So in response to a tweet by David French, Doug Wilson writes, “David French & the Vapors of Civic Virtue Escaping from a Mystery Box”
Here’s the deal, David French tweeted, “I am 100 percent certain that if Christianity Today reported that elements of CRT were taught at John MacArthur’s church, then lots of folks on this site would be MUCH more angry than they are at reports his church enabled the abuse of women and children.”
And he was absolutely right! People are far more uptight about CRT then they are about the actual injustice currently being experience by real people in our churches. Wilson even acknowledges that he himself feels that way! This truth always sticks in my craw, it’s a bit of gall in the back of my throat year after year. It keeps me set apart from the church at large, the church as institution, which is not a bad thing at all because really, who wants to live in an institution?
I am just saying, this is a huge pink elephant sitting right in the middle of our sanctuary and no one wants to address it. It is also contributing to a decline in church attendance and a complete loss of moral authority out in the world.
I should also point out that, “So what? There are gays and pedophiles dancing out in the street,” is a complete non answer. The truth is not suddenly irrelevant simply because you believe that those speaking the truth have less moral character than you do.
Wilson proceeds to inadvertently and unwittingly get to the root of the problem. That’s different, he says. “What you are teaching is out in public,” whereas enabling the abuse of women and children happens in private, if it is even real at all? After all, such things are only based on “reports” and all reports should just be buried in an endless bureaucracy of 20 questions until they are eventually forgotten entirely.
He goes on to imply it only matters if, “You say it behind pulpits and lecterns.”
And that right there is the entire problem with institutionalized Western religion. It’s all good as long as the outside of the cup is all shiny. Never mind that absolutely everybody in your congregation is so stagnant and lifeless they actually smell faintly of rancid pond water. Never mind that a good chunk of them are in grievous emotional pain. Never mind that sin abounds and healing is no where to be found.
Never mind that most churches refuse to admit that even to ourselves.
David French goes on to say, “And time and time again, I hear Christians say, “We need more Christians in power.” And I’m thinking, “Do we, though?”
Alas, I am often thinking the precise same thing! I should like very much to make a well reasoned argument for why it might be desirable to have more Christians in power, but then the truth and reality of people like Doug Wilson loom on my horizon and I know in my heart of hearts, nope, this would not be desirable at all.
Also, we can argue all day over what a Christian really IS, or even what the meaning of “IS,” really is, but technically most of our current clown world government is made up of alleged “Christians” already. The last thing I want is to have any more of them in power.
Now of course both Wilson and French will completely ignore me, as will most other sensible people. After all, if it isn’t being publicly said either, “behind pulpits and lecterns,” or in the New York Times, then it really doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t count. It’s not even a part of the conversation.
Many men often fall prey to this same false concept, to this inability to understand the invisible conversation running in the background, the undercurrents that tell the whole story. I don’t wish to step on any feelings here, but I do know multiple men blindsided by divorce who have no idea what went wrong. They genuinely did not see this coming. What makes that so interesting is that not one of my kind is surprised in the least. We all know why she left. We aren’t surprised she divorced you at all, we are surprised she waited another five years before doing so. You seem to have been the only one not listening to the invisible conversation going on for the past 20 years.
The same is true of nearly every single church I’ve ever attended. They never seem to have any idea, “what went wrong.” Worse yet, they are completely unwilling to even listen because nothing is ever wrong in the first place. Just ignore the giant smoking crater about to blow that anyone with a half a heart can feel and sense.
Now this is probably going to be hard on someone’s pride, but in truth what is said publicly and said from “behind pulpits and lecterns,” is almost completely irrelevant. It has about as much meat and bones as the mainstream media does. It has about as much substance as a man putting a dress on and calling himself a woman does. It is a brand, an Instagram account. Superficial fluff.
The Lord’s word may indeed be beautiful, but devoid of actual love it’s just a resounding gong, even from the pulpit and lectern.
Children are not raised by parenting manuals, they are mostly raised by what you don’t say, by what they see, by the invisible conversation running in the background. Culture wars are not won by writing policies or passing mandates, they are about winning hearts and minds. It simply doesn’t work to say, do as I say not as I do. People are going to imitate your behavior, including your tone deaf ways and hard heart.
Ironically, much like Pastor Wilson with his comment about how it only really matters if, “You say it behind pulpits and lectern,” this is also the heart of liberalism. Truth is malleable. Truth is what we say it is in our press releases. You will think and be and exist, as we say you will. You are nothing more then an easily programmed sea sponge, absorbing everything we tell you and refusing to ever believe what your lying eyes might be trying to refute. Don’t think, just obey.
Wilson gets us to the crux of the matter, “But the conservative Christian world at large has done a decent job in continuing to maintain that all such behavior is bad, and evil, and wrong, and iniquitous.”
No. No they have not! “Conservatives” are quite fabulous at telling everyone what they are against, what is bad and evil and wrong, while sweeping all evidence of such things under the rug and driving them into the closet where it always begins to ferment and stink. Out of sight, out of mind. Not my problem. Sucks to be you. We don’t have a drug problem in this country, we don’t have poverty problem, we don’t abuse children. Everything is just fine.
That inability to pay attention to the invisible conversation running full bore and forcefully shaping the culture today is partially responsible for why we now currently find ourselves living in clown world.
One last lament, once last complaint. I have little use for Wilson to begin with, but what an annoying little bit of suck uppery this was, “Now I would have some things to say to those who went into the Capitol that day. First, I do believe that their resistance on J6 was not in accordance with the Word of God.”
He really is about as useless as antlers on a rabbit.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
“lots of folks on this site would be MUCH more angry than they are at reports his church enabled the abuse of women and children.””
It’s much more likely that these reports are slander and libel against John MacArthur meant to attack him for standing up to the pandemic shutdowns. He kept his church open, and for that he must be punished.
What surprises me is that so many people who ought to know better don’t realize this. Of course it’s no surprise when muddle-headed rubes believe everything the idiot box tells them.
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I’d be more inclined to believe MacArthur is being picked on due to his response to the pandemic, if people had not already been trying to address these issues for decades now. There is a similar situation with Pastor Wilson, multiple people trying to point out that this is a real problem, and it is just denied, ignored, and brushed aside under the guise of how these great men are allegedly just being persecuted.
Poppycock.
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There’s a pretty big difference between Wilson and MacArthur.
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Probably, but the part that is the same is how they often mistreat and shame victims of abuse and instead rally around the offender. These are often offenders who after many, many years of continuing their vile behavior finally encounter law enforcement, have a fair trial, and are now sitting in prison.
Alex Lloyd, former deacon at Christ Church was recently sentenced for possessing child pornography and David Gray from MacArthur’s church is now serving 21 years for aggravated child molestation.
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So, the guilty are in jail, where they belong.
Churches are not governments, not any more, anyway, so it’s not the job of a church to prosecute for crimes. Church leaders should do their duty as any other citizen and cooperate with the legitimate investigations and otherwise get out of the way. But other than that, doesn’t a church have as much duty to attend to the spiritual health of the guilty as much as the innocent? The guilty need to be punished, severely as far as I’m concerned, but the innocent also have a spiritual duty to obey God and forgive the way that God forgives.
I recently got excommunicated from a pro-life prayer group I had been with for a couple of years when I blurted out that the main reason for a woman not to get an abortion is because she doesn’t want to be a murderer. The group took it to mean I was bashing women for being murderers, but in my view I was merely stating the truth, and actually expressing an equal concern for the spiritual health of the woman as for the physical life of the baby. They couldn’t understand my point so I was told I wasn’t welcome there any more.
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I’m sorry you got unwelcomed from the prayer group.
One of the problems is that these two churches did not attend to the spiritual needs of the victim and perp, they decided to rally around the perp and punish the victims.
I wish Christians had a better understanding of “judges.” Back in the day, there was no criminal court. You were just guilty, no fair trial required. Court was for the righting of wrongs, restoration and justice, like we see with persistent widow or Solomon’s tale of the 2 mothers. We’re not “judges” focused on punishing the offender or deciding guilt or innocence, we’re focused on restoring what was lost or stolen. Up until modern times, a “judgement” was a really good thing. People camped out for days just to be judged, because being “judged” meant someone was going to acknowledge the wrong that was done to you and help to make it right.
God doesn’t punish Job, He actually hears his case and restores to him what has been lost, ten fold over. Job walks out of that experience with far more then was taken from him.
That really is the nature and character of God and one I wish we could embrace more as Christians and move away from the punishment paradigm of the modern world where everything is perceived through the lens of criminal court.
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“He really is about as useless as antlers on a rabbit.”
Well, would not that be a jackalope? Although not currently on the list of God’s creatures so I suppose it is not worthy of mention.
Regarding “pulpits and lecterns”, it’s been my observation in life (one of many) that the problem with religion in general is that it requires humans to give it meaning, therefore it is as imperfect as we are. Humankind was created in infinite variety, the Bible is interpreted in as much infinite variety, and justification for whatever humankind does (or doesn’t) is also of infinite variety. We might be able to presume that Christendom represents an aspirational road to some moral perfection.. no Christian ever has achieved that level (I should also include those non-Christian beliefs as well). It seems to me, a “Christian” in power (or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc) might be a consummation devoutly to be wished by some as a remedy for our political ills, implies their actions rise above being human and thus have some holy affirmation. I am not sure I want someone traveling that road to spiritual cleansing leading me politically.
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Ha! Yes, a jackalope is not a real creature, therefore it does not count, sorry. Rabbits simply have no need for antlers.
I am also not interested in having someone lead us politically who, “implies their actions rise above being human and thus have some holy affirmation.”
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Christian government, almost by definition, recognizes the imperfection of human beings. The Founding fathers asked God to “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,” but they balked at claiming God was on their side. When they wrote the Constitution, they understood the need to divide power as much as possible. One of the ways we have failed is that we have not kept the bulk of government power as close to the people as possible, that is, local government.
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Given a non-Christian can indeed hold to Christian-like ideals, especially regarding the Commandments, what exactly does “Christian government” mean?
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I think the point most people who have studied the Bible take from the Sermon on the Mount is that we are incapable of obeying the Ten Commandments as we should. So, we need a government to keep us in check. Romans 13:1-7 says as much. Please read it.
What the Bible doesn’t explain in explicit language is how God chooses the governing authorities. Because many Americans were quite familiar with the Bible in 1776, they had to be convinced that the Bible did not prohibit a rebellion against King George III.
That is a problem that the Declaration of Independence had to deal with. If the King of England was no longer the governing authority in the American colonies, then why not?
As the Declaration of Independence explains, the founders of our nation believed that government exists to protect our God-given rights. Some argue that the Bible does not speak of God-given rights, but that is silly. To obey The Ten Commandment, then we must respect our neighbor’s rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Because King George III was abusing the rights of the American people, he lost the authority to rule.
If you are still confused about what a Christian government looks like, then I suggest that you seriously consider the proposition that the founders created a secular government BECAUSE they believed it unchristian to use the government to force their personal beliefs upon each other. If that seems preposterous, then I have a challenge for you. Were there any secular governments before 1776? Didn’t every other nation have a state religion of some sort?
Note that this relates to the issue Doug Wilson attempted to address. Because IB is so focused on a different issue, she launched on a tangent.
All governments have some sort of religious basis. What we believe about God determines what we think important, our values. The absence of shared values tears a people apart.
Consider our civil war. The North disapproved of slavery. The South supported slavery. Otherwise, both the North and the South shared the same language, a similar history, and a Christian heritage. Why couldn’t they get along with each other? That moral issue, that difference in Biblical interpretation about the evil of slavery, slowly led to subtle, but profound cultural differences. So, the people in the North and the South started talking past each other. They could still speak the same language, but they saw too many things with a different point of view. Thus, a compromise that had worked for decades finally fell apart.
Something very similar is happening today, but the moral issue is much larger than slavery. Much of the nation believes that God exists, that the Bible is His Word. Much of the nation believes God does not exist. And much of the nation wants to believe they do not have to care about God. They have escaped into drugs, entertainment, work, … anything that keeps them from thinking about the problem of a God who will ask them to give an accounting.
When beliefs are so divergent,….. King David put it this way.
You may wish to read Psalm 11.
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Tom, the fact that both of these pastors have shamed and (even excommunicated) a couple of victims of sexual abuse while at the same time supporting now convicted pedophiles is not a “tangent.”
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Pingback: AN EXAMPLE OF A SILLY ARGUMENT – Citizen Tom
Tom, the problem with dismissing this as a hypothetical argument, is that the women and children harmed by the enabling of abuse by these churches are not hypotheticals. I named only 2 perps convicted in a court of law, above. CRT is an ideology or an academic theory. It is not a criminal act. The tragedy is that when pastors persecute victim and enable pedophiles, there is no reason to listen to them about CRT, or any other subject for that matter.
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IB, I am not going to try to convince you that CRT is more or less evil than enabling the abuse of children and women. I am not going to argue over the number of cases. I am not going to stand as the judge of a couple of pastors whose church I have never attended. When it will accomplish nothing anyway, I am not going to weed through news media accounts and try to sort out the lies. Instead, I will just point out that CRT is vile part of a vile ideology.
Slavery exists because some people see nothing wrong with it. They believe something evil.
The Holocaust and Communists purges happened because some people saw nothing wrong. They believed something evil. The Communist Chinese brutalize their own people and spread mischief throughout the world. Unchecked these reckless people could initiate WWIII, perhaps deliberately. But they see nothing wrong with what they are doing.
If we want to do our small part to save someone’s soul, then we have to share what we believe, don’t we? Don’t we have to share the Gospel. The Gospel of Christ is a religious ideology. When we don’t do our best to fulfill the Great Commission, we leave our family, friends, and neighbors ignorant of the Bible, ripe for vile ideologies, and Hell bound.
What we believe makes a difference. Don’t we love others because we know He loved us first?
When we abuse others, we do so because of what we believe. We know the heart of another because of their words and deeds.
So, is CRT is more or less evil than enabling the abuse of children and women? I don’t know. I don’t think it makes sense to separate evil beliefs from evil words and deeds.
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Tom, there is really nothing to argue or debate here. Tragically, it just is what it is. David French was right. Wilson even conforms that is true in his case.
You yourself say you don’t even know if CRT is more or less evil then enabling child sexual abuse.
What this means is that we now lack all moral authority to criticize CRT. In fact, this behavior around enabling child sexual abuse and instead protecting perpetrators gives ammunition to several of the arguments presented in CRT and actually justifies them.
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Think about what I said.
One results in the other. We recognize evil beliefs because evil beliefs produce evil word and deeds.
Does opposing CRT mean I am in favor of enabling the abuse of children and women? No. Then why would I lack moral authority to oppose the abuse of children and women?
CRT can justify a form of racism. Racism can be used to justify slavery. Slavery leads to the most horrible abuse of men, women, and children. Think Nazism.
CRT can justify a form of class warfare. Think Communism.
CRT/Identity politics combines Nazism and Communism. It is ugly stuff.
Are you familiar with logical fallacies? Of course, you are.
I have chosen a third option. Even though I disagree with you, I still want to be your friend.
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Okay, let me try this one last time. If the church doesn’t start caring more about how many churches enable child sexual abuse and protect offenders, and speak out about that publicly, be prepared to accept a future dominated by CRT.
Oh and these “reports his church enabled the abuse of women and children,” are not just “reports,” they are actual convictions in a court of law that are now a matter of public record.
Also, maybe next time someone could try coughing up some compassion for the small children who were violently raped and abused, rather then jumping to the defense of these idiotic pastors.
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Religion doesn’t insulate anyone from the foibles of mankind… including the desire for power over others even if holding the Bible and declaring themselves members of the clergy. Type A males do indeed find a home as zealot pastors who use their authority for sexual gratification.. with children or anyone else. Simply being a spiritual leader does not a leader make. I agree with you IB. So much has been done to others from bastardized interpretations of the Bible… and in the name of Christianity… or any other religion.
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When you use the word church, I think you need to define the term..
— There is no Conservative Christian Church. There are Conservative Christian Churches.
— Conservative Christian Churches care about stopping child sexual abuse and protecting offenders. Stop confusing the nonsense spouted by the news media with reality. Those are the same people who pushed all the COVID nonsense, ignore the opioid crisis and human trafficking caused by open borders, want felons released without bail, harass women in their news rooms,…. Stop repeating their lies. You know better.
— There is a visible church and an invisible church. Jesus is the head of the invisible church. All we can do is evaluate the visible church, and the visible church — those portions of it that still uphold the Bible as God’s Word — still compares favorably with other institutions in our society, but that does not stop the news media from lying about the “church.” You expect them to do something different? That isn’t what Jesus said would happen. What the news media does portray the bad behavior of a relative few as representative of all Christian churches. Meanwhile the news media tries to ignore all the abuse in government-run and corporate-run institutions with one exception. The make life miserable for military and police forces.
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I believe I wrote about the very liberal concept that we are all sea sponges being brainwashed by the media who tells us how to think? That is why I have just spent the last decade being dismissed as a Fox news viewer who is being brainwashed. In truth, I almost never watch any mainstream news at all, conservative or otherwise. What I know of Wilson and JMac is due entirely to my own research, easily available public records, and their own video clips, written articles, and public statements. There is no conspiracy to try to make them look bad, Tom. Near as I can tell, they are rather self righteous and proud of themselves for having taken these positions and they aren’t hiding it. Therefore I am not exposing these men and trying to make them look bad, they have gone and done that to their own selves.
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Whether you are correct about Wilson or MacArthur is a separate issue. The problem is you are tarring all Christians with the same brushstrokes.
The only people who can do anything about those two guys are the ones who give them money. They can stop, or they can give them more.
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“But the conservative Christian world at large has done a decent job in continuing to maintain that all such behavior is bad, and evil, and wrong, and iniquitous.”
Is Wilson serious? All that ‘Conservative Christians’ usually do go from one Election Cycle to the other complaining about the same problems and never doing anything in between. I actually saw an article the other day where some ‘conservative’ pundit was writing about America having ‘an obesity epidemic’—like it just started since Biden took office.
And what’s worse: when they do come up with ‘solutions’ they try to prove that they’re ‘Alphas’ and not weenies like the Left and usually make things worse. Mostly though they just slink away like Wilson did on the Jan 6 issue if it actually means taking a stand.
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All very true! If conservatives could just try on a tiny bit of intellectual curiosity, they might actually become a viable influence for good out in the world.
Recently a couple of those alphas decided to show off by declaring they couldn’t wait until all the homeless just overdosed on their meth and fentanyl, amid much laughter and backslapping. Apparently they didn’t realize that most of their audience was made up of the family, friends, parents, of those wasting away. Not a word was spoken, but everyone there has now implanted the image of “conservative,” as an obnoxious alpha who mocks and ridicules people’s pain.
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I saw one a few weeks ago where they were doing high-fives after Texas shipped 100 migrants to Denver with no provisions or previous announcement and dropped them on the sidewalk in a snowstorm and near 0 windchill. This was like two weeks after the mayor there said that city relief efforts were maxxed out because of the weather.
If they want to keep electing Democrats, this is how to do it. The problem is that they’re so tunnel-visioned that they think that because they don’t care, nobody else does. I can imagine if I had somebody who OD’d and read a bunch of jerks celebrating “one less Democrat voter” how I’d feel about it. Probably a lot of people actually do vote Democrat just to keep swine like that away from positions of power.
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I really don’t share so many bad vibes against the church as an institution. For instance, I think churches closing during the covid crisis was a hard blow for some who needed help, but no church open. I think there will be hurt feelings among those who hang together. If you hang out at the social club, that is where you get hurt. If you hang out at the bar, that’s where you get hurt. If you hang out with family, that’s where you get hurt. A Christ-like mentor is needed in all those situations. However, I must say, your last line brought my smile around again. Love it.
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Really good point Oneta, about getting hurt where you hang out. If it wasn’t in the church, it might just have happened in some other place.
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I think you are the one responsible for my up-dated understanding of being offended or taking offence. 😀 We just have to build a thick skin and refuse to be offended unless the thumb is poked in the eye. Then we need a healthy hospital if physical; we need a healthy church if spiritual.
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Doesn’t Wilson’s behavior also arise from DNA he didn’t choose? An unsettling thought … Perhaps he deserves more generalization and less publicity? If you will forgive me ….
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Ha! It’s a good question. As CS Lewis once pointed out, the guy you meet in heaven may have just had indigestion his whole life. Underneath his physical issues, was actually a hidden saint.
I assure you, I am not exposing or publicizing anyone’s flaws. All of the men mentioned have very public lives, write, blog, video, and give interviews. I’m objecting to some publicly stated points of view that they themselves have revealed.
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