This morning in the Daily News, Rose Huskey and Saundra Lund offered an op-ed piece on Moscow’s culture wars to the public. I assume that I will have an opportunity to respond in the paper, but since this is a good example of what we are dealing with, I thought a quick response here would be appropriate also. The comments in bold are from Huskey and Lund, hereafter H/L. The interspersed comments are mine.
We grew up with the old-fashioned notion that ministers behaved more ethically than the rest of us. After all, we reasoned, they chose godliness as a career path.
Just a minor problem here. Godliness is not a “career path.”
When Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church, declares that “members of a very weird alliance of evangelical Christians, gay activists, abortion rights activists, open theists and secularists” are conducting a “diversity-cleansing” campaign against him and his congregation, it must be true. Why would he lie? The fact is, people lie to protect themselves or to enhance their standing. Wilson is no exception.
Notice that H/L accuse me of lying here, and then go on to have their column be yet one more example of the point I was making. The existence of such a working alliance is indisputable, and the names of people in each of these categories I named working together against us is public knowledge-including those who try to disguise that alliance by resorting to anonymous postings. From the “Not in Our Town” petition to regular postings on Vitriol 20/20, these folks are cheek by jowl.
For several years community members have bumped heads with Wilson over many issues. In 2003, Moscow residents became aware of Wilson’s biblically based defense of Southern slavery. Wilson insists that the content of his book, “Southern Slavery As It Was,” is not racist and that it is scripturally correct. Despite scathing reviews and biting criticism from professional historians and religious scholars, Wilson continues to defend his book.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I continue to defend the central thesis of the book. And it is interesting to note the reference to “scathing reviews and biting criticism from professional historians and religious scholars.” It would be more accurate to say that there were such reviews from some of the aforementioned. In other quarters, the reviews came in differently. Eugene Genovese, one of America’s premier historians of the subject in question, read through the manuscript of my forthcoming update of the slavery booklet, and had this to say.
“The Reverend Douglas Wilson may not be a professional historian, as his detractors say, but he has a strong grasp of the essentials of the history of slavery and its relation to Christian doctrine. Indeed, sad to say, his grasp is a great deal stronger than that of most professors of American history, whose distortions and trivializations disgrace our college classrooms. And the Reverend Mr. Wilson is a fighter, especially effective in defense of Christianity against those who try to turn Jesus’ way of salvation into pseudo-moralistic drivel.”
Peaceful protesters were on-hand for his annual church-sponsored history conference in February 2004. The three-day event was not disrupted, but Wilson’s apparent anger over the negative community response to his book and his conference has not diminished. In the April 28 edition of the Moscow- Pullman Daily News Wilson claims the Latah County commissioners were used as a “cat’s paw” for settling personal scores. What personal scores?
I am not angry about this stuff at all. Perhaps I will get angry about it at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet. The spectacle of “lovers of tolerance” goose-stepping around our small town has thus far been too diverting. But the question “what personal scores?” should still be answered. These complaints (zoning, conference protesting, not-in-our-towning, tax-exemption, and others) are all part of one big story, and we know that the people who are engaged at different places along this front against us are in communication with one another. Those who have a personal score to settle would include, but not be limited to, Charlie Nolan, Dustin Bauer, Joseph Hansen, Terry Morin, J. Ford (her false name), Nick Gier, and assorted others.
Last summer we protested property-tax exemptions given to Anselm House, a church-owned office building, and New St. Andrews College. Two of the three parcels in question lost their tax exemptions. We don’t believe this loss justifies the subsequent, continuing, public attacks on us from Wilson, some church members and their allies. Recently we have been called: vultureness (sic), ugly, troubled women, pigs, god-haters and hypocrites.
I don’t believe this loss on our part justifies any petty personal attacks either. And if it turns out that I am the pastor of anyone who has vented with that kind of personal malice, I would like to apologize for it now, publicly. But this does not apply to everything critical that has been said. For example, I believe that H/L’s hypocrisy does need to be identified as such because it is the central reason for the dispute. The reason the two parcels lost their tax exemption is a reason that applies equally well to virtually every other tax exempt parcel in the state of Idaho. And yet the complaints have been filed very selectively–applied only to entities that have something to do with me. For the government to continue to respond to such complaints without taking note of what is actually happening is to allow our civil officials to be manipulated into discriminatory enforcement of the law.
This winter, zoning issues drew community attention to NSA. Pastor Wilson is a founder and life member of the board of trustees of NSA. City code does not allow educational institutions or schools to locate in the central business district. Wilson’s prior experience with similar NSA problems should have prepared him to expect difficulties with the Main Street location.
Zoning issues did not draw community attention to us. Three people with personal scores (the existence of which has been previously denied, see above) drew community attention to us by filing a zoning complaint against us. This is after we had been downtown for years, with the full blessing and permission of all appropriate officials.
In 2000, NSA operated from a private home in the Fort Russell District. When unhappy neighbors complained about the increased traffic and parking problems, city officials, who were unaware of the college, notified NSA administrators that the college was violating zoning laws and must relocate. Zoning officials specifically alerted them to the applicable codes and processes required for operating schools and boarding houses.
And when these problems were brought to our attention, we worked cooperatively with the appropriate city officials to resolve the problem. Because of this previous problem, we were very careful to touch all the necessary bases before our purchase of a building downtown.
Meanwhile, Christ Church members opened two new church-sanctioned schools, one in the Nuart Theater, and the other just around the corner from the old NSA location. Monthly reports on these schools are provided in Christ Church congregational meetings. That information, however, was not shared with city officials, who were unaware of their existence until last month.
Christ Church members do not need the permission of the church to educate their own children at home, or to open a school. There is not official category of a “church-sanctioned school.” But all members of the church who are involved in any ministry at all (from Campus Crusade, to the Gideons, to their school) have an opportunity to report on it to the others at the congregational meeting.
Because NSA administrators, including Wilson, philosophically oppose college dormitories, NSA facilitates a boarding program for students. Approximately 22 Christ Church family households in Moscow, including Wilson’s, offer room and board for one to five students. This lucrative business operates beneath city radar and with arrogant disregard for their effect on neighboring homeowners.
This is a great example of breathlessly announcing something that is perfectly ordinary and routine in such hushed tones as to make it seem as though something nefarious is going on. This is a college town. College students board with families. I bet there are more than 22 students attending the University of Idaho who board with families. I can see the headlines now. “Student Rents Room Under City Radar.”
These surreptitious activities give lie to Wilson’s blog-published remarks “I am a believer in full disclosure.”
I surely am a believer in full disclosure. And while I haven’t always disclosed everything in this controversy before it became part of the controversy, this is because it has been hard for me to anticipate some of the evils I will be accused of perpetrating. For example, it never occurred to me to “disclose” that we had students boarding with us. You know, our house has a certain number of bedrooms. We thought it was okay if people lived in them. But who knew?
Like most of us, Wilson doesn’t enjoy being thwarted. But few mature adults retaliate like schoolyard bullies when they don’t get their own way. Wilson recently claimed in a national evangelical magazine (where he was reciting the troubles heaped upon him by the Moscow community), that the University of Idaho offered class credit for protesting his 2004 history conference. That is a lie.
I did not claim that all the protesters got class credit. I claimed that it was possible to get class credit by working on the protest, which is true, and I do claim that the UI spent $16,000 in their attempts to organize the protests. Please remember that after the conference, we filed a public records request with the university, and we have all the documents.
And one other observation here. The Intoleristas alternate between calling me a “whiner” and a “bully.” When I point out that we are the ones being run out, I am accused of whining. When I stand up to this harassment, and identify it for what it is, I am accusing of being a bully. In reality, I am doing neither.
His allegation that the Moscow School District was “materially involved in the harassment of the history conference” is pure baloney.
Where was the “white hands of tolerance” display that was outside our conference put together? Who organized that united display of Moscow’s school children against our conference? Was it done on school time?
Wilson’s practice of being silent when speech is lawfully required damages our community, his credibility and his ministry. The fact is, twisting the truth, name-calling, bellyaching, and bullying invite more, not less, community scrutiny.
I invite more community scrutiny. I have no problem with people looking into this. But I do have a problem with those who, like H/L, look at this situation without seeing it.
Insisting on civic accountability doesn’t make Wilson a victim of intolerance; it just means that he is held to the same standards we are; standards that apply even to ministers.
The same standards? I invite H/L, and anyone else involved in this, to apply the same standards to us that are applied to everyone. The day that happens will be the day the controversy ends.