4 comments

1. “Women are the kind of people that people come out of.”

   Why, SUCH deep theo/bio-logical eloquence! Doubtless this reminds many of Mark Driscoll’s equally-profound statement that women serve as homes for penises…!

   Years ago when we lived in Montreal, my husband’s German colleagues chided me in stern Teutonic tones for “not giving my husband children”. What he didn’t need to know is that when I was a child, my father had a nasty habit of striking me on the head instead of my butt, etc… often for deeds never done or words spoken. A few years later I had a long period of grand mal seizures, which neurologists attributed to those blows. Hence years of anticonvulsant drugs to stay those seizures = no way did I wish to bear children with such an ongoing pharma stream. Moreover, I was understandably concerned that I might have the same violent seeds… Thus we opted not to have children.

   But all of us does NOT prevent me from being one of God’s children; there is no glaring, eternal grade of “F” in His eyes for remaining childless.

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2. Mary, I don’t want to get into the core issue of what Doug Wilson did or did not say, or what he may have meant or didn’t mean, or whether he was misrepresented. Those are all important issues.

   But underlying all of them is that Wilson’s speaking and writing style is that of a provocateur, as several say in the comments. I say that not as an insult but to be descriptive, and Wilson may well agree. The term exists because in political (and ecclesiastical) debate, whether in person or in print, people have for centuries — perhaps for thousands of years, if we include the Greeks and Romans — advocated blunt positions to “provoke” a response. That’s what a provocateur is, literally.

   That’s not typically the way we have conducted ourselves for the last century in conservative Reformed circles. We usually have done detailed (VERY detailed) study and exegesis and historical analysis, and have written long articles in theological journals and shorter articles in Christian magazines intended for a wider audience of laypeople outside the academy and the pastorate.

   Of course there were exceptions. Rev. Carl McIntire was a master at using the then-new medium of radio and of print media to be a “fighting fundamentalist” in creating the Bible Presbyterian Church. But his movement in Northern Presbyterianism fell apart largely due to his inability to get along with pretty much anyone. Later, the Southern Presbyterian secession that formed the PCA was largely led by people with deep roots in Southern academic circles, and generations of leadership in Presbyterian families, in an era when being Presbyterian in the South was often a marker of social class and education as much as of doctrine. “Rabble rousing” was an accusation made against Southern Baptist conservatives, but not generally against Southern Presbyterian conservatives, and there is a reason for that.

   Today, the internet has abolished the gatekeepers of magazine editors who would “cool down hot words written by hot men with hot tempers.” We also have a model of governmental leadership at the national level in which angry rhetoric is rewarded, not punished. Things have been moving in that direction for decades, long before our current generation of leaders. We are a very long way from Ronald Reagan’s grandfatherly approach as the “Great Communicator,” which was itself a deliberate reaction against the perception that Goldwater-style conservatives were extremists.

   While I’m sure Doug Wilson would detest the comparison, his debating approach has more in common with the radical rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than might initially appear. Obviously the content is completely different, but the radical methods are not.

   Bernie Sanders wants to radically transform society, as does Doug Wilson, though the end goals are not at all the same.

   Likewise, AOC uses blunt speech and easily digestible short talking points to advocate her agenda in ways that will be understood by people who don’t study and think deeply.

   Unlike AOC, and to his credit, Doug Wilson does do detail. A lot of it. That’s not my point.

   My point is that while he’s not YRR (Young, Restless, Reformed), Wilson’s debating and writing style is very much like them and like that of AOC. Wilson, like the YRR and like AOC, is trying to reach a younger generation of people who were taught to think in sound bites and brief articles, not book-length discussions. Wilson, the YRR, and AOC are all succeeding, and success leads not only to followers but also to leaders who emulate the method. Uncertain trumpets do not rally troops, but clear trumpets do, even if, as with AOC, the troops are rallied to a bad cause.

   We’re likely to see a lot more people like Wilson in conservative Reformed circles who know how to “play to the audience” and persuade people who are new to the Reformed faith and don’t have decades of experience debating Reformed doctrine.

   Methods are not neutral, and abandoning detailed analysis will have an effect on the next generation of Reformed laypeople and leaders.

   Again, Doug Wilson knows that and also produces book-length works to defend and explain his ideas, leading to an accusation that he’s using a motte-and-bailey approach, i.e., advocating radical positions and then, when he attracts lots of attention, withdrawing to a better-defended position than his initial provocative statement.

   I’m not sure the people who follow either Doug Wilson or the YRRs understand that provocative statements, without a strong foundation in facts, lead to major problems.

   Put bluntly, that’s why we have confessions, and commentaries on the confessions, to keep our theological discussions within a confessional framework and avoid running off the rails into things our Reformed forefathers correctly regarded as wrong. Conservatives understand, or at least ought to understand, that good theology will stand the test of time and we ought to pay serious attention to the battles fought by previous generations to avoid repeating their mistakes.

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3. This was excellent. I have a question concerning Genesis 1 and 2 – what’s to be made of the command given to Adam to work and keep the garden? Was Eve to do the same as a co-labourer, or was there a more exclusive task given to Adam specifically and only given to Eve as well by extension as a helper?
   I have recently come across the argument that the verbs in use are the same as what is in use when the Mosaic priesthood was instituted with respect to temple service.

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4. Thank you for sharing her article, Dr. Clark! Mary, thank you so much for writing this. It is a balm to my soul. Grateful that women are whole people who are “heirs to an incredible promise . . . co-laborers with our brothers in Christ . . . adopted children beloved by our Father.” In God’s providence, some women are not able to bear any or many babies, so the implications of that if the above statement were not true would be crushing. What a beautiful thing to be made in the image of God and be so loved in Christ.

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