We got a nice note from Molly Worthen, who wrote an article on NSA for The New York Times Magazine. That article is available here. In her note she comments, fairly enough, that the article is critical in places, but that she is hopeful that the article does indicate her interest in and admiration for what we are doing. I think it does that, and, as a side benefit, the critical side of the piece means that we won’t have to explain to all our conservative friends why we got a glowing treatment in The New York Times, for pete’s sake. Anyway, thanks to Molly for a fair-minded article.
But alas, there are still a few things that need additional comments, which it appears I will be supplying here in a few minutes. Despite the work of diligent fact-checkers, the article created some impressions that I would like to set in wider context. This may have happened because what was written was greatly edited down because of space constraints, but, however it became necessary, here are just a few addenda.
1. There was one place in the article where a comment about Liberty University and Patrick Henry sounded kind of snarky — as though they were “the last thing” we wanted to be. But the primary reference of this is to an honest difference in strategy — do we fight the culture war politically, or culturally?
2. The article quoted my brother Evan, a critic of what we are doing, and so a few comments on that would probably be in order. First, I was glad that it was noted that Evan is “the local Pelagian” who holds to openness theology — the view that the future is non-existent and undetermined until our free wills shape it. That means that, theologically at any rate, any informed Christians who read this article will know exactly where that problem arose. As for the tone of the rest of his comments about our students, and what we are trying to do as we teach them, I would simply refer the interested reader to the works of Rene Girard.
3. The article missed a theological point concerning the thought of Cornelius Van Til. “In other words, it is impossible for Christian to reason with non-Christians.” The point here is that when they are reasoning from their respective presuppositions, it is impossible for believers and unbelievers to have a meeting of the minds. We can only reason with one another when we share the premises, which the Van Tilian argues the non-believer unwittingly does, borrowing from the Christian worldview in order to function in the world God actually made. So the point was not that it is unnecessary to interact with non-Christians, or with non-Christian thought, or to deal with their arguments, but rather that we should do so intelligently, recognizing the foundational role of presuppositions in all of it.
4. Molly has done a great deal of background reading in the Christian Reconstructionists, and was aware of the historical connections and acquaintances that a handful of us had with that movement back in the day. She cites Rushdoony, who advocated the “execution of adulterers and homosexuals.” Then this sentence comes — “Most N.S.A. faculty members are quick to distance themselves from the movement, but not Doug Wilson.” This juxtaposition creates a false impression which I have had to deal with before, and have treated in detail here. And there is no need to create distance when the distance is already there.
But let me be merry for a moment, and then serious. What I am actually doing in saying things like this is I am trying to cage an invitation to lecture at Columbia University. I heard that they recently had a speaker there, a man who addressed this very subject. “Vee dunt haf any humusexuals un Iran . . . nutt eny more. Heh, heh.” There are people in the world who are actually engaged in the execution of homosexuals, and the reaction of American liberals has been, large and by, to engage in a little strange bedfellows kissy-face with them. Radical Islamists are way beyond Rushdoony, and all liberals can do is talk about Islamophobia. So, given that I am not even where Rushdoony was on this issue, give me a break everybody.
And seriously, the only thing I am interested in doing on this issue is to maintain my stout refusal to apologize for anything in the Bible. We are biblical absolutists, which does come out in the article, and that is a fair representation. As Molly put it, the school was founded by the elders of a “fast-growing and radically conservative church.” That’s true enough. We have “not turned [our] back on the culture war.” That’s true also. The article quotes me as saying, “We are trying to save civilization,” which is also true — although I told the fact-checker that it was only true if you took out the megalomanaical sound to it. And we are basing everything we do on “historic Protestant orthodoxy.” Right again, Scott Clark notwithstanding. This means that we are not going to apologize for Scripture. There are no passages in the Bible that are an embarrassment to us. Period. And those liberals really worried about actual executions of adulterers and homosexuals perhaps need to think about signing up to support Bush’s newly developing exit strategy for Iraq — it is starting to look as though he might go out through Iran. But I don’t really think that will make them happy either.