SIXTEEN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY AND WILSONIAN CHRISTIANITY

By Dr. Nick Gier

(Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Idaho )

In a recent post (May, 2005) on the Moscow, Idaho list-serve "Vision 2020," a participant could not find any differences between conservative evangelical Christians (CECs) and Doug Wilson, so he wonders why we single out Wilson and not the others.  In response I have listed 16 ways that they differ.

Without having the courtesy to tell me, Wilson did respond on May, 30 on his own blog.  I have now added his response and my rejoinders on July 25.  Next time, Doug, please do the right thing and send me a carbon copy.  I had to autoerotically google myself in order to find your response.  Come to think of it, blogging without telling your personal targets is a rather blatant form of autoeroticism.

Note: I draw the following from my evangelical friends and acquaintances as well as my in depth study of them in my book God, Reason, and the Evangelicals.  In the early 1980s when I started my research for this book, I had a rather monolithic view of CECs, but I was pleasantly surprised at their great diversity.  The freedom from denominational ties has liberated some of these thinkers from traditional Christian doctrine, particularly in the area of divine power and divine foreknowledge.  I also discovered that a strong minority of them have rejected "detailed inerrancy," a view that leads Wilson to a form of ethical relativism that holds that slavery is OK if the slaves have Christian masters, and that any act is right as long as Wilson 's God commands you to do it. See #5 for details.

Another Note:  In his eagerness to defend himself, alert readers will notice that Wilson does not answer the main point of my exercise: to wit, to show that he differs from most CEC thinkers.  By defending his own views, he reconfirms my original thesis.

Yet Another Note: Wilson suggests that I am out to settle a "personal score."  This is news to me.  One of my jobs, and it will continue until I die, is to protect the Academy from its detractors and its fraudulent imitators.  That is a professional, not a personal, duty.  I find Wilson to be a very charming person, and I enjoyed him very much as one of my students.  It is just a great shame that he has not used his philosophy degree very responsibly.  For more on my personal history with Wilson click here.

1.  No CEC minister I know has declared that he heads up a “New Reformation.”  Read for yourself the arrogant and self-aggrandizing statements at http://www.credenda.org/issues/15-4presbyterion.php or read Wilson 's Reformed is Not Enough (Canon Press, 2002).

DW: Turns out, neither have I. I don't think that I head up a New Reformation. But I do think that we can all learn from and apply in the microcosm what great Reformers have done with ages and continents. Learning and applying at your own level is what every Christian is called to do. And as it happens, my level is a small university town in northern Idaho .