{"id":6288,"date":"2009-04-19T23:37:04","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T23:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/christianity-today-profiles-do.html"},"modified":"2009-04-19T23:37:04","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T23:37:04","slug":"christianity-today-profiles-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/christianity-today-profiles-do.html","title":{"rendered":"Christianity Today profiles Doug Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making the case that he might be the next Evangelical spokesman<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Who is this self-appointed defender of the faith? Until last year, those who had heard of Doug Wilson most likely knew him in his other roles: pastor provocateur in a liberal university town; polarizing leader in the classical Christian education movement; nonconforming Calvinist who has made so many enemies in Reformed circles that no denomination will have him. These people would be surprised at–and skeptical of–the new, “mainstream” Wilson who purports to debate atheists on behalf of all Christians. “Given my temperament, my conservatism, the radicalism of some of my views … sectarianism is going to be my temptation, not bonhomie ecumenicity,” Wilson says. He seems an unlikely spokesman for the average American evangelical. Yet in a strange way, his career has prepared him to be just that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article goes on to demonstrate why Wilson can’t be the spokesman for mainstream Evangelicalism or even mainstream Presbyterianism or Calvinism. He is a theonomist which is a very tiny subset of Calvinism and his views on slavery put him outside the norm of Christianity:<\/p>\n

His local opponents will not soon forget the fall of 2003, when a pamphlet that Wilson co-wrote years earlier came to their attention. The aim of Southern Slavery: As It Was, authored with Louisiana pastor Steve Wilkins, was to compel Christians to acknowledge God’s sanction of slavery as it is biblically portrayed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry but this is just nuts. What happened during the time of slavery in America was human depravity, not God sanctioned slavery. But I have to admit that I find him quite brilliant otherwise. His use of the Elijah analogy in the article was really pretty good:<\/p>\n

Wilson is the first to acknowledge that his views are not those of the evangelical mainstream–and that is fine by him. No true prophet, after all, can afford too much mainstream appeal, and Wilson has gone out of his way to alienate people. “I knew that if something started in Moscow–a movement of the Holy Spirit–it would be about three weeks before the suits and haircuts arrived, shrink-wrapped the whole thing, and took it on the road, because that’s what evangelicals do,” he says. “I decided that if fire fell on Moscow, as upon Elijah’s altar, I wanted it to fall on an altar doused with water. I made a point of adopting certain unmarketable positions. I’m a televangelist with a blacked-out tooth–so if something happens, it’s God’s work.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And we need as many people as possible to take on Hitchens \ud83d\ude42
\nBut if we need a spokesman for the defense of the faith, no one comes close to Tim Keller’s Reason for God<\/a>. It’s one of the best that I’ve seen so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making the case that he might be the next Evangelical spokesman: Who is this self-appointed defender of the faith? Until last year, those who had heard of Doug Wilson most likely knew him in his other roles: pastor provocateur in a liberal university town; polarizing leader in the classical Christian education movement; nonconforming Calvinist who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406,8,402],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-christianity","category-religion-2"],"yoast_head":"\nChristianity Today profiles Doug Wilson - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/christianity-today-profiles-do.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christianity Today profiles Doug Wilson - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Making the case that he might be the next Evangelical spokesman: Who is this self-appointed defender of the faith? 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