Jim Wilson
In the ’80s both sons shared leadership positions in one of Jim’s plants. The church, like Jim, was Arminian. Evan was, and remains, Pelagian. However Doug began flirting with Calvinism and by the late ’80s he threatened to excommunicate Evan for doctrinal reasons. Evan left the church, along with several other families, and planted a new body. Not satisfied, Doug terminated Evan’s employment at Logos School.
Evan dryly refers to these events as “the Great Unpleasantness.” For his part, Doug calls Evan a heretick and freely confesses that Evan will burn in hell.1 Jim Wilson cuts the baby in half. If you attend the Kirk, he’ll tell you that Evan Wilson is the best preacher in town. If you attend All Souls, he’ll tell you that Doug Wilson is the best preacher in town. He’s wrong on both counts.
Doug Wilson’s ruptured relationship with his brother is a microcosm of his relationship with humanity. Agree with him, you’re fine. But if you disagree with him — especially on a public platform — he’ll make it personal. And it’s very likely you’ll burn in hell with his brother, at least to the extent that God Almighty relies on Doug’s counsel.
Jim Wilson calls himself “the Bishop of Moscow,” not because such a position exists or anyone ordained him to it. He declared it, much the same way his son arrogated the office of pastor. In the ’80s, ’90s, and some of the ’00s, the Bishop of Moscow regularly poked his nose into other churches’ business to sniff out sin in the lives of officers’ children (1 Timothy 3:4). On numerous occasions he pronounced various elders around town unfit for office and shamed them into resignation. The irony of his own son persecuting the other because of his Christianity didn’t move Jim.
In 2003, when Doug Wilson scandalized the Palouse with his front-page headline defending race-based chattel slavery in the antebellum South, more than one Christian reminded Jim of his own unfitness for office. Doug’s factious spirit was no longer a family secret; it completely polarized the community. It was Doug Wilson vs. Reality (Reality won). This, however, didn’t move Jim any more than the Great Unpleasantness, which was when people began to realize that Jim Wilson fathered, nursed, and enabled the problem.
In this respect, Jim Wilson is responsible for the disaster at Christ Church. Jim is a sophist who never admits a mistake and cleverly changes the subject if you ask him to give account. He is self-willed, arrogant, and a know it all. Jim Wilson invented the “You’re bitter” card and taught Doug how to play it. He wrote the book on bitterness. Literally. Doug Wilson learned every manipulative, deceitful tactic he knows from his father. Jim Wilson taught Doug to be Doug.
But alas. The good bishop’s years have begun taking their toll. He’s 88-years old and some of his marbles have lost their luster. But Jim’s not too old to know that if he repented and corrected his son for his ungodliness, Doug would wipe him out like he does everybody else. So Jim fades into the sunset, the fruit of his life becoming more evident each day. And he writes about 4 or 5 letters to the editor a year, such as the following correspondence from yesterday’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
Listen to the Bible
For those of you who do not read the whole Bible and think you should have, and still want to but don’t start because the prospect is too daunting, let me make it easy for you.
If you are a very slow reader, you will be able to read the whole Bible in 80 hours. How do I know? You can get the whole Bible read aloud on CDs. You can hear it all in 72 hours with nothing left out.
If you have a cellphone, you may read it in many different versions with a Bible app.
If you have a paper version, here is a painless and profitable way to read the Old Testament and New Testament. Each day read one chapter in four different places, two if they are short chapters. Start with Genesis 1, Ezra 1, Matthew 1 and Acts 1. This will take you no more than 20 minutes. The next day, read chapter two in each of these four books. At the end of one year you will have read all of the Old Testament, the New Testament twice and the Book of Psalms twice.
You will want to read it again.
If the genealogies stop you, skip them, but do not stop.
Jim Wilson
Moscow
Jim, it’s not too late for you to begin listening to the Bible.
1 He underscores this conviction by prohibiting kirkers from fellowshipping with Evan.
If the elder Wilson considered it his business to poke his nose into church affairs to disqualify elders due to their children’s conduct, where was Jim when Atwood and Booth’s sons were dealing drugs, running casinos and worse?
Jim established a pattern of rubberstamping Doug’s agenda and never contradicting it. Doug called Jim to save his bacon when the CEF elders voted to remove him from the ministry. Jim delivered by flipping one vote, which made the difference. Jim heard noise about removing Doug from CCM’s board of directors and he delivered again. He promised a director he would vote to off Doug but when the subject came up, he flipped, leaving that director twisting in the wind. I doubt he heard about Booth. But Jim did nothing about Roy, even after DW blamed the casino on Evan’s corrupt influence in the community, which in addition to being delusional was a textbook case of projection. And where was Jim when Wilson went to bat for the two predators without the Kirk’s consent? If you confronted Jim about it, he’d play the senile card. He’d act old and stupid, like he lost his wits completely rather than answer the question. But he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s every bit as calculating as his son, though not as malicious.
I recently visited All Souls Christian Church in an effort to hear the gospel. I did not hear God’s beautiful story of His grace toward sinners, however there was a poster on the bulletin board called The Gospel. The poster did not live up to it’s name. Any presentation of the gospel must first include the sinner dead in his trespasses and helpless to make any move toward God. God is called “The Hound of Heaven” and always succeeds in saving his people. We become proud people when we think there is some way we can save ourselves, whether it is by “seeking God” or “believing”. God’s gifts are given to us after He has made us alive from the dead.