The Fore Awakens (in a newborn star) NASA
“I went to boarding school, and then I went to Oxford, and I know how easy it is for certain groups of people to become wholly insulated from ordinary life”. Mark Haddon
I have been writing about Doug Wilson since I first started blogging. Here is a man who is not theologically trained running a group of churches and schools. In August 2021, Religion News posted: In Moscow, Idaho, conservative ‘Christian Reconstructionists’ are thriving amid evangelical turmoil. Although this group appears small (around 1300), they have become influential. According to this article, it is their intention to “take over” Moscow, Idaho.
For the past 30 years, believers from across the United States and beyond have been gathering in Moscow, a city in northern Idaho with a population of around 25,000. Here, as part of the Christ Church congregation, they have set their face against the cultures of American modernity. Guided by a controversial social theory known as “Christian Reconstruction,” which holds that biblical law should apply in today’s setting, they look to the Bible to understand how they believe American institutions should be reformed.
…In Moscow, the community has established churches, a classical Christian school, a liberal arts college, a music conservatory, a publishing house, and the makings of a media empire. With books published by major trade and academic presses, and a talk show on Amazon Prime, the community is setting the agenda for a theologically vigorous and politically reactionary evangelical revival.
So what’s the big deal about the pretty town of Moscow, Idaho? It is the home of the University of Idaho which is politically liberal. As a point of interest, Wilson’s liberal arts school, New St Andrews College, has a small enrollment but many of the 10-15 graduates each year go onto doctoral programs in well-known universities. One odd feature of this school is there are no dormitories. Many of the students board with members of Wilson’s church (he likes to call a *kirk* as he attempts to channel a Scottish don.)
The college limits new student enrollment to about 50–60 new undergraduates and 10–15 graduate students each year. The student body numbers about 160 students (150 full-time equivalent) from about 30 states, five foreign countries, and more than 20 Christian denominations. Approximately half of the college’s students were home-schooled and a quarter attended Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS) affiliated high schools.
The college provides no dormitories or food services, by board policy. Instead, it encourages students to live as residents in the community.
In fact, in 2015, TWW wrote about the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl by a boarder, Jamin Wright, from one of Wilson’s schools. As you will see in our post, Doug Wilson simply blamed the father for his daughter’s abuse. There have been a number of disturbing incidents of sexual abuse which have been downplayed by Wilson, in my opinion.
Sarah Stankorb and the church in which women must be led by their husbands with a firm hand.
In September of this year, Sarah Stankorb took on the difficult task of describing what I believe is the abuse of women in this church. Remember, it is a small, insular community lorded over by Doug Wilson who controls things. One might think that this is some cultish group to be ignored. Except that would be a mistake. Doug Wilson is a darling of The Gospel Coalition. Go over to the TGC website and plugin Doug Wilson’s name. The dudebros appear to get the giggles when Doug Wilson writes on all sorts of topics, including slavery, and gets in all sorts of trouble. OPINION: Christ Church resurfaces, so do old scandals and While hosting a conference featuring his defense of Southern Slavery, Douglas Wilson exposes the radicalism of his growing ‘Christian’ empire.
Enough of that! Wilson has caused so much controversy. So let’s take a look at one part of the mess. Here are three tweets by Stankorb which lead into her post.
As posted in Vice: Inside the Church That Preaches ‘Wives Need to Be Led with a Firm Hand’
Please pay attention to the last line which probably sums up what you are in for when Doug Wilson’s name comes up.
Cigar-puffing and presenting like a Christian philosopher king on YouTube videos, pastor Doug Wilson is a radical provocateur, even among outspoken Christian conservatives, and appears to relish Twitter wars and blog battles. In the 1970s, he became pastor of Christ Church, which is now influential within the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a denomination Wilson helped found that includes more than 100 churches nationally. In 2003, 94 ecclesiastical charges were brought against Wilson by his denomination—from improperly using church funds to pay off students’ casino debts to “carnal threatening” of others—but the charges were ultimately dropped. Last year, Wilson published a novel called Ride, Sally, Ride about a Christian man who runs his neighbor’s sexbot “wife” named Sally through a trash compactor, and YouTube recently removed Wilson’s video making a moral argument for fake vaccine passports.
In order to understand the abuse of women in this community:
VICE has interviewed 12 former and current church members and Logos students, and reviewed court and medical documents, church correspondence, and business filings. Ex-kirkers describe a punitive community in which women are told they must defer to church leaders and cannot say “no” to their husbands, men are taught to strictly control their homes, and those who speak out can be isolated and harassed.
One woman outlined the sexual abuse that she endured. Trigger Warning: graphic descriptors of rape.
After being raped one night by her husband, Jean reached out for help which was not forthcoming.
The friend attended a Christ Church plant—a seedling congregation based in Christ Church’s doctrine and culture—and “she said the same thing was going on in her marriage.” Marital rape, it seemed, was normal. So, Jean didn’t report it. Jean’s husband raped her over and again a couple of times a week for about a decade, either with violence or by waiting until after she took a prescription sleeping pill. Sometimes, “I’d wake up with him having me or I’d wake up the next morning and be bleeding or see the signs.” Jean has since been diagnosed with PTSD from sexual assault.
…the pastors at Trinity, “all told me not to report it and that I was wrong. These pastors told me a wife is not allowed to tell her husband no.”
…Jean’s then-husband’s drinking increased. She says he held her against walls, slammed a lot of doors, pounded the walls, once pointed a loaded gun at her, raped her with a champagne bottle. The pastors at Trinity told her not to go to the police, not to separate.
When Jean finally decided to go ahead with the divorce, she left the church knowing she’d be excommunicated.
Did the Kirkers retaliate against Jean? It would appear so.
Tne woman’s counselor called her after the split, telling Jean that she “was causing [her husband] to turn to porn now that I was divorcing him.”
In the time since leaving the Christ Church community, Jean’s car has been vandalized regularly, the air let out of her tires several times. Online, she’s had to block kirkers, including teachers from Logos, angry about her divorce. “I have been called a whore, bitch, and cunt,” she said.
There are many more examples of this in posts at TWW and Spiritual Sounding Board. Just put Doug Wilson’s name in the search.
Wilson has strong views on the husband’s dominant role in marriage.
Doug Wilson articulates those lessons in his book Reforming Marriage, writing: “Wives need to be led with a firm hand” and that “it is tragic that wholesale abdication on the part of modern men has made the idea of lordship in the home such a laughable thing.” In Federal Husband, Doug Wilson asserts men must assume full spiritual responsibility for the household, including any wifely negligence to submit in: “spending habits, television viewing habits, weight, rejection of his leadership, laziness in cleaning the house, lack of responsiveness to sexual advances.”
…In a letter on Christ Church letterhead, the church’s Center for Biblical Counseling ministry counselor Mike Lawyer informed one woman after hundreds of hours of counseling she was being suspended “from the Table of the Lord” until she confessed and repented after leaving it up to her husband to clean and prep food, putting her kids in daycare, and “ignoring the God given roles,” including submission.
There are many more examples in this article.
What has happened to Courageous Empathy?
I was encouraged by the following.
That may be changing: a wave of former and current church members are stepping forward now, thanks to a new YouTube channel. On Courageous Empathy, host Kevin McGill, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, interviews ex-kirkers about their scarring experiences with the church.
Except, that channel no longer exists. Let’s just say I am deeply suspicious. Wilson and friends have been known to play hardball.
Why is the Illinois Family Institute carrying the water for Doug Wilson?
I was doing some reading on Wilson (I’ve been reading about Wilson for the past 12 years!) and I came across this. The Smearing of Doug Wilson was written by Laurie Higgens for the Illinois Family Institute. This was written 9 days after Sarah Stankorb’s article appeared in Vice. Why is an Illinois *family institute* writing about an Idaho pastor? In fact, she has been extolling his virtues since about 2015 in Come Hear the Remarkable Douglas Wilson!
My guess is that she is a true believer and follower.
For those who don’t know Douglas Wilson, he is a faithful, wise Christian, a theologian, and pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho with the increasingly rare gift for foreseeing where intellectual trends are leading both the church and the culture and for fearlessly warning against these trends. He is a brilliant writer with a gift for incisive metaphor and biting satire, which he has employed to critique, among other things, toxic feminism, toxic un-masculinity, unbiblical egalitarianism, the failure of churches to apply biblical church discipline, and “pomosexuality” (i.e., post-modern sexuality, including “trans”-cultism).
Wilson is semi-regularly attacked in an unholy effort to destroy him by false allegations, innuendo, lies of omission, and idiotic out-of-context memes. All of these tactics are aided and abetted by the poor reading skills of Americans, a stubborn refusal to do the hard work of closely and objectively examining sensationalistic allegations, and a faux-Victorian sensibility that sends some to the fainting couch following an encounter with toasty rhetoric (as opposed to church lady-approved milquetoasty rhetoric).
The most recent attack comes by way of that purveyor of wisdom and virtue: Vice Magazine—or as Wilson aptly calls it Vile Magazine. In an article titled, “Inside the Church That Preaches ‘Women Need to Be Led by a Firm Hand,’” feminist and opponent of theological orthodoxy, Sarah Stankorb, admits to interviewing only “12 former and current church members and Logos students.” Logos schools is the K-12 school founded by Christ Church.
It looks like Stankorb touched a nerve. Frankly, the post made me laugh. Laurie attacked Stankorb as a “feminist and opponent of theological orthodoxy.’ Interpretation: Stankorb got too close and Laurie is going to defend Wilson. I have news for Laurie. I am theologically orthodox and conservative and I applaud Stankorb for continuing to help us all expose abuse in the church. Wilson is notorious in theological circles. As for getting “only 12 former and current church members…” I’m sure Laurie is well aware of how hard it is for anyone to write anything negative about Wilson. I’m sure he s glad to have her as his “wingman.”
1
‘Christ’ Church … I don’t think so
One more thing — You almost forgot—
It’s here somewhere— oh yeah
If the wife doesn’t do the dishes after he gently but firmly reminds her, hubby should tattle on her to the Kirk elders— that’ll keep da widdle wady in wine! Or something like that…
Dee, do you have an idea of the actual number of people who attend Doug Wilson’s church or participate in affiliated organizations? It seems like such a niche group, but then the promotion in the wider American conservative Christian world is another issue.
Since we’re talking about Doug Wilson and Christ Church, please keep a young man named Elijah Froh in your prayers. Froh was badly burned and had to be airlifted to Seattle for treatment. His injuries allegedly occurred during a filming of one of Doug Wilson’s videos.
According to an October 26 article in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News: “Witnesses stated that one person introduced diesel fuel into the wood stove causing fuel vapors to flash within the occupied area of the building. The fire spread throughout the remaining structure.”
https://dnews.com/local/wood-stove-caused-moscow-structure-fire/article_0efe61a6-289a-5718-a544-f9ab44bbc3af.html
The structure (owned by another member of Wilson’s church) is said to be a total loss. There were seven men on site at the time.
The @ExaminingMoscow Twitter account has been tracking this tragic event.
Goodness, mercy!
“. . . In the time since leaving the Christ Church community, Jean’s car has been vandalized regularly, the air let out of her tires several times. Online, she’s had to block kirkers, including teachers from Logos, angry about her divorce. “I have been called a . . . . ”
cultic behavior?
this is the kind of hate-speak and intimidation now seen all over the country as school board members try to leave the meeting and go to their cars . . . they are threatened, taunted, and insulted
I am seeing signs in my own community of people losing their tempers publicly and ‘going off’ with curses, racial epithets and even in one case, threats (when a delivery truck blocked a parked car and the car’s driver imploded)
behind all this unfolding venom is some kind of shared ‘playbook’ being passed around by them what wants to follow bullies and cultic leaders, authoritarian and most certainly ‘extreme’
strange days
The Empathy is Sin theology of this cohort mirrors WW2 elites’ “righteous” path to the Holocaust.
“Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” a 1963 book by Hannah Arendt, explains that to have feelings for human suffering was considered moral weakness by Germany’s intellectual and culturally elite who came to be the inner circle of their Dear Leader.
Piper Wilson et al seem to consider themselves tastefully scholarly, cultural, and classically inclined.
Eichmann and his crowd were highbrow with disdain for human need and difference.
Do churches at times (metaphorically) beat the already battered? The outlier? It’s their fault? Blame the victim?
“Wives need to be led with a firm hand” and that “it is tragic that wholesale abdication on the part of modern men has made the idea of lordship in the home such a laughable thing.”
If it didn’t make me so angry, Wilson would be a laughable thing.
I would love to yank out his cigar, put a mule bridle on his head, with a saw bit between his teeth and hitch him to a single-shovel plow…… break that ole jack-a$$ to plow some ground…… if he wants to reap the garden bounty so much.
It is beyond me how and why people (women, in particular) actually believe that jerk!
As I’ve said before, actors would have no stage if they didn’t have an audience willing to buy tickets to the show.
“Counseling sessions—with school children, church members, and married couples—were one of the main mechanisms through which Christ Church pastors engendered a culture of male domination.”
This stuck out to me. I’ve noticed that a lot of really bad “biblical counseling” experiences all have a similar theme: the counseling is used as a method to control members of the group. It’s not used to truly help people take control of their own lives. Rather, it’s used to coerce them to more fully submit to the leader and the doctrines of the group.
The New Calvinists employ every technique they can to manipulate, intimidate and dominate the pew. The movement is a cult.
Cigar smoking seems to be a thing with the “real” men in this group. Pot-bellied and unfit as they puff; how macho of them to have such guy strength of character and guy self-control. Not. Chow down, puff puff, and attack women. Gallantry?
Self-control (in lieu of other control like women control) is a fruit of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Other control, like women control, is the fruit of someone else.
Perhaps the Ezekiel temple wheels have left the kirk, if the wheels were ever in the kirk in the 1st place.
A good friend smoked the occasional pipe (“to be cool”) back in the day. Not cigarettes, never a daily habit. Suddenly severe, fast progressing lung disease appeared. His life quickly completely diminshed and he has great regret. Wealth aplenty, no health, few days left. Life cut short. By a pipe.
Wilson’s sometimes-a-writer son (having other titles in the various family enterprises) puffs away during a jovial interview about his victory over an egg-sized tumor in his head.
What one can get away with when they are special. In their own eyes, anyway.
I’m not special, are you? Unless we’re special like every one of God’s created men and women are special. Pride is the deadliest of the deadly sins.
Ava Aaronson,
Arendt tried to correct the misapprehension many readers had of what she meant by “the banality of evil”. See “ The Jewish Writings”.
I have seen the title “Federal Husband.” It sounds like the title to a bad Tom Clancy book.
“a stubborn refusal to do the hard work of closely and objectively examining sensationalistic allegations”
To me, the implication of that statement is, if you do the “hard work,” you will find yourself supporting Wilson. If you don’t support Wilson, you didn’t do the “hard work” (even if you DID do the “hard work”!)
Lowlandseer,
True. Aware. She wanted a change of title over issues with the term “banality”.
But the message of what was the hubris of the elite with disdain for empathy … that observation and insight stand.
It’s remarkable there are ties from this WW2 Dear Leader’s inner circle elite to some churches [dare we say “Dear Leaders’] inner circle elites.
Sermonizing theology that empathy is sin … truly a clear picture of who these people are, and their god.
We were very active in a highly popular megachurch. The Dear Leader became a national and international leader with a global platform. It was business as usual. Everything that didn’t contribute to the business was held in disdain and swept under the rug. We left. No regrets.
It’s still a beautiful and popular church, business as usual. Dear Leader is a savvy businessman with his lovely wife in tow, an in demand presence everywhere.
Their grown children? Business as usual and their mom’s narrow focus on her husband’s church business success didn’t work well for them. Adulting is a complex course requiring far more than business as usual.
Max,
A book I’ve found helpful to describe some of my experiences in a New Calvinist church is Steven Hassan’s “Combating Cult Mind Control”. Hassan has developed two resources, the BITE Model and the Influence Continuum, to assess the amount of control a group tries to exercise over its members. I experienced control, but it wasn’t all the way over on the “Unhealthy/Destructive” side of the Influence Continuum. Regardless, it was too much for me.
“In Federal Husband, Doug Wilson asserts men must assume full spiritual responsibility for the household, including any wifely negligence to submit in: ‘spending habits, television viewing habits, weight, rejection of his leadership, laziness in cleaning the house, lack of responsiveness to sexual advances.’”
So, wives practice self-control while husbands control… not themselves… but their wives?
Federal husbands and their federal-husband-controlled wives … codependent since in a free society both are adults and should be functioning as adults.
The woman is willfully supporting her dysfunctional “federal” husband. Unless and until she figures it out and leaves. In which case, good for her. And him.
They choose codependent infantilizing because adulting is just too challenging (??? or too real? too normal, ordinary, too much work or growing up?) for a cult and it’s leader?
Illegal to own a slave so a Christian white man must now own and command a wife? Interesting how this guy writes that slave ownership was good. Kinda fits his lifestyle and theology.
Ruth Bell Graham said there’s a time to submit and a time to outwit. Maybe the federal-husband wives know how to outwit. On a grand scale. Potbelly puffing federal husband leader seems a bit unfit. Full of words (books, blogs, vid chats) about a man controlling his wife while lacking action such as self discipline and self-control.
Bullying armed with theology. No thanks.
It’s the weak minded who are easily cowed by just about anyone skilled in Bible manipulation. Guys who can get them to believe that this is what the Lord has decreed. It’s amazing what you (generic you) can manufacture out of thin air from this verse, that verse, and this other verse over here.
Fear is the driver, fear that if you don’t knuckle under and get with the program, you are not pleasing God.
I have long maintained that kingpin led fundagelicslism is an unsafe and toxic environment for women.
I characterize New Calvinism as a “soft” cult. I have heard numerous testimonies of those who have escaped the NeoCal snare; many still carry a sort of Post Traumatic Church Disorder. TWW continues to document the subtle, but real, control of the pew exerted by the new reformers to indoctrinate and dominate. I hope to live long enough to see New Calvinism’s funeral preached.
There’s been an outbreak of spiritual stupidity in the American church which has allowed false shepherds and counterfeit theologies to slip through the door undetected.
I was thinking that we could all collectively invent a new “biblical” religion with this method, but then I realized that 1) it’s possible no one would get the joke, and 2) it’s already been done.
Cynthia W.,
The churches are rather small. One rough estimate is about 1700. Doug Wilson is the draw.
Why are men like Doug Wilson (estimated weight around 250 to 280 pounds) so concerned about women’s weight?
It’s a common phenomenon in ministry … all the really good preachers are fat boys.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
“I was thinking that we could all collectively invent a new “biblical” religion with this method, but then I realized that 1) it’s possible no one would get the joke, and 2) it’s already been done.”
++++++++++++++
ha… we could pick a topic. like tacos. or skateboards. and collaborate on inventing biblical doctrine and theology about them.
i mean, that’s what happened at the so-called ‘Danvers Statement’, except their topic was women.
yes, already been done. and people fell for it.
a hazardous thing to do.
dee,
Thank you.
Max,
We had a pastor mandate a churchwide fast. The pastor put on weight, noticeably.
Rules for thee but not for me, I’m guessing, was the issue. Wilson’s Federal Husbands seem to have the Rules for Thee not Me practice going in their marriages.
Doug Wilson has written a book defending Southern slavery. During the Civil War, the word “federal” was associated with the part of the US that had already rejected slavery and also did not secede. “Federal” today refers to a form of government, not a relationship between two human beings. Wilson’s use of the word is nonsense, although I’m sure he has a long-winded explanation.
Confusion and redefining things are part of Wilson’s modus operandi. It’s a shame that anyone listens to this terrible man.
Amazing isn’t it?! He’s built a ministry being out there on the edge with wild belief and practice … and My People love it so evidently. As soon as I say “Doug would never”, here he comes nevering like he never nevered before!
I find him to be a freaky, creepy man. I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with him. Makes me shudder.
By the way dee, the NASA space pic up-top is probably the best of the lot so far.
Thank your lucky stars that the Founders of our Nation could see Wilson coming from afar and took steps to ensure that he and his followers will never accrue the power they covet.
It would be as brutal a dictatorship as any the World has seen.
Ava Aaronson,
yes, I have heard something about this kind of evil before . . . I think the term used was “radical evil”, the type of evil that can take over a person’s whole life by rending them unable to have humane empathy or compassion, but instead, they ‘follow the orders’ and are blindly led to do evil in the world under the rule of an authoritarian leader to whom they have pledged ‘loyalty’
Immanuel Kant also wrote about this, yes.
In the light of how so many self-identifying Christian people have chosen to follow destruction political cult figures, the idea of ‘radical evil’ is terrifying to me IF there are people who give up their moral consciences and enter into a cultic ‘loyalty’ to a destructive narcissistic cult leader. . . .
How would these faithful people ‘justify’ such allegiance? Maybe by believing that the cult leader is ‘annointed’/ appointed by God/ to have control over them
?
May God have mercy.
I think I had only vaguely heard of Doug Wilson before reading this thread. I was grimly intrigued how someone nowadays could make a “Christian” defense of slavery. Surely, however reprehensible this person might be, surely this is an exaggeration.
But no, to Wilson, the “Lost Cause” was the most Christian thing ever, and evidently re-creating the Confederacy with its Peculiar Institution is a “Christian” imperative. I’m amazed someone like this has a following. I found this article alarming:
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/wilsononslavery.htm
Southern Baptist Calvinist founders did just that. SBC slave-holders included church leaders. They believed that sovereign God was on their side during the Civil War, until early Confederate victories turned to defeat. Following the War, the SBC distanced itself from the Founders’ theology and remained distinctly non-Calvinist for 150 years … until Al Mohler launched his NeoCal crusade to drag the denomination back to its theological roots, without asking millions of non-Calvinist members if they wanted to go there!
Pulpit wackos would have no platform if it weren’t for wackos in the pew financing them.
Here’s a freaky, creepy thought for you. There’s a knock at your door tonight as Halloween trick or treaters go through your neighborhood. You slowly open the door and standing there are the following characters clothed as: Doug Wilson, John Piper, Al Mohler. SCARY!!
What is it in the American psyche that gives room for such ministers do you think?
It’s easy to single out the SBC, but they were far from alone. The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America consisted of dioceses that left the Episcopal Church when Southern states seceded in 1861. After the war ended in 1865, the denomination reunited, amid great relief and great discomfort.
Some church leaders in the short-lived Confederate denomination were brash, uncompromising supporters of the Confederacy and never changed their minds. Others pretended to be logical, saying things like (paraphrasing here), “I’d love to stay in the denomination in which I was ordained, but the simple fact is that my diocese is in a different country now, sorry-not-sorry.”
Max,
The “TWW” regulars should have a halloween party, or as “Jr” did, a cosplay party, ( maybe on Zoom?) where we all dress up as our “favorite” “character” that is spoken of here on TWW…. I am sure HUG would like to be Stalin, or Lenin, Dee could be a “daughter of Stan”, etc….
The one who draws the short straw will have to let their gut hang out with their zipper down…
christiane,
Christiane, it isn’t so strange if you 1. deny freewill. 2. embrace the cultural mandate. 3. accept the idea that you can make things happen by magical thinking. (like find a parking space magically open up.)
I watch this playing out in my own county. Businesses are putting up anti vaccine mandate signs implying they do it to “serve God.” Others refuse the mask to “serve God.” There is getting to be knock you down vitriol over the issues of abortion and of the gays and trangenders, but we have taken to being armed with a potent form of animal repellant lest we be accosted because we are wearing a mask, or if out on public lands in the woods are accosted because we put on masks if approached by others.
All of this is puny people trying to be in the place of God. I’ve been told that by admitting there is a covid virus I give it the power to infect others. (Word of Faith looniness.) Just wearing a mask is said to “give Satan a stronghold.”
Probably the worst example I can think of is preachers claiming they stand for human freedom by refusing to get the jab or mask, but still being out in public themselves since they “don’t believe they will harm anyone.” But even if you have had the virus “twice” as one claims, you can still spread it. I give grace to some of this looniness because we are now learning that so many who have had covid, or tested positive at some point, are developing the inability to think clearly and edging into dementia and mental illness. Rage is also showing up in many survivors of covid. Blind, irrational rage that they truly cannot control.
So now we have a lot of people truly unable to be rational, but thinking God has put them in charge and given them the power to speak reality into being. It is bound to get worse. Token libertarianism is morphing into anarchy. Driven by broken brains along with broken souls.
If we do nothing else may we be able to reach some to understand they have free will, with accountability for results, rather than absolute freedom without responsibility.
What a great and troubling question. I hope you and others will offer insights.
After World War II, church attendance reached a high point in the US. Lots of nice, kind Christians went to church. High-demand groups and dogma existed, but many churches did not vehemently insist on Biblical literalism, dress codes, etc. Now that so much abuse has been exposed, many kind people don’t want to be associated with church. While churches still benefit from a wholesome reputation, some are becoming more concentrated and extremist.
Churches often promise that life will be grand if you just do X, Y, and Z. This attracts people who crave simple answers, and who think life is out of control—whether their own life, their family, or all of humankind.
Everywhere in the world, some people will be drawn to a man (or sometimes a woman) who lays down the law. It only takes one or two forceful adults to make a whole family show up and get involved. Over time, it becomes harder to leave.
I don’t know what to think about the Sunday morning night club megachurches, apart from the combination of threat and entertainment that must draw some people in.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
🙂
“Could be” a daughter of Stan? I am always the original “daughter of Stan”
I did some writing on his views on slavery which, in my mind, are quite alarming. Yet he is stunningly self-assured.
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/07/13/doug-wilson-fashionable-calvinista-has-disturbing-views-on-slavery/
Said ministers tell it (the American psyche) what it wants to hear.
Bottom line: live in hell-on-earth for a while, or burn in hell for eternity.
Tee hee. Wilson might not want to be in the same room with Dee and /or a few commenters on TWW.
If I recall correctly, the initial event that began the church SBC separation was that some southern missionaries wanted to bring their slaves on missions with them, and higher would not allow them to do so.
Muff Potter,
I think that is the key… while some “Americans” like to rant about the “gov’t telling them what to do, we still live a pretty free society, at least from a historical perspective on human civilization…
Having said this, Muff is exactly correct… we, “the people” get what we ask for… the current “mess” (which I am very broadly speaking of our current American Culture) would not be this way if “the people” did not want it!!!
Dee,
🙂
That’s one reason I developed Nickism.
Max,
“You slowly open the door and standing there are the following characters clothed as: Doug Wilson, John Piper, Al Mohler. SCARY!!”
+++++++++++++++
can you get in trouble for making and selling masks with Doug Wilson’s, John Piper’s, and Al Mohler’s faces on them?
(thinking through my new business plan)
elastigirl,
I once heard a NPR story about how the researcher were studying crows…. They used masks of presidents ( think the movie Point Break), and they figured out that crows recognize faces,,,,
So…. I think the clowns you listed are public enough, just like Presidents, their faces can’t be trademarked!!
Friend,
“Friend: It’s a shame that anyone listens to this terrible man.”
“Max: What is it in the American psyche that gives room for such ministers do you think?”
++++++++++++++++++
in my observation, Americans are easily star-struck.
Maybe we could say ‘impressionable’, ‘escapist’…?
maybe it comes from a history of being “the new world”, and being driven on by ‘hope’ and possibilities and opportunity — seeing beyond into what could be, and an inclination to go after it. maybe it takes a certain amount of magical thinking to step into these things.
.
.
but getting back to star-struck, I’ve noticed friends and relatives from other countries/continents sort of marvel at this.
One such mom from a very far away land was so confused & bemused at all the hype when her son was voted the homecoming king at a local high school.
my friends from England (who lived here for some years) took a trip to Disneyland. They stayed for a few hours, then went back to hotel to hangout by the pool.
In other cultures, I generally observe a more matter-fact attitude towards celebrity figures and fantasy experiences. Like, “So? So what?”
Very probably not.
His ‘biblical’ sensibilities and entitlements as a patriarch would be under assault.
Ava Aaronson,
I can understand the “empathy as sin” designation given that “empathy” is of fairly recent origin – just over 100yrs old – and has its roots in psychology, was popularised by Carl Rogers and centres itself in man, whereas the older words “sympathy”, “compassion” or “bowels of mercies” are centred in God. I read a lot of Rogers’ work years ago and I’ve just listened to one of his talks on YouTube here –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idgjD5tir_w&feature=emb_rel_end
Or a knockoff of American Dad.
Like the Reagan and Gorbachev masks in an episode of Eerie Indiana(?)
All I remember is the kid in the Gorbachev mask saying “Gimme candy or I’ll Nuke ya.”
I first read that as “his NeoCal crusade IN drag…”
Ain’t sleep deprivation wonderful?
This review of the movie Downfall (Der Untergang) stuck me as exploring that exact same dynamic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI5ZsEy8ASg
Lotsa church parallels: Charismatic Gigapastor Who Sure Can Preach, Inner Ring of Elders, big building program (the scene with Speer), and how everyone from Elders on down seems to have outsourced their brains to an Idealized Fantasy of The Anointed Great One.
Just like the Rajneeshees tried to do with Antelope, Oregon.
And what Bethel (of grave-soaking necromancy fame) is trying to do to Redding, California.
While we are having fun with that, it reminds me of a funny thing a teacher did. So, I was in college and taking a Russian Language class. It was around Halloween. The teacher walked in the classroom wearing a Lenin mask. It was really kind of funny. That was more years ago than I care to say.
OOOOOO…KAYYYYY…?
Yet another example of what passes for Sci-Fi among Christians – days late and dollars short.
A couple F&SF cons I was hoping to resume attending once COVID tapered off will no longer accept CDC vaccination cards – Digital Vaxx Passports ONLY. Reason being Activists have flooded the market with so many Counterfeit Vaxx Cards nobody trusts the genuine ones any more.
And the CHRISTIANS(TM) are apparently in the forefront of this.
The Anti-Vaxx/COVID Hoax social media trails reproduced over at Herman Cain Awards Reddit are the most bizarre combination of Sneering Hate and Bible-Quoting Christianese I’ve ever seen.
Given their proclivities, shouldn’t the “Federal Husband” be renamed the “Confederate Husband”?
Like one guy in the Cal Poly Pomona dorms and SF club circa 1977-78 (“Matt” or “Fyunch(click)” who used to do Leon Trotsky impersonations.
(Man, those were good if weird times.)
Sleep deprivation isn’t wonderful, but it might make it easier to hallucinate Al Mohler in drag. 🙂
One of the things that caught my attention….
From the VICE article by Sarah Stankorb (and included in the OP): To learn about Christ Church’s culture of abuse and social control, VICE has interviewed 12 former and current church members and Logos students, and reviewed court and medical documents, church correspondence, and business filings.
From the The Smearing of Doug Wilson article by Laura Higgens (and included in the OP): In an article titled, “Inside the Church That Preaches ‘Women Need to Be Led by a Firm Hand,’” feminist and opponent of theological orthodoxy, Sarah Stankorb, admits to interviewing only “12 former and current church members and Logos students.” Logos schools is the K-12 school founded by Christ Church.
In her article, Sarah Stankorb wrote: VICE has interviewed 12 former and current church members and Logos students, and reviewed court and medical documents, church correspondence, and business filings.
In her article, Laura Higgens wrote: Sarah Stankorb, admits to interviewing only “12 former and current church members and Logos students.”
The way Laura Higgens phrased her sentence, she could sound like a prosecuting attorney attempting to sway the jury into finding Sarah Stankorb Guilty and leading people to believe Doug Wilson is the innocent victim.
Lowlandseer,
Just because the word is newer doesn’t make it, or the concept depicted by the word, sinful. Jesus instructs us to love our neighbors as ourselves. It seems we must know and understand ourselves fully to be able to love ourselves and then fulfill this important commandment from Jesus.
Carl Rodgers simply helps us to wrap our minds around what we are, and can be. Granted, it can be a fearful thing to be real with ourselves, but it can also help us grow to love ourselves and others as we should.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html
Jacob,
The sermon today referenced Genesis & the Garden. The sermonizer guy noted, “Now we get to the bad part,” when the woman shows up.
Got to thinking.
Woman caused the Fall.
POC were the bad sons of Noah.
Jews killed Jesus.
Guess we’re left with saintly white men saving the world. The good guys. Evangelical and Reformed.
Kinda how my biblical education has gone over the years. Schooled.
Note: best to always read the Bible for oneself. Cut out the middleman. Always listen to what they say (“teach”) with an informed ear.
This is exactly what Doug Wilson does when he responds to anyone who dares call him out on his writing. He plays the victim. It very similar to what abusive partners do . . .
It’s almost hilarious (if it wasn’t truly sad) that a woman is trying to protect Doug Wilson, aka Confederate Husband, from Sarah Stankorb. 😉
True!
Bridget,
I take a simpler view
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. (1Cor 2:11)
In his short video, Carl Rogers claimed the impossible for himself and his method.
Lowlandseer,
The Puritan writer Anthony Burgess pinpoints the underlying motivation which leads to all manner of abuse in the church.
“If Christ Himself as Mediator will not take to Himself the glory due to God, then this will highly condemn all that arrogance in man, who shall desire any earthly or heavenly advantages merely for his own sake, that shall desire riches, honours, greatness, or heaven itself, for any other end but to glorify God thereby.”
(Sermon 6 on John 17:1 Christ’s Prayer before His Passion)
And according to several sources, THE most common Mark of a Sociopath.
Speaking of freaky creepy preachers, check out this short video segment of Piper’s creepy adoration of Wilson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCoCDDOmOY
Whew! These guys blow the needle off the freaky creepy scale!
Max,
Ugh! Too much for me.
I have yet to hear any of those fundagelical wind-bags come out in favor of genuine human freedom for all.
If anything, they’d love to (if they could) take mine (freedom) away.
One of our Founding Fathers, had this to say long ago:
John Adams wrote to Jefferson in 1817:
“Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical Strifes in Maryland Pensilvania, New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these People cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.! If they could they would.”
~From Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers p-62~
Crawford Gribben put out a monograph through Oxford University Press reviewing the American Redoubt history that I’ve found helpful. It’s a relatively breezy read compared to his monographs on the evolution of postmillennialism and other forms of millennarian views from the Reformed traditions of the mainland in Europe.
I’ve been writing intermittently lately but Driscoll always made it plain he drew a lot of inspiration from Doug Wilson on gender, sexuality and marriage while indicating in the member php forum Midrash he thought Wilson’s views about facial hair and the American civil War were ridiculous and crazy. So Wilson has espoused views so far out that even Mark Driscoll has regarded some of them as actually dumb … at least in the past.
Now you could read Driscoll’s new pugnacious barely coherent ebook Christian Theology vs Critical Theory (he sure doesn’t quote Adorno or Marcuse) and it’s connection to a Wilsonian ramble like No Quarter November becomes easy to spot … except, perhaps, for people who actually admire Doug Wilson and might insist that Wilson and Driscoll don’t resemble each other. They do, however, and I would say that Driscoll’s views can be thought of as taking some of Doug Wilson’s ideas and putting them on steroids and blood doping.
Perhaps the most Wilsonian thing about Wilson’s response to the Vice article was to use it as an occasion to promote his books, like A Justice Primer (2nd edition, post-plagiarism version).
It seems that a lot of these preacher guys have a feeling of disgust towards women. Certainly an awkwardness and I don’t know, maybe resentment? Insecurity? And I have heard them express disgust or anger over natural things like an infant crying to be fed (this is seen as “selfish” and a proof of original sin). Their significant others seem to be other guys like them. And it is almost stereotypical about the preacher who is obsessed about gays who is living a double life himself. I’m not a psychologist and I don’t know if the term “latent homosexual” is archaic or offensive nowadays. Somehow the phrase “thou doest protest too much” comes to mind with these authoritarian preachers.
Familiar spirits
Hello Linda,
yes, I have heard about this also. I was witness to a man’s ‘meltdown’ at my bank on Oct 26th when the bank had to call the police and I cannot forget it. The man’s car had been blocked in by a delivery truck and the man was cursing, threatening, and screaming at the truck’s driver. When the man carried his act into the bank, the police were called. Very upsetting to see. One wonders what had happened to that man to make him ‘lose control’ so dramatically. Your comment reminded me of that incident. (?) May God have mercy!
In the name of their god with their rhetoric (theology), chapter and verse, to back it up.
Just like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS.
A certain 1943 OSS psych profile on my shelves keeps coming into my head as I read about the Jerk with his Kirk.
Question, Massmind:
Is there any difference between the Biblical Masculinity of Doug Wilson and the Hypermsaculinity of Adolf Hitler (public persona)?
I don’t know about that man, obviously. However, the pandemic (now 23 months old) has led to skyrocketing anxiety and depression in the US and other countries. That’s enough to change behavior. Add in the constant attention paid to people who rant in public, and the wild rumors about masks and vaccinations. Many people were unemployed for a long time. Between last year and this year, college freshman enrollment dropped by one million people. Stores have weird shortages. School openings and child care are unpredictable. In the US, almost 47 million people have had covid, and over 766,000 have died of it (source: Worldometer).
People who are suffering don’t always have the skills to express themselves. And some people are just plain Not Nice.
I keep hoping that people will calm down as the pandemic tapers off, but it’s gone on so long that I believe many people need skilled therapy to recover.
Yes! Two of the previously sweetest, kindest, Bible teachers I have ever known that I count as dear friends had a run with covid last winter, and almost died. They survived. But they are not the same people. Seems they seek out conspiracy theories now and are very easily angered. When angered they seem to have no control. It is very sad indeed!
Muff Potter,
Muff–exactly!
I don’t think it’s disgust, I think it’s fear.
Fear that they (women) are forces of nature, and are the stronger of our species despite what the Bible allegedly says or doesn’t say about the matter.
I believe this, too. What ‘presents’ on the surface often hides much deeper pain. I do think that may be one reason we are asked not to judge others because only God can see the human heart.
I remember as a teacher how one mother yelled at me over her son’s grades way beyond the ‘concerned parent’ level, and I asked her calmly if she was all right, and she started to cry. We talked. Her story was horrific. Yes, I think ‘presenting behavior’ often hides much deeper troubles and is a kind of ‘cry for help’ in some ways, and even a reaching out in other ways. I wish I could be a better listener.
Life is hard on people. You are right, friend.
Max,
When I sometimes wonder if hese “pastors” are as bad as it seems, and then there is a video like this….. or Driscoll and his “under the bus” clip, and I realize, no they are worse than they seem…
Max,
When I sometimes wonder if these “pastors” are as bad as it seems, and then there is a video like this….. or Driscoll and his “under the bus” clip, and I realize, no they are worse than they seem…
One quotes chapter and verse.
When they (several) preached the mind and soul bending Empathy is Sin, and behold this aligns with the Fuhrer’s shiny intellectual cultural elite to justify their Final Solution, there is no question regarding the god they, these cultists, worship and where this is going.
History writer Erik Larson notes that Martha Dodd, daughter of our US Ambassador, dated the genocidist leader and a couple of his henchmen (“In the Garden of Beasts”). An American woman, IOW one of us, oblivious to evil while engaged and enamoured with its shiny leaders.
Upthread someone mentioned Steven Hassan. Good. Steven Hassan and Dee Parsons provide sanity in this absurd upside down world of mixed messages.
Absolutely. Agree. Reference my above 9.33PM comment, arriving at the same conclusion.
linda,
Linda, if those bible teachers almost died of covid, and they aren’t coping well now with anger and stress, perhaps they aren’t getting enough oxygen to the brain and their thinking IS ‘cloudy’ . . . my sister-in-law almost died of covid, and she is STILL on oxygen and is trying to build up her strength again, but she had to retire from being a nurse practitioner. She struggles to walk any distance, even from room to room. It is hard to see this, knowing the active, vibrant person that she was. I’m sorry you have seen your Bible teachers also suffer severe changes.
May God have mercy!
“Controversial church aims to ‘make Moscow a Christian town’”
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/nov/17/leaders-of-moscows-christ-church-say-theyre-pushin/
Calvin tried to make Geneva a Christian utopia, teaming with the magistrate to enforce that idea on the citizenry. Those who rejected his theology were shunned, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, executed. Fortunately, Wilson lives in the 21st century, not the 16th.
When the real narcissist in the room is the screaming or booming or yelling or shock-and-awe or perverse or however off-the-rails emotional preacher. Ahem.
Wilson’s public persona doesn’t seem overtly emotional; his attention getting shtick is cosplay … bowler hats, cigars, pub man-caves for real men who control their wives back home. Really pathetic and sad to see his son puffing away on a cigar while sharing about his recovery from an egg-size tumor in his head. But then preacher dad teaches Empathy is Sin. Ouch.
Piper’s one son likes showbiz and preaching to whomever will listen on TikTok (mostly younger fangirls), but he’s definitely not into the Evangelical showbiz shtick with it’s money-making accoutrements.
What the “It’s All About You/Me” narcissistic leaders beget … interesting research. Imagine being raised in a home where what your dad does for a living is microphone. Talk. On stage. To crowds. Over the crowds. The crowds listen and then leave. Maybe shake dad’s hand on the way out the door. (Oh, and the crowds also empty their pockets into the offering plate.)
Max,
He (Wilson) would if he could.
What does happen to the Moscowites who reject the dynasty emerging in their midst? Who are not on board?
Does The Guardian follow TWW:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/02/christ-church-idaho-theocracy-us-america
They are shunned at Walmart, avoided, despised, disdained, scorned disembodied souls floating through Moscow.
Max,
Which is funny, because isn’t a Disembodied Soul floating around Fluffy Cloud Heaven forever what these guys aspire to become?
Long-haul COVID. The virus is as much vascular as respiratory, causing blood clots clogging capillaries in the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, and BRAIN. Causing long-term disability.
And a lot of personality changes from brain injuries are changes for the worse – nastiness, viciousness, selfishness.
Add a church milieu where nastiness and viciousness are signs of Godliness (“PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT!”) and the Bug becomes a Feature to be encouraged.
“Now we can finally have a Truly Christian Nation.”
— Left Behind: Volume 12, Author Self-Inserts leaving the Bema with their Crowns of Glory
Some who start out denying the existence or severity of covid will end up with long-haul covid. Some will realize the virus is real, while others will keep denying.
In addition, some people just take a long time to recover. One of my relatives recently stayed in the hospital for something other than covid. The fear of being in the hospital now, and fear of medical personnel, made this hospital stay much harder than earlier ones. On the day of discharge, my relative accused the doc of lying about the test results returning to normal. It took a couple of weeks at home for sanity to return.
Friend,
I’m really disgusted at the Internet “gurus” who mislead people about Covid. They give people the idea that it’s fine not to get a vaccine because no one needs a vaccine and if they get Covid, then they will be immune. Some people have no idea of what the long term health consequences could be, or they are in denial. Meanwhile, the “gurus” prattle on that the vaccine is worthless because it isn’t 100% effective, or they spin wild conspiracy theories.
Wow, a lot of bad stuff going on.
One thing I appreciate about Lutheranism is there isn’t this idea that you make a government that forces people to obey religious law (true, there was a lot of violence on all sides of the Reformation). Although there are Lutheran groups that are insular, there isn’t the idea that they can bully people into paradise.
Jacob,
Of course, I’m aware that many Lutherans and others shamefully mixed religion and the worst kind of politics in Germany with the rise of Hitler. But I think overall Lutheran thought does not lend itself well to following utopias or having blind faith in madmen.
I found Crawford Gribben’s OUP monograph on survivalism and reconstructionism in the PNW to be a pretty useful read. Gribben’s written a couple of monographs on the evolution of millenarian ideas in trans-atlantic evangelicalism and within Puritan thought in particular so his finally tackling the history of postmil theonomists in the American Redoubt was a welcome addition to a field he’s already done some helpful work in.
WenatcheeTheHatchet,
Interesting. I’ve not studied it extensively, but I see a postmil eschatology as a driving force behind reconstructionism. I have a harder time understanding how, for example, some Baptists have gone all-in for the idea of a “Christian America.” They traditionally believe in the “soul competency of the believer” and not coercion to try to make people Christian. This is yet again different from the Lutheran idea of “two kingdoms,” which is sometimes misunderstood as an accommodation to worldliness on the one side as long as you carve out a separate “spiritual” area for yourself. This division is more like Gnosticism than what Lutheranism actually teaches.
I understand it did originate among Post-Mils. The ides was to build a Christian Nation and a Christian World and Christ would return to claim it. This was originally a multi-generational plan covering decades to centuries, winning hearts and minds until the Theocracy (and Christian Sharia) was accepted voluntarily.
What I think happened is it spread to the Rapture Ready Pre-Mils who immediately went to the End Game of Theocratic Takeover – “WORK FOR THE NIGHT IS COMING!!!” And after the Coup comes The Cleansing; MAKE IT WORK pounding a square peg into a round hold of Reality – “YOU’LL FIT! YOU’LL FIT! YOU’LL FIT!”
(Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense, but when your church culture demands you believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast, don’t expect consistency or thinking things through. To too many Christians, “Spiritual” means “Unreal”.)
And if the Herman Cain Awards on Reddit are any indication, the Christians(TM) are leading the “keep denying” charge.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
All too many were groomed for this by church attitudes that Faith is not the substance of things hoped for but Denial of All Physical Evidence.
Groomed like the prey of a sexual predator. Easy prey for predators both religious and political.
Can you provide a link?
It’s link-heavy but these are the books by Gribben I’ve tackled or been tackling.
Evangelical Millennialism in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500–2000
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230304611
A swift but valuable survey of centuries of evolution from amillenial through postmillenial to premillenial thought and the geopolitical variables at play in how and why that happened. A great primer on the overall topic of millennialism in evangelicalism on either side of the Atlantic.
The Puritan Millennium: Literature and Theology, 1550-1682 (Revised Edition)
https://wipfandstock.com/9781606080184/the-puritan-millennium/
For specialists only but I’m half-way through this and digging it. I’ve never been postmillennial myself but it’s interesting to read the history of how Reformers in the nascent British empire got into stuff that the continental Reformers regarded as idiotic and heretical, i.e. postmil.
Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/survival-and-resistance-in-evangelical-america-9780199370221?cc=us&lang=en&
Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326604.001.0001/acprof-9780195326604
This one was a BLAST! I wouldn’t have guessed bad Rapture novels were pioneered by a Lutheran in Europe!
I have blogged a little about about two of the books but will have to write more later. The PNW book helps establish geography proximity between Driscoll and Wilson at a the time of Mark’s transition/conversion. I think the connections between Wilson and Driscoll deserve further exploration and that some folks who are pro-Wilson but not pro-Driscoll are less than eager to concede the point Mark made clear suggests that this is a stone that should be turned over and investigated a bit more.
Driscoll’s new ebook allegedly dealing with critical theory is a dumpster fire, btw.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Looks like it’s here:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/survival-and-resistance-in-evangelical-america-9780199370221?cc=us&lang=en&
You can click the link on that screen to see some text at Oxford Scholarship Online, and there’s a link about an ebook too.
Speaking of dumpster fires, Telltale Atheist’s YouTube channel has a merch link where he’s selling online (among other things) a dumpster-shaped candleholder marked “2020”. (Your personal Dumpster Fire!) I don’t know if he’s released a “2021” model, but that might be something to keep in mind this holiday season.
Kindred “spirits” … birds of a feather … matching set … peas in a pod … partners in theological crime
While you’re at it, explore the connection between Wilson and Piper … I find that compadre connection to be really strange
I can’t imagine that any of his books are worth reading. Did you find that any were worth your time?
Confessions of a Reformission Rev wasn’t exactly a history of Mars Hill but not completely a “how I did it manual” but it is probably the book most worth reading as a document of what Driscoll thought about himself when he was writing the book, most likely in 2005 before he began to recycle materials and just after he shared he was advised to change his church governance in some way by Larry Osborn. It’s also before, per Nick Bogardus’ testimony to Mike Cosper in the CT podcast, Driscoll stipulated that names be purged from all sermons.
I’m not sure I’d say people gain much reading his work in terms of theology, let alone biblical scholarship, but an advantage the books have over the sermons is they are less easily susceptible to mass purges and redactions.
I’m willing to do a little more work on the Wilson/Driscoll connections because I think those are under-explored but even when I was at MHC and a fairly happy member I was always underwhelmed by Piper and didn’t get why anyone thought so much of him. Plus I was former Assemblies of God and didn’t care so much about Baptists one way or the other.
Brad Vermurlen’s Reformed Resurgence, a monograph that came out recently that takes a sociological survey of the New Calvinist scene is probably sufficient that I don’t think I could add much to that. There’s a handful of academic works done on Mars Hill and its orbit that I’ve mentioned at the blog but the blog has sort of shifted into being more about music and musicology in the last seven years. I do try to keep some tabs on MD and that scene. It’s been striking how consistently Driscoll’s post-MHC books published by Charisma HOuse have been co-authored with either Grace or Ashley. It’s like someone advised him for PR purposes to have his major book releases co-authored with wife or daughter or some woman to deflect any concerns he might have a misogynistic streak in him. What that move DOESN’T do is deflect concerns about how Mark’s views on ecclesiology have not been historically Reformed so much as Baptist OR that nepotism could spur him to finesse his views.
WenatcheeTheHatchet,
Thanks for your reply. I guess if I wanted to delve into who the man Driscoll was/is I’d read his books. I feel I know more than I want to know just by way of his public comments and actions.
If someone were writing about him or investigating him I could see reading his material. I imagine it would be hard for me to stomach his musings.
On another note, I had to chuckle at the coauthorship of his recent books with ‘women.’ Using women (even if they are his wife and daughter) for his and his families’ purposes is par for the course it seems. In reality he can’t live without them, even if they are subservient to men in his world.
Driscoll’s “Real Marriage” is pornographic. Saw one the other day at a yard sale … that’s a good sign that he’s falling out of favor! Now I’m waiting for Piper books to show up.
The ebook version, for now, is quite a bit more affordable. OUP ebooks can be a good alternative if, say, you can’t/don’t wish to drop sixty bucks for a monograph. Mark Burford’s magnificent monograph on Mahalia Jackson is probably cheaper as an ebook than the hardback. Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field is a spectacular though very dense monograph OUP published a few years back. 🙂 Burford pointed out something I hadn’t realized, that nobody has done an academic work on Doris Akers.
WtH as a blog has sort of shifted in the last seven years back to music, musicology and intermittent forays into animation. It wasn’t, isn’t, and wasn’t intended to be the watchdog blog it was temporarily known as.
Max, Jessica Johnson’s monograph Biblical Porn lays out a fairly erudite if literally academic case that biblical pornography was Mark’s stock in trade. So far it’s one of the few books to tackle anything MH related that I would recommend, another work being Maren Haynes Marchesini’s dissertation on the musical culture of MH and Brad Vermurlen’s Reformed Resurgence that came out recently and situates New Calvinism in a disintegrating evangelical field. Little in the Vermurlen book will seem new to longtime readers of INternet Monk but an academic verification of Michael Spenser’s “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” is still worth reading.
To paraphrase Max Headroom‘s Blank Reg:
“REMEMBER ‘THE COMING EVANGELICAL COLLAPSE’? WELL, THIS IS IT.”
Above and beyond the run-of-the-mill “Pornography for the Pious”.
Maybe not so strange.
Both the Jerk with the Kirk and Pious Piper are both heavily into God as Cosmic Punisher and keeping their wimmen in line. Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend.
Not strange at all in terms of the New Calvinism, although any number of old Calvinists regard the New Calvinists as aberrations at best and heretics at worst. I just don’t have the energy or patience to connect dots between Wilson and Piper.
There’s such a thing as taking a break from MH and MD related stuff and watching Dune Part One. 🙂 Plus the recently release A Love Supreme Live in Seattle 1965 is well worth picking up.
The past few years have shown us that Chrsitians on this side of the Atlantic are no slouches as “mixing religion and the worst kind of politics” either.
Because when the Peculiar Institution returns in a Biblical Christian Nation, he’s going to be Massa in the Big House, on the veranda with his cigars and mint juleps while the money comes in in buckets. (Plus the side benefit of Brown Sugah from his female Animate Property any time Massa wants some – “PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT!”)
Like what Hexen and Conjure-Men use as their Enforcers.
(Incidentally, in both PA Dutch and Appalachian witch-lore, Hexen/Cnnjure-Men/Witches live entirely by extorting money and goods off those around them by threat of their occult powers and curses.)
Like that other Douggie over at Vision Forum?
The one who was into Cosplaying General Patton, an 18th-Century Nobleman, and (with his Handmaid) a Commander of Holy Gilead?
They will be Purged and Liquidated.
oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC, comrades.