The Write Place

Kevin DeYoung details quite well some real concerns I share about Doug Wilson (read it here). If I could put it simply, maybe Doug Wilson would do well to be a social commentor, polemicist, apologist and do some theology. DeYoung’s response also makes the same mistake that makes Wilson so popular.

To DeYoung’s credit he is right in noticing Wilson takes a lot of time discussing issues other than theology, on his blogs. DeYoung has some serious valid criticisms about Wilson’s theology. Still counter to DeYoung’s accusation, Wilson has published many books on theology, and made many affirmations of Orthodoxy.

While Wilson has affirmed double imputation, he made recent remarks that don’t. Jared Longshore did an explanation in defense of Wilson’s remarks about a month ago in favor of a union with Christ prior to regeneration (a big no, here Doug Wilson, Phil Johnson, and the Regeneration Ruckus). Wilson has shown his Orthodoxy at times remains porous, why Wilson’s theology is remains unclear.

The main thrust of DeYoung’s argument is essentially, the product of “the Moscow mood” is what Wilson sells. He takes serious issue with his perception of how Wilson is being marketed and self-promoting. The biggest issue he has that carries weight is Wilson’s use of inflammatory and inappropriate language.

For example
-His own denomination (referring to Wilson) has criticized his unnecessarily provocative language, including the use of phrases like “small breasted biddies” and “lumberjack dykes.” At other times he’s used (without the asterisks I’ve inserted) words like d*ck, c*ck, c*nt, a**, b**bs (also here, here, here, and here), t*ts, b*tch (also here and here), gaytards, fa**ot, fudgepackers [for male sex], and circle jerks [a term I had to look up, but I wish I hadn’t]. To my knowledge, Wilson has not expressed regret or repentance for this language; to the contrary, he has often defended its use.”

That said, the bible often uses rough language to describe apostasy and heresy. The Galatians are told to “emasculate themselves” (a reductio ad absurdum against their argument for circumcision, making it in bounds satire) and Israel’s whoring is described in vivid terms (here if you will). Wilson goes overboard, though Evangelicalism is victim of thinking nicety is the paragon of virtue when shock can have a place. This punchback in an atmosphere that is often apologetic, weak and attempts to give ground is further appealing.

The question to Wilson though, is how is his language not merely coarse jesting, and how is edifying? (Ephesians 5:3-4). How is it Godly to degrade the bodies of image bearers in his words about them?

DeYoung accuses Wilson of aggressively antagonizing fellow Christians he agrees with, but then cites the ERLC which is thoroughly compromised. The ERLC till May 2021 was led by Russel Moore and was pushing woke and leftist material (they had published an animal rights video, and you can see their racial material here All Resource Topics). When he left, he claimed numerous things arguably to cover for the opposition from conservatives. The ERLC does, in fact deserve much scrutiny and have undergone much in the SBC.

Wilson is also quite friendly to working with other Christians. He is closely working with Coprolitic (which is closely affiliated and had it’s Fight Laugh Feast Conference at Answer’s in Genesis’ Ark Encounter), Alpha and Omega Ministries, Apologia Church, The Ezra Institute and has hosted and worked with numerous others. Wilson’s primary sin it appears, is that is he is not on board with the failing institutions of Big Evangelicalism. Wilson does use heavy sarcasm and satire which does not sit well with everyone (nor is it always appropriate or the most effective) but he has proven himself very willing and able to work with others.

One telling line is how DeYoung cites a line from a No Quarter November video about how “We are just normal people” in a flammable world. DeYoung misses the point of Wilson that being normal is incendiary today. Saying things that are obviously true and should not be controversial are exactly that today. Big Evangelicalism shies away from the truth for this exact reality, the refusal to participate is what has made Wilson both a pariah and so popular.

Wilson’s refusal to participate in the nicety and winsome culture also contributes to the seeming self-promotion atmosphere. He has spun off many other individuals and institutions, so the accusation is actually simplistic. Without room for Wilson in the existing institutions Wilson had to do the promoting for himself. Wilson however, though he possesses real issues, is a reaction to serious failures in Evangelicalism to bare teeth at dangerous threats to the church.

This greatest failure on the part of Evangelicalism to actually teach about issues that Wilson talks about, is what makes Wilson so popular. Evangelicalism has little to no interest in forming a real Christian mind that makes a difference in the world. The church today is obsessed with talking about dealing with internally focused, essentially self-help issues. Anxiety? The church will tell you about it. How to be a nice or better Christian morally in your personal life? How to justify staying in compromised institutions and not influence their policy or drift? The church teaches that.

How to be a good Christian teacher, vote like a Christian, define what justice is, what it means to be human, what a government is, how to help the poor, think like a Christian as if Christ is king everywhere? The Church has lost that very idea. There is no concept of externalized Christianity when it comes to leavening the world in consequential ways, so we are losing Christendom. What does a just society as Christians look like? What does Christian government look like? In short evangelicalism has a serious disdain for making a Christian culture, and so fails to really disciple.

There is little concern for being a city on a hill as a community Matthew 5:14-16, just in personal piety. It can be little wonder then the Church has been losing ground (Zephaniah 1:13) and not taking it (Joshua 24:13). We are losing Christendom because we have been deceived into thinking there is no king.

DeYoung’s seeming apathy to Christendom misses that Christendom is what we are commanded to fight for, and his apathy is derived from this pietistic mistake. We don’t think of Christ as more than my lord and savior, when he is the LORD and SAVIOR right now. Christendom survived the fall in Augustine’s day, and he did not believe in it’s decline. In the city of God Augustine did not deny Christendom, simply that Rome was to be equated with it. When Paul spoke to the Hebrew’s about the Kingdom not being of this earth (Hebrews 12:18-29), he was speaking to them in a moment in time. The Hebrews were obsessed with a physical kingdom centered on their ethnicity and culture. This was so ingrained that the Disciples at the resurrection still asked about the coming of the Israelite kingdom (Acts 1:6).

Paul points them to what Daniel calls the kingdom cut without hands (Daniel 2:31-35, 44-45, 7:13-14), the kingdom of the one given all rule and authority, of the king of all the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:4-6). The kingdom exists now (1 Corinthians 15:23-25) and it is worth fighting for. The fact that we have abandoned this teaching (and DeYoung does not at least affirm) is why we are losing the Christendom we have enjoyed. The Great commissions is a command to spread Christendom and leaven the whole world (Matthew 28:19-20), spreading the physical manifestation of Christ’s rule, which is real at this very moment (Revelation 11:15-16).

We have been so busy navel gazing with a defeatist, rescue oriented eschatology, that we have failed the king. We are not simply being saved out of the world, but we are part of God’s redeeming of the world. It is worth noting, the idea is that Christ is king is what got Christian’s killed and continues to do so today. DeYoung makes the ignorant charge that this is worldly, quite the contrary, this is Christian.

Would he ever criticize the ERLC or Tim Keller? I honestly don’t know.

DeYoung does some excellent work, and I do not wish to be too harsh on him, but I must be honest. Perhaps he agrees with me more than I realize. The fact of the matter still is that something serious is missing in his response, and it appears that he is missing the real need that Doug Wilson is latching onto. There is much he fails to understand, and he remains in the error of the old institutions that he reflects.

The American church is too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. The American church acts as if the kingdom of God merely ethereal, with little to no actual influence on the world. It acts as if Christ has no kingdom and no victory today, and the faith is ultimately no earthly good. Wilson is attempting to be of earthly good because he recognizes we have a king who reigns and fights (1 Corinthians 15:20-25), which explains his appeal. Not only is Wilson being biblical in this regard, but that is also appealing to men, such men are appealing to women, and his movement will continue to grow if their opposition remains anemic and defeatist.

Whereas the traditional institutions in our American context are too concerned with approval from the unbelieving world as the mark of success (and the strategy of winsomeness), Wilson recognizes the existing conflict and is ready to fight it.

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”
― John Calvin

May I suggest Wilson gets this key issue that institutions like TGC refuse to, and the latter’s mistake is ultimately what is costing us the culture war that has been foisted upon us. The Evangelicalism that makes Wilson so appealing simply does not care for what Calvin faithfully exposits above, wanting one soothing voice for the sheep and the goats (and the wolves) and calling it winsome as if that will win some without being confrontational. The approval of the culture in rebellion is not a measure of success, it is a measure of failure. If they don’t understand that, their institutions will continue to fail as they are showing they always have more will flock to Wilson, and they will continue to be their own institutional executioners.