REPLY TO PASTOR DOUG WILSON

   An article we published on Tuesday about the radicalization of young men by pseudo-Christian cults led blogger Insanity Bytes to draft an open letter to Pastor Doug Wilson. The link to her post is here. Wilson is frequently quoted by these Red Pill/Manosphere writers whom---as we've mentioned before---is really more like a cult: hostile to both Christianity and Conservatism.

    Pastor Wilson himself is head of a Reformed Church congregation in Moscow, Idaho. Some of things he's written on race-relations and some of his revisionist history regarding the US Civil War are controversial to say the least. But those things aside, he wrote a reply to Insanity Bytes, and by extension this blog: the text of which is here.

   The general tenor of his response is that, while he agrees that Dylann Roof deserves execution for his crimes; he feels that extremist rhetoric has little do with the root causes of such crimes---and is not relevant anyway. This in spite of his claims further on in the article that extremist Liberal rhetoric is the root cause of Far Right extremism. He claims, for example, that Liberal abuse of terms like 'racism' actually encourages non-Liberals to be racists; and that---in cases like Roof's which lead to murder--- only the deed and not the motivation should be considered.

    The question that I would pose to you, sir is: Would you make this type of argument if we were discussing Islamic, as opposed to Christian, radicals? Would you seriously argue that young men are radicalized into Wahhabi and Salafist Jihadist cults because the Western media depicts 'all Moslems as terrorists'? And that the Madrassas and ISIS propaganda don't radicalize anybody?

     This is what Pope Francis meant when he stated recently that the tongue was a greater weapon than guns or bombs. To draw an analogy: if you give a farmer in Idaho a gun and explosives, he'll probably use one to hunt for game and the other to clear stumps, or boulders from his property. Convince him that the Black family down the road is biologically primed to rape and murder his wife and daughter; that sinister Jews are encouraging them to do so; that women are irresistibly attracted to such men; and that it his Christian duty to defend them---in that case, the peaceful farmer may find a more deadly employment for such implements.

     You may argue that, according to the Letter of the Law, that the one who convinced of these falsehoods is not legally liable; but as Pope Francis said, the moral and spiritual liability is self-evident. It may be so that Judas was responsible for betraying Jesus; but the Pharisees who offered the reward and the Devil who tempted Judas are not innocent. One cannot simply wash his hands, and assume like Pontius Pilate did, and say "The blood be on your hands."

     This is precisely what these Red Pill/Manosphere bloggers are doing---and using Christianity as a cover. They openly advocate violence against women, the overthrow of democracy, and sow dissension between races and even among Christian denominations. Then when someone acts on their teachings, they disclaim any responsibility for it.

     The issue is not, as you do, to shift the responsibility onto Liberals and claim "I don't blame movement Conservatives for it." I will blame them. For decades now, mainstream Conservatives have sat passively on the sidelines and not put a decided stop to any of this. The resurgence of the Far Right is not a spontaneous phenomenon that's risen in righteous indignation against Liberal excesses---it's the gradual culmination of Conservatives refusing to stand against it: first with Talk Radio; then with outlets like Fox News; then with the Internet.

      Don't imagine that ignoring it is going to make it go away. The Red Pills argue that most Christian denominations are false and that most Conservatives are compromised. They are not our allies. Please understand that they are just as much the polar opposite of our position as the Radical Left is.