“A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood; A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to evil; A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.” Proverbs 6:17–19

Background
For the last seventeen years Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, has not enjoyed a particularly good reputation on the Palouse. It started in 1999 with some community hijinks, and by 2006 a series of public scandals had taken their toll on Mr. Wilson’s standing in the community.¹ Believers and non-believers distrusted him and few hid their beliefs. But his did not bother Mr. Wilson. He still prosecuted his agenda of taking over Moscow & Pullman,² much to the consternation of his neighbors.

Keely Emerine-Mix
Keely Emerine-Mix is a Christian; she knows Scripture very well; and she is an outspoken feminist who describes herself as a “rad fem.” Keely did not appreciate the damage Doug Wilson and his scandals had done to the gospel in Moscow, so she challenged him to debate her on the radio, with a moderator and with listeners calling in questions. Mr. Wilson agreed and on July 12, 2006, the two engaged in a lively discussion. Keely Emerine-Mix destroyed Doug Wilson.

Bill London
Bill London was a long-time resident of Moscow; a writer by trade; and a local progressive activist. Bill was one of the first persons in town, if not the first, to identify Doug Wilson as a political animal whose ambition extended beyond the pulpit, and I knew Bill well enough to say that after the slavery scandal of 2003–04, he understood Doug Wilson’s gospel didn’t always include “peace on earth and good will toward man” (Luke 2:14). Bill London called into the radio debate between Keely and Doug Wilson to inquire about imprecatory prayer.

The following audio recording is the six-minute question & answer between Bill London, Keely Emerine-Mix, and Doug Wilson, on the subject of imprecatory prayer, from that radio show. I have included a transcript, for the record.

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July 12, 2006, KRFP-FM Radio

 

 

Moderator: Welcome to KFRP.

Bill London: Thank you. I have a question for Doug Wilson, umm, it’s regarding a practice, and I’m not certain I’m pronouncing it correctly — something called “imprecatory prayer.” I’m not very familiar with it, but I understand it’s the practice of asking, umm, asking God to attack your enemies by name, using individual names and saying, “God, I want you to strike this person down,” or whatever. Okay, with that in mind, I was wondering if you ever suggest or require your parishioners to use that tactic — that imprecatory-prayer tactic.

Moderator: Doug?

Douglas Wilson: Umm, yes, umm, he pronounced it correctly, it is imprecatory prayer. The practice is taken from the Book of Psalms, which the New Testament requires us to sing — all Christians are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; and the psalms that Paul was talking about in Ephesians and Colossians were from the Book of Psalms, and if you read through the Book of Psalms you will, umm, you will see a number of prayers and psalms and songs that King David wrote that were directed — that were appealing to God to deal with his enemies. And so, umm, the answer is “Yes, imprecatory prayer is part of a Christian’s devotional life.” But there’s an important qualification: This is, and this is what we teach and practice. We do teach our people that they should be praying scripturally and that includes an element of imprecation, but when you’re at — when you’re praying an imprecatory prayer, what you’re doing is you’re asking God to destroy your enemies, but one of the ways to destroy your enemies is by transforming them into friends. So, when someone’s hostile to you; when they’re attacking you; when they’re lying about you, and you pray to God, “God, would you please deal with this person, would you take — would you remove my enemy.” The first way that God could remove an enemy and the way that we ask for him to remove the enemy is to transform him into a friend — to bring him, ahh, to the point where we can be reconciled.

Moderator: And, Keely, did you have anything. . . .

Keely: Yeah, I’d like to take my minute to respond — umm, one of the things I mentioned that was upsetting to me about Christ Church is evasion and I think we’ve just seen two examples of it. First of all in Doug’s treatise on fatalism and its relationship to Calvinism, umm, he skips over the fact that I was very clearly talking about salvation and the effect of the gospel on unbelieving people. Second of all, imprecatory prayer is something that we see in the Psalms — it is not part of my daily prayer life. I think it’s evasive, it’s perhaps even dishonest, to suggest that the reason that we pray imprecatory prayers is in the hope that God will transform our enemies into our friends. I think that’s a nice try. I would point out that the author of the Psalms, King David, was denied the building of the temple because of his violent and contentious nature, probably represented pretty well I would think by a body of work called the Psalms, many of which included imprecatory prayers. I don’t believe that to be the case; I believe instead that we are to love our enemies — we are to love them through our prayers — and we are not counsel people to pray for harm and violence and despair and tragedy to come upon our purported enemies, and then in public decide that it’s a neat thing to say that “It’s because we would like them to become our friends.” I think that’s disingenuous.

Moderator: Okay, Bill, are you still with us?

Bill London: I am.

Moderator: Okay, does that answer your question, Bill?

Bill London: Well, I don’t believe it does. I wanted to follow up by asking Doug, this, the specific wording he uses, is it, “God, please transform their hearts,” or is it something else, like, “If he doesn’t respond go ahead and slay him”? I mean, what exactly are you requesting in your prayers?

Douglas Wilson: What, what we are not doing is a Christian equivalent of a voodoo doll, where you get a little object of your enemy and stick, ummm, the pins in it and say, “God deal, you know.” Well, actually a voodoo doll is where you’re just doing it yourself by an omen. An imprecatory prayer — not omen, a spell — but an imprecatory prayer is when you commit the whole thing to God who knows all things, and because he knows all things you can commit it to him and the, and the pattern that we follow and the pattern that we teach is this: King David, that Keely just referred to, in the Psalms, part of his imprecatory pattern was “Bring them shame of face, so that they might seek your name.” So, the, what we’re simply trying to do is that. Whether Keely might say it’s disingenuous to say that we’re doing that, but I can’t say anything else because that is what we’re doing. When we pray that way, we make a point of beseeching God to transform our enemies into our friends. That’s what we’re doin’.

Bill London: And do you say, “I want you to” — you’re asking God to cause this person to have a car accident, break his leg, lose his wealth, or all the other horrible things that happened to Job? — are you specifically making those kinds of requests?

Douglas Wilson: No.

Bill London: You’re not?

Douglas Wilson: No.

Bill London: Keely, do you think this is a — this kind of statement is accurate, and if so. . . .

Douglas Wilson: [Giggles]

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On November 24, 2006, four months after this exchange on the radio, Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, published a “sample” imprecatory prayer on Blog & Mablog. And in his introduction to the prayer, Mr. Wilson admitted, “Over the last few years, the fact that we have prayed this way has been seized on by some of our adversaries as proof-positive that we obviously are crazed fundamentalists” (emphasis added). Imprecatory prayer was a staple of Kirk culture for years.

Nine months after the radio debate, Bill London recalled his question & answer with Mr. Wilson, writing this on the community bulletin board:

Keely, of course, says it all better than I. . . . however, I do have one comment on this issue of imprecatory prayer.
When Keely was debating Doug Wilson recently on KRFP, I called and asked specifically about Doug’s use of imprecatory prayer. He denied that he ever prayed that people would suffer, as Job had suffered.
His denial is very different from the more recent statements on his website quoted here earlier. . . .
I wonder which time he was telling the truth . . . BL

This kind of public deceit is one reason why Doug Wilson’s reputation on the Palouse has suffered over the years. He earned it.

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¹ One objective of this website is to document each of Mr. Wilson’s controversies in detail, to warn people who may be thinking about moving to Moscow and to give historians a head start.
² “In the 60s, my father wrote a small but enormously influential book called The Principles of War. In it, he applied the principles of physical warfare to what he called strategic evangelism. This idea of warfare is necessary in order to understand a central part of what is happening here, and by this I mean the concept of the decisive point. A decisive point is one which is simultaneously strategic and feasible. Strategic means that it would be a significant loss to the enemy if taken. Feasible means that it is possible to take. New York City is strategic but not feasible. Bovill is feasible but not strategic. But small towns with major universities (Moscow and Pullman, say) are both.” (“The State of the Church 2003”)