling Doug Wilson her brother in Christ, it wasn't long before Mrs. Mix let her contempt for him slip through several times during the course of the dialog. Listening to it, I found myself thinking maybe Mrs. Mix should cut affluent white evangelicals some of the same slack she would for homos.

Around the 100-minute mark, listening to Mrs. Mix talk out of both sides of her mouth for two minutes was amazing. Talk about being disingenuous! If she really thinks that someone is not a worse Christian for taking the more conservative view concerning (homo)sexual sin, then where is her beef with Rev. Wilson's position?

Around the 120-minute mark, Mrs. Mix declared that Rev. Wilson is perhaps worse than a racist because he is so comfortable with being white, male, affluent, academically prestigious, etc., that he doesn't care one whit how he's perceived.

It was like a page lifted from Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: all that was missing was the plaintive strain of a violin as she pushed all the "guilt buttons." It's too bad that David Chilton is not around to write a new edition of Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators -- he could have gotten a lot of material from Mrs. Mix.

Doug Wilson, worse than racist because he's comfortable being white. Presumably he's worse than sexist because he's comfortable being male, worse than envious because he's comfortable being affluent, and worse than having an intellectual inferiority complex because he's comfortable being academically prestigious. If only he cared more about how he's perceived, he wouldn't be so doggone contented with what God has given him in this life.

And presumably Mrs. Mix is not comfortable with being white?

Around the 138-minute mark, Mrs. Mix claims that in Christ Church the gifts and talents of the women are going to waste, on account of the "patriarchical" stance of Christ Church. Well, what are we to make of the books and articles written by Nancy Wilson (among other women) that are published by ministries and organizations affiliated with Christ Church? Let me get this straight -- does Christ Church forbid its men to read these books and articles written by women? Is it a violation of scripture if a woman teaches a man something? Obviously Christ Church's answer to that is a resounding "No! It is not a sin at all." I think it is clear that the issue largely revolves around 1) the ecclesiastical function of women in the church, and 2) the concept of covenantal representation. Mrs. Mix's position is disingenuous because, as she admits, Christ Church recognizes women as heads of households.

Around the 146-minute mark. Mrs. Mix says gifts are not given on the basis of gender. Oh really? Every man has "family jewels" that were given to him on the basis of his gender, and those determine very clearly what he is and is not capable of doing. If he is to receive any children, it will only be through his wife because only she, on account of her gender, has the gift of child-bearing. I think that pretty well disproves Keely's claim that gifts are unrelated to a person's gender. How many women are operating at the highest echelon of mathematics? Maybe -- maybe -- one. How many women were among the ranks of even second-tier composers of classical music? None. We could mention Barbara Strozzi, Clara Schumann, or Lili and Nadia Boulanger, but even they do not cut the mustard. These things are not explainable solely in terms of "discrimination." It obviously has a hard-wired gender aspect. Mars needs Venus as Venus, and Venus needs Mars as Mars. These functional differences are part of God's created diversity. Let's celebrate the differences!

One serious stumbling block for Mrs. Mix is Doug Wilson's affirmation of the legitimacy of imprecatory prayer, but there is simply too much of it in the New Testament for her to dismiss it as unbiblical: Mark 11:13-21, Galatians 1:8-9, Acts 13:10-11 (cf Deut. 28:28-29, and note that Paul "was filled with the Holy Ghost" when he did this, and note also the principle of lex talonis here), Acts 8:20-22, Revelation 6:10 (cf Rev. 16:5-6, 18:20,24, 19:1-2), and Revelation 15:3.

"Thy kingdom come" is necessarily a call for God to come in judgment of all the earth. Eternal salvation for God's people necessarily involves the eternal separation of God's people from God's enemies, and also a separation of God's people from our own besetting sins. That's why judgment begins from the house of God. And since we are aware of that fact, rather than simply praying to God that He might give "champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham friends," we pray that God would examine us and purge us of dross at every level from the individual to the global. We pray that God would separate the wheat from the tares, the fruit from the chaff, and the wood/hay/stubble from the gold/silver/jewels, so that ultimately, only universal joyous acknowledgment of Christ's Lordship would remain. In that sense, the imprecatory prayer is one part of a continuous, seamlessly integrated prayer life, and it cannot be eliminated without damaging everything else.

For more on the above see see Dr. John N. Day's dissertation published in Bibliotheca Sacra 159 (April-June 2002), "The Imprecatory Psalms and Christian Ethics" (PDF).

Since that debate took place in 2006, I can't see that much has changed. Without putting too fine a point on it, Doug Wilson is continually portrayed by Mrs. Mix as essentially a purveyor of hate. Following her treatment of Rev. Wilson is sort of like watching the Monty Python "Spam" skit, but with the word "hate" substituted for the word "spam." Without bothering to wade through her communications elsewhere on the Internet, Here are a few nuggets from her blog --

Wilson and his merry men have offered Moscow numerous examples of his scorn, if not disgust, for those unbelievers who criticize him and for those who don't, but still don't know Christ.

Wilson, et al, are the objects of scorn because Wilson, et al, behave badly in the public square, and any other community, not just a community of "washed up hippies," would learn to despise a man who delights in offering it a stiff middle finger. How I wish he'd just offer them the Gospel of Christ, with service and humility.

. . . the racist, pro-South, anti-government, patriarchal thread of Christendom has been woven into too much of Christ Church's fabric of faith and practice. It presents a false Gospel and a message of exclusion, it's made frequent forays into my town, and it needs to be confronted by me and other Spirit-enlivened Trinitarians. [Confronting Wilson] is an exercise in endurance and self control -- a baptism of filth, no less necessary for the horror it stirs in me.

I don't believe that Wilson is a racist . . . I believe he is something even worse: a man who practices and preaches an insouciance toward racial sensitivity and acts of bigotry that is wholly at odds with the preaching and living out of the Gospel . . . His gleeful way of offering up unnecessary offense and shameful skylarking sullies the Gospel.

The "serrated edge" Wilson employs has cut many. It also gives license to explore the far reaches of innuendo, suspicion, gossip and, finally, outright slander -- the kind of slander that leads to hate and violence . . . [Wilson's] witness on the Palouse over the last few years is about as foul as foul gets.

While I don't see a lot of love for his congregation gushing out of Wilson, I do see a font of a different sort poured out in contempt or indifference when it comes to the great unwashed outside his doors.

I only care about what Doug Wilson says because I care about the Gospel -- deeply -- and I grieve at how he's butchered it.

. . . [Wilson's] bullying and buffoonery are a poor, poor substitute for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, mercy, and self control. That, plus a love for the truth and a concern for souls, defines the response of a sober, wise, pastoral man or woman of God . . . exactly what Doug Wilson [isn’t].