[Vision2020] Christ Church and freedom of religion

[Michael]

Gary Crabtree Writes:

 

Joe defiantly states " A better explanation is that there is more to the
story than Gary suggests." OK! Have at it then. What specifically is it
about this group of people that elicits the level of criticism displayed
here.. . .Why is Christ Church solely taken to task for philosophy's that
could be laid equally at the doors of any number of other denominations? . .
. I do feel a small need to challenge the blind assertions that this group
is somehow evil . . . In your explanation, please include for us why any
point that you care to make can be only said of C.C. and not leveled against
the Roman Catholics, the Latter-Day Saints, the Christian Scientists, the
Baptists or any other of a  number of other religious groups in the area. If
you can't come up with something totally unique to Pastor Wilson and Co.,
please explain why you don't attack these other groups with the same fervor
and ferocity that you reserve for them. I anxiously await your explanation.

 

 

Gary,

 

It seems as though you might not have seen one of the posts I wrote this
morning in answer to some of Paul's questions.  What I have given is in no
way exhaustive, as I stated originally, but it certainly begins to answer
some of your questions and concerns as posed here.  I know that Keely has
made similar comments recently as well.  Here they are again (below) in case
you missed them. Thanks, Michael

 

1.     Christ Church is a very elitist and arrogant expression of
conservative Christianity that preaches dominance and pays lip service to
love and silent grace; however, the pastor, Doug Wilson, thrives on national
popularity within a splinter denomination and conflict-not local peace and
sociologically healthy integration.  There are many good people still left
in Christ Church, but the primary interface with the local community is a
brash, vocal, Wilson defending group - what some call the "insiders."  

2.     Many former members of Christ Church consider Wilson a deceptive
oppressor who continually lies and spins in order to control his group -
many of them call Christ Church an outright "cult." Wilson is also very well
known for turning on old friends and laymen as soon as they criticize on the
wrong issues or publicly challenge him; he is known as a master at what we
call "character assassination" and he has been very successful at it. Wilson
boasts a "Presbyterian" government of checks and balances, but there really
are not checks and balances within the non-Presbyterian CREC denomination
that he started; and the elders surrounding him offer no accountability at
all.  

3.     There are many views and practices that are very offensive to the
outside Christian and secular community, such as a form of theonomy, a
defense of the pre-civil war South, the belief in much legal regress over
the last 100 years in America, and the practice of imprecatory prayers,
where the Christ Church community calls down literal harm against local real
people who happen to oppose Christ Church.  

4.     There is a strange, non-Christian theology and defense strategy that
I call "enemy theology," wherein any concern or criticism from the outside,
no matter what it is and from where it comes from, is interpreted as
"persecution" and evidence that not only are the things they are criticized
for not wrong but that they are actually very holy and right. The Princess
notes that this is not a simple deductive mechanism - not always is this a
sign of being right - but in practice this is precisely what it is:
criticism functions a priori as evidence for being right and holy, a
prophetic persecuted group.  Wilson has developed a "Serrated Edge" model to
justify his insulting and arrogant approach to many different kinds of
people ranging from local neighbors, Thomas Kincaid, a Grayfriar student,
evangelicals, local professors, Bill London, etc.  This is where the "cult"
concern extends from the sociological to the theological: this is a clear
defensive, and ad hoc twisting of scripture; the "serrated edge" in the New
Testament was never to dehumanize and merely insult the opponent as an act
of "war" but was rather dignified pronouncements of judgment against those
who sat in Moses' seat, those in places of religious authority and power
that used that power to belittle "outsiders" and oppress insiders.  Wilson
is really the only person on the Palouse, according to standards of
scripture, that currently deserves something like the serrated edge.

5.     I was a loyal Wilson defender and Christ church member for 10 years,
a Greyfriar student, and contributor to Credenda Agenda.  After the above
realizations become firm enough in my mind, I began questioning and
challenging.  The response I received from Wilson, Jones, Nate, and others
caused me to move into a more public setting: character assassination had
already set in against me in mild forms and the message was clear that I
either shut up or prepare for a nasty fight.  I started a web site to track
this experience, which you can find here:  www.poohsthink.com
<http://www.poohsthink.com/>  .  I have been kicked out of Christ Church,
shunned by many (e.g. my daughter is not allowed to play with two of her
best friends), and the elders are currently making me out to be an insane,
bitter, evil man who is as perverse as a child molester in order to steer
kirkers away from my website and the evidence and arguments contained
therein.  As with all the other kirkers who have left and received this kind
of treatment, I must say that I am glad to be out - although this has been a
very gruesome and hurtful exercise.

6.   Much criticism that comes against Christ Church is not just, rational,
or fair.  But much of it is.  All of it should be expected, since any
religious group that acts so exclusive and arrogant would get a strong
lashing back from a small liberal community anywhere in the US currently.  

 

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