Two very different perspectives

Speaking of schism and the divisive use of insulting language, here are two very different views on these with regard to how God's covenant people are to relate to each other:

I will not employ sarcasm, dismissiveness, meanness, or insult toward those who do not identify as Christian . . . [b]ut what I believe is the prophetic . . . nature of my writings is, by definition and intent, to be directed toward the Church.

-- Keely Emerine Mix

[Confronting Wilson] is an exercise in endurance and self control -- a baptism of filth, no less necessary for the horror it stirs in me.

-- Keely Emerine Mix

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.

-- Keely Emerine-Mix

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.

-- Keely Emerine-Mix

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there Yahweh commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

-- Psalm 133

These six things doth Yahweh hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

-- Proverbs 6:12-19

Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

-- Proverbs 10:12

A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

-- Proverbs 16:28

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another . . . be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love . . .

-- Romans 12:5,10

For He is our peace, Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

-- Ephesians 2:14-22

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

-- Ephesians 4:29-32

Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

-- Phillipians 2:2

Gene Robinson is not just any gay guy

Keely Emerine-Mix does not like it when Doug Wilson refers to apostate dog (to use biblically accurate terminology) Gene Robinson as a "poofter." Her rationale, in part at least, is that such language immediately alienates the very people that the church needs to be reaching out to.

Okay, I concur that we do not want to give unnecessary offense to people outside the church. The gospel is plenty offensive enough to the man outside of Christ, and if someone -- anyone -- leading a life of gross wickedness is interested in learning more about the Christian faith, or expresses an interest in coming to church, that person is definitely not somebody that we want to drive away by referring to them in insulting terms. And we should want to share the gospel with such people at every opportunity. After all, such were some of us: but we are washed, but we are sanctified, but we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. And one thing that we can cheerfully affirm is that none of us who are in the church and currently unencumbered by gross sexual sin are where we are because of anything inherently deserving in us. We can cheerfully and gratefully affirm that if God dealt with us solely with strict justice, we would be looking forward to an eternity in the Lake of Fire. We have found salvation purely by grace, entirely on account of Christ. In fact, without going into any details, I never lose sight of the fact that prior to being brought to faith in Christ, I did some things that God excoriates in the Bible using language hardly less harsh than some of the things said in the Bible about homosexuals.

But Gene Robinson is not one of the two young men living in sin in an apartment down the hall. He is one of the people spearheading the drive to transform the church into a harlot. Gene Robinson is the ECUSA's willing "strap-on tool" being driven forcefully into the Bride of Christ with the intention of defiling her and making her say, "Yes! this is how I like it." And they don't care if they split the church in the process.

Dante would not have put them in the seventh circle of Hell with the sodomites. He would have put them in ninth Bolge of the eighth circle together with Mohammed and the other schismatics.

So when we consider people in the grip of homosexuality, we really do need to draw two distinctions. First we need to distinguish between those whose consciences are troubled by their own behavior and those who are defiantly unrepentant. And even more importantly we need to distinguish between both of the first two groups and those who insist that unrepentant homosexuals are welcome just as they are at the Lord's table, that they should be able to get married in the church and that they should be able to lead the church.

It is to be expected that people outside the church will act the way that they do. But we inside the church are to be washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. When those of us who lay claim to the name of Christ are clearly involved in any sin, and we refuse to repent of it, the rule is discipline, which means denying access to the Lord's Table (excommunication) and, in the case of church leaders and teachers, stripping them of all authority in the church.

If Gene Robinson dies without repenting of his sins, when he goes to stand before our Lord's judgment seat he will hear things said that are much harder to bear than "poofter."

Mrs. Mix criticizes the notion that "one's homosexuality is about all you need to know of someone before you attack them." Not necessarily. If the person is an unrepentant homosexual activist in clerical garb, there is not much more that one needs to know. The Bible says that a man like Gene Robinson is worthy of death on multiple counts.

"Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness." Gene Robinson represents an example of one of the first men that should be taken away in any society concerned with righteousness.

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].

Who's the "hater"? And typical KEM hypocrisy

In a post titled Insight from The SPLC, Keely Emerine-Mix gleefully quotes from the SPLC gloating about how Christian white people have lost America permanently.

She says that Doug Wilson hates the SPLC -- and she loves the SPLC -- because it has linked Wilson "with the rise of right-wing hate groups."

Of course, if you spend any time reading Mrs. Mix's writings it quickly becomes clear that she virtually equates being a Calvinist with being a hater, and likewise that she equates "right-wing" with "hate." Basically, if you have a strong disagreement with her, you are a hater. (Presumably this is because she is the embodiment of Love.)

Given the way she has conveniently defined "hate" through such tautologies, yes, we can safely assume that Doug Wilson is a hater and that he is linked with right-wing hate groups such as theological followers of John Calvin, etc.

(Of course, if one were to take one's definitions of love and hate from the Bible rather than from the Christ-hating SPLC, things would get a good deal dicier.)

No blog post from Keely Emerine-Mix would be complete without a dollop of her hallmark hypocrisy, and this one does not disappoint. She concludes the post by challenging the reader to line up the teachings of Christ with the actions and words of the Hateful Right, because they -- the Tea Partyers, etc. -- are in no way a true Christian movement.

Right. As if there is anything remotely Christian about the SPLC. As if there is anything remotely Christian about the Obama Administration's policies.

But where the hypocrisy really kicks in is, if you take the trouble of writing a reasoned reply to her, laying out all sorts of evidence from the actions and words of the people and groups she attacks, and from Scripture, to show how she has slandered good people, rather than admitting her error and rectifying her statements, she will simply hit the delete key. Her mind is made up so please don't bother her with the facts -- especially facts that are incontrovertible.