You know you have hit a real nerve — without necessarily knowing which nerve — when nonbelievers take a deep and abiding interest in the arcane intramural disputes among conservative Presbyterians. But here we are. Nick Gier, who has been one of the chief voices in our local disturbances here in Moscow, has been writing a series of articles on my religious empire. He has come now to my involvement in the Federal Vision stuff.
In this intramural dispute, Gier simply sides with the critics of the Federal Vision because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This strange human tendency has been one of the weirdest elements of the whole fracas, and I have watched the two-way schmooze traffic between the TR camp and radical progressive camp with great interest. “What occureth?” has been my general sentiment.
Gier cites with approval the statement by the RPCUS that “declared that Wilson’s teaching ‘has the effect of destroying the Reformed Faith through the introduction of false hermeneutic principles; the infusion of sacerdotalism; and the redefinition of the doctrines of the church. . . . We therefore resolve that these teachings are heretical.'” And if there is one thing that a radical liberal theologian like Gier cares passionately about, it is saving conservative Presbyterianism from “sacerdotalism.” Oh, and “redefining the doctrines of the church.” My point here is not to defend myself from the charges one more time, but rather to point out how funny this is. If a conservative Presbyterian were to veer off into sacerdotalism, would the tremors be felt deep within Buddhism? Gier extends the same approval to a declaration by the Mississippi Valley Presbytery. Makes one wonder if any of those guys in Mississippi are worried about the support they are attracting. Let me think about it, no. No, they aren’t.
Gier then turns to the General Assembly of the PCA.
“Delegates at the June, 2007 PCA annual meeting overwhelmingly rejected Wilson’s version of John Calvin’s theology. Out of 1,400 delegates in attendance, one observer counted less than fifty votes for Wilson and his associates. Of central concern for the PCA delegates was Wilson’s very liberal definition of who is saved. For Wilson one is fully justified and sanctified simply by being baptized in any Christian denomination.”
There are two things to note here. The first is that those Christian critics of mine who have borne false witness about my beliefs on “who is saved,” and what constitutes what it means to be “fully justified and sanctified” may observe the fruit of their labors in this article of Gier’s. I don’t expect Gier to be able to follow the theological argumentation involved in these issues. How could he? But those Reformed disputants who could have known better, and who have had a duty to know better, and who have persisted in circulating falsehoods anyway, what can I say? It must be rough having a conscience that looks like a rainy Saturday in Pittsburg.
The second thing is that it is inaccurate in the extreme to say that the GA vote was aimed at “Wilson and his associates.” That is to make me far more important than I actually am, and more central to this whole deal than I am. It is Gier’s intent to show how the PCA overwhelmingly rejected me and my pernicious teaching. But the casual observer would look at this and think, “Wilson is so important that the entire Presbyterian Church in America voted on him?” I’m not, and they didn’t, but Gier would apparently like it to be that way, and is doing what he can to make it so. I don’t actually have an empire, but if people like Gier and organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center say enough times that I do, well, then, the day might come when I have to write them a little thank you letter.
Gier, who is very liberal, is really upset that I am going liberal.
“In reading Wilson’s ‘Reformed is Not Enough’ one is struck by how liberal he is when defining what it is to be a Christian and how little ‘cut glass’ there is on his road to salvation. Wilson states: ‘A Christian. . . is anyone who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by an authorized representative of the Christian church'(19). R&G [Robbins and Gerety] take the three New Testament passages that Wilson uses to support this doctrine and demonstrate conclusively that they do not support this incredibly broad definition, one that does not even require continued belief in basic Christian doctrines.”
Gier refers to, but does not understand, the distinction I make between Christians by covenant and Christians in evangelical truth. An adulterer is really married — that’s in part what makes him an adulterer. A faithful husband is really married too, but there is far more to the story than the two of them being “really married.” The reason this doctrine is eating at Gier is because he had a Christian upbringing, and he is covenantally obligated to return to a genuine faith in Jesus, an obligation which he feels deeply, and which he is nevertheless refusing to do. Most evangelical Christians refuse to talk about this obligation, and this is the nerve that I suspect I have hit. Under ordinary circumstances, Gier would applaud any developing “liberalism” on my part. The reason he attacks it (as a liberal!) is because he understands it is not liberal in the standard sense at all. He must repent and believe, and return to a simple faith in Jesus. His baptism still obligates him. And, if Robbins or Gerety are reading this, let us be clear that he must return by faith alone.
Gier also misunderstands and mishandles the entire individual/corporate issue. He thinks that a Hindu Vedantist would be excited by my theology, but not an orthodox Christian. So why is Gier objecting? Why is he defending orthodoxy against me and my incipient pantheism? Well, because the objection is what careful thinkers call “not true.” If I really were an incipient pantheist, Gier would be thrilled. But I am not, and he knows it.
But he also knows that if you throw enough mud, some of it might stick. And if you keep repeating something, the chances of it sticking — google-wise — go way up. This is why he returns to one of his talking points about me. No article on me by Gier would be complete without reference to Southern slavery, and my purported racism.
“PCA members have also condemned Wilson’s book The Serrated Edge, in which he argues that Jesus himself employed racial epithets.”
He’s right. In that book, I do argue that Jesus used a racial taunt in the incident of the Syro-Phoenician woman. I wonder if there is anything else that I said there in that discussion that might be relevant? I wonder if in the past I have pointed it out? Maybe I forgot to. Maybe that’s why Gier doesn’t know the point of that passage. Maybe that is why he has asserted once more something that I thought I have corrected multiple times? Nah . . .
“In his early days Wilson had always described himself as a ‘New Testament Christian,’ and knowing him as well as I do, I was very surprised that he decided to join a denomination. True to form, he wants to run his own show and that he will not be bound by anyone else’s theological limits. This anarchic personality is what made him such an interesting philosophy student at the University of Idaho in the 1970s.”
Keeping with the theme of the whole article, there is a bunch of bum dope in this concluding paragraph. I will leave it to the interested reader to sort it all out. But I will say one nice thing — for using that swell phrase anarchic personality, I am prepared to forgive everything else.