TWELVE ARTICLES FOR REPUDIATION

by Nick Gier

Wilson's answers were posted on Vision 2020 on December 9, 2003 at http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2003-December/005891.html

Article 1.  Christ Church member Roy Atwood now states that "Southern

Slavery, As it Was" is not a scholarly work.  This concession implies

that it is not as credible as a scholarly work.  When any press publishes

a Monograph Series, it usually means that this is the best specialized

work that it can find.  What is the status of this essay? What is the

status of other works published by Canon Press?

a. Scholarly or unscholarly, are you responsible for the work?  Yes or

No?

YES, YES! I CONFESS IT!

b. Do you repudiate this work and your support for Southern Slavery? Yes

or No?

NOT THE FIERY TONGS AGAIN! YES, I REPUDIATE IT ALL!

c. Are other works published by Canon Press credible?   Yes or No?

CANON

PRESS? VILE STUFF, ALL OF IT.

Article 2.  R. L. Dabney is cited favorably in the slavery booklet and

its co-author Steve Wilkins is an instructor at the Dabney Center for

Theological Studies in Monroe, Louisana.  Dabney was a racist and

condemned interracial marriage, something the Bible celebrates. Dabney

also condemned the education of African Americans, something the New

Testament advocated. But your neo-Confederate friends have proudly

republished Dabney's works, which have blatantly unscriptural positions?

Do you repudiate Dabney and all that he stands for?  Yes or No?

NO . . . WAIT! I MEANT YES!

Article 3.  Your position on slavery is equivocal.  As a moral absolutist

you must say that it is always wrong, but your support for biblical

slavery and Southern slavery implies that it depends on culture and

therefore is relative.  Dabney's position is very interesting:  the

righteous Anglo-Saxon Christian has a duty to enslave people that cannot

govern themselves.  The "evil is not slavery, but the ignorance and vice

in the laboring classes, of which slavery is the useful and righteous

remedy. . . . (A Defense of Virginia, p. 207).

a. Do you repudiate this Dabney on this point?   Yes or No?

WHAT IS THE RIGHT ANSWER HERE?

b. Do you believe that owning another person is always wrong?  Yes or No?

IT CAN'T BE ALWAYS WRONG BECAUSE YOU WON'T LET

 ME OUT OF HERE . . . NO, WAIT! NOT THE RACK!

Article 4. Steve Wilkins is the director of the League of the South.  It

stands for the repeal of the 14th Amendment (guaranteeing equal rights

for all Americans) and the secession of 15 Southern States to form a New

Confederate States of America.  Some would call this treason.

Do you repudiate the League of the South?   Yes or No?

TREASON IS BAD, RIGHT?

Article 5. George Grant and Steve Wilkins support the novel Heiland,

which has been compared to the "Turner Diaries," the book that inspired

the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. The book's hero leads a

violent overthrow of a "godless" federal government.

a. Do you believe in the violent overthrow of the U. S. government? Yes

or No?

NO!

b. Do you repudiate the ideas contained in the novel "Heiland"?   Yes or

No?

YES! ESPECIALLY THE KOOKY PARTS ABOUT CHELATION THERAPY.

Article 6.  George Grant and Steve Wilkins are regular guest speakers at

annual meetings of your Association of Classical and Christian Schools

and Colleges.

a. Do your unscholarly views of the Civil War appear in the

curriculum?  Yes or No?

NOT ONE OF MY UNSCHOLARLY VIEWS APPEARS IN THE

CURRICULUM. [Gier: Wilson's American history curriculum is loaded

with his "Christian" approach to American history]

b. Do your schools support neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist

views?  Yes or No?

MY SCHOOLS? I DON'T HAVE ANY SCHOO . . . . OKAY, OKAY.

WE REPUDIATE ALL ICKY VIEWS. NEVER HEARD OF 'EM.

[Gier: At a Christian school conference in Anaheim, California, Wilson was introduced

as the founder of  Logos School and its associated Christian schools and also founder

of Moscow New St. Andrews College.]

Article 7.  Grant, Wilkins, and you are the principal speakers at the

February conference. The conference is called a "history" conference but

no professional historians are speaking.  The slavery booklet was one of

the publications of the first conference in 1994, but the fact that this

booklet is now declared "not scholarly" indicates that this conference

and its predecessors may not be scholarly conferences.  Furthermore, if

you reject the neo-Confederates, why are you inviting them to Moscow?

a. Is your meeting scholarly and credible?  Yes or No?

YES. WE WANT IT TO BE SCHOLARLY VERY MUCH.

ANYTHING FOR RESPECTABILITY.

b. If No, would you consider moving it off campus so as to save

embarrassment to academic community and North Idaho?

NO, WE WANT TO KEEP IT ON CAMPUS SO THAT

THE CREDIBILITY WILL RUB OFF THE OTHER WAY.

PERHAPS WE CAN LEARN TO ASK YES OR NO QUESTIONS TOO.

c. Doesn't this conference give credibility to a movement you

reject?  Yes or No? NO!

Article 8.  In your slavery booklet you condemn slave owners who had sex

with their slaves as "ungodly."  But Abraham had sex with his servant

Hagar and was convinced by his wife Sarah to abandon Hagar and his son in

the desert.

Do you repudiate Abraham and Sarah as ungodly?  Yes or No?

IS IT ALL RIGHT TO SAY NO? OKAY, NO.

Article 9.  You have said that your main goal is to defend the Bible in

all that it says.  Yahweh declared genocide against all the inhabitants

of Canaan and he made sure that it was carried out by the Israelite

armies.  Most people believe that slaughter of any group of people,

regardless of their reputed sins, is always wrong.

a. Do you repudiate Yahweh for commanding genocide?  Yes or No?

NO, BUT I ADVISED HIM AGAINST IT.

b. Do you support the international conventions against genocide?  Yes or

No?

THIS ISN'T A PRO-LIFE TRICK QUESTION, IS IT? IT IS?  THEN NO.

Article 10.  In your slavery booklet you claim that since the Bible

condones slavery but condemns kidnapping, it was not sinful for people to

own Africans that they themselves did not ship from Africa.  I believe

that is as absurd as Buddhists who rationalize meat eating because they

claim they were not involved in the slaughter of the animal itself.

a. Do you agree with me?  Yes or No? ALWAYS!

b. Do you repudiate the owning of another person, any time, any

place?  Yes or No?

CAN I GO NOW? NO? THEN NO.

Article 11.  In 1995 the Southern Baptist Convention passed a Racial

Reconciliation Resolution requesting that members repent for the evils of

racism and Southern Slavery. My understanding is that these are

conservative evangelical Christians, are they not?

Would you have voted for this resolution.  Yes or No?

CAN I READ IT FIRST? NO? WAIT, NOT THE BOOT!

YES, I WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR IT. TWICE!

Article 12.  When the League of the South was founded in 1994, it

recognized, as a way of honoring both Confederate soldiers and Scottish

rebels, the Confederate flag as a Christian symbol, specifically as the

Cross of St. Andrews.  In 1994 you founded your college and called it New

St. Andrews.

Is New St. Andrews a neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist

college?  Yes or No?

NO! THAT WOULD BE BAD AND EVIL.

DO YOU WANT ME TO SIGN ANYTHING?

[Gier: A visiting Calvinst minister has reported that

Wilson displayed a Confederate flag in his NSA office. And in an article

in the Spokesman Review, Wilson finally admitted that Robert E. Lee's

portrait and the Confederate flag were displayed and school and church

functions.  In fact, one church member told me that the Confederate

flag hung right behind Wilson as he preached on Sundays.]

Note: my information on the League of the South comes principally from

Edward H. Sebesta and Euan Hague, "The US Civil War as a Theological War:

Confederate Christian Nationalism and the League of the South," Canadian

Review of American Studies 32:3 (2002), pp. 253-284.  See PDF file at http://gis.depaul.edu/ehague/Articles/PUBLISHED%20CRAS%20ARTICLE.pdf