“The folly of fools is deceit.” Proverbs 14:8
On April Fool’s Day, 1999, Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, and other Kirk officers executed a remarkable act of fraud to fool the entire Palouse into thinking that the University of Idaho was hosting a series of lectures delivered by topless feminist scholars on the subject of women’s breasts. Doug Wilson documented this historic event in Credenda Agenda:
Rattle and Hum
Douglas Wilson
By the time you receive this, our local police will probably have forgotten all about it, so a little bragging is now safe, and perhaps it is even in order. But first some background. Our local city council, through a series of ridiculous circumstances, decided to quit restricting female toplessness. The noble senior editor of this journal, encouraged by some winks and nudges from me, not that he needed any, made up a flyer which announced a topless and proud lecture series by topless feminist scholars. The titles of the talks were the typical postmodern hoohah — “Topless Shadows: A Personal Narrative,” “Destabilizing the Topless/Bottomless Duality,” “Breasts as Embodied Intuitions,” you get the drift. Some of our stalwart young Christian men, majoring in Christian culture and skylarking, papered the university with these flyers, and the next morning a bunch of them were faxed all over campus. Now you know that we live in sad days, days when satire is increasingly difficult, and almost impossible. The radio station announced the lectures all day, an instructor out of the women’s center announced the lectures to a class, and the English department (listed on the flyer as sponsor) called the announced location to find out if they were in fact going on.
Well, some authorities at the University of Idaho went sideways, and had the cops out looking for the culprits. When they demanded to see the film from the security cameras at Kinko’s (whence the faxes had been sent), our noble editor contacted the established authorities (Rom. 13), who told him it wasn’t funny. He responded that on the contrary it was, and the next day gave out a press release on how the university was trying to repress the true, the good and the lovely.
Needless to say, lots of people showed up for the non-event, and all this happened on April 1. All in all, it was a bad day for the tight-lipped fundamentalists of the left. (Credenda Agenda, Volume 11 number 3, page 20)
Mr. Wilson’s summary glosses over a few important facts that deserve the reader’s consideration, especially if you plan to send your child to New St. Andrews College:
- Under Doug Wilson’s guidance, a member of Christ Church, Moscow, stole a letterhead from the English Department of the University of Idaho in order to commit the fraud (see police report below, click to enlarge).
- A member of Christ Church, Moscow, wrote a false press release on the UI letterhead (see police report).
- Doug Wilson recruited students from New Saint Andrews College (NSA) to paper the University of Idaho with the false press release. Aaron Rench was one of those students; he now serves as Doug Wilson’s publicist and he is a co-owner of Canon Press. Crime pays, for graduates of New St. Andrews College.
- A Kirk deacon named Virgil Hurt used his office as manager of the local Kinkos to fax the false press release across the Palouse (see Lewiston Morning Tribune below). At the time, Virgil Hurt attended Greyfriars’ Hall where he sat under the tutelage of Douglas Wilson.1 Mr. Hurt now pastors a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
- According to the Lewiston Morning Tribune, someone from the Kirk established an organization called the “Committee for Progressive Rights,” with an actual live telephone, to create an even greater appearance of legitimacy to the fraud.
“Theft occurs when property is transferred from an unwilling ‘donor’ without the express authorization of Scripture.” — Douglas Wilson
Notice how Mr. Wilson cites Romans 13, as though he acted in compliance with it when in fact the entire scheme appears designed to thumb his nose at lawful authority. Also note how Virgil Hurt fudged the truth to the Lewiston Morning Tribune (below), saying, “‘I may have heard some things,’ he said of the flyer.”
This act of fraud required meticulous calculation and a well-coordinated crew — all so Doug Wilson could have a few laughs at the expense of a few unnamed lefties. I am unsure how he squares this with the Golden Rule, though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. I doubt he would laugh if someone stole a letterhead from his office to commit a fraud where he was the butt of the joke.
Here is the front-page story from the Lewiston Morning Tribune on April 2, 1999. Click the image to enlarge (same with the police report):
Topless lecture series? Hmm, check the date
By Erin Walter of the Tribune
MOSCOW — Pranksters took to the fax machine Thursday to promote a bogus topless lecture series, supposedly sponsored by the University of Idaho English department.
“All speakers topless, legal and unashamed,” read the flyer sent Thursday morning to news media and university departments from Kinko’s Copies in Moscow.
Although sent on UI letterhead, and declaring the UI Department of English as the sponsor, English faculty say the notice is a hoax.
“We’re positive it’s a joke,” said Joanne Carr, department vice president for advancement. “We’ve received a number of calls, but most people are taking it in the spirit of today being the first of April.”
The release was faxed around 9 a.m. Thursday, but Kinko’s manager Virgil Hurt would not reveal any information about the sender. According to Hurt, since customers can send their own faxes, store employees do not monitor what is sent.
“I may have heard some things,” he said of the flyer. But as far as it being a joke, all he would say was “if it’s something that seems loopy, then it may be.”
The flyer advertised lectures titled “Breast as Embodied Institutions,” “Constructing a Topless Culture Locally” and “Topless Shadows: A Personal Narrative,” among others, by women speakers from out-of-state universities.
It also listed the Committee for Progressive Rights as a co-sponsor. An answering machine at the supposed group’s phone number responded only “Having phone trouble, will try to get back to you . . . this is Ed, of course.”
Lori Graves, a Moscow activist whose topless walk down Washington Street last summer started a controversy over public exposure, said she had heard nothing of the sans-shirts lecture series.
“I think I would have heard about this, if it was true. I bet it’s an April Fool’s Day joke.”
1 “The ‘Topless and Proud’ joke was not done by an unnamed ministerial candidates with the help of a student at Kinkos. It was done by an unnamed elder with the help of a ministerial candiate [sic] who worked at Kinkos. Like I said, hardly worth mentioning. . . . But these comments of mine are just for the record. . .” (Douglas Wilson, “More Than Usual About CT”)
It’s obvious Dougy was behind the whole thing because again it’s about…BREASTS!
This stunt would have been inappropriate for a drunken twenty year old and it remains pathetic in a man who, at the time, was almost fifty years old. Even less mature is Doug’s boorish self-serving defense in the face of of the “humorless” response of University of Idaho administration and our local police department. While he must have giggled all day long about the stunt, he failed to realize, then or now, the disdain he sowed that day in the eyes of sane members of the community.
“The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.”
Charles Caleb Colton
Rose Huskey
The hypocrisy is astounding. As mentioned, if a similar stunt had been done by a “skylarking” group of anonymous people using an appropriated NSA letterhead, “Pastor” Wilson would have been beside himself (that would be a sight, one would need an extremely wide angle camera to capture the image of two Doug Wilsons) with righteous indignation. It probably would have resulted in the good “Pastor” writing a whiny letter to the Governor complaining of the cruel injustices inflicted upon his Anointed Head, just as he did when two University of Idaho historians dared take issue with the abomination that was “Southern Slavery As It Was”, in which “Pastor” Wilson tells us how good things were among the races in the good old Antebellum South. Fat, self-indulgent, amazingly narcissistic twit.
CNW — You are correct about the hypocrisy of Doug Wilson. Even his own family is aware of it. His father told me one time that Doug “likes to poke other people in the eye,” yet was indignant if someone mocked him. One of his brothers once jokingly referred to the “Credenda Agenda” magazine as the “Dead Enda Agenda.” At the time, I did not agree with his brother about the Credenda — I do now, by the way — but still thought his joke witty and laughed at it. Jim Wilson assured me it would not be funny to Doug. I asked why and he said something like, “Because when someone mocks Doug he thinks they are mocking the things of God.” Yet as we now know, Doug is so thoroughly dishonest, hypocritical, and cruel that no informed and rational Christian could possibly identify Doug with the cause of Christ.
When have the great servants of God wasted their time playing stupid jokes on people and mocking them? Spurgeon hurling water balloons at others? No. John Calvin giving wedgies? Unthinkable. Martyn Lloyd-Jones doing panty raids? Impossible. What is normal for Doug Wilson is unimaginable for any true minister of Christ.
On the other hand, Calvin had people executed. There’s not much to recommend Calvinism beyond brute force and the sheer persuasiveness of terror.
@Dash — We try to keep clear of theological debates such as Calvinism vs. Arminianism, etc., because these are not the primary focus of the site, though evangelical doctrine informs the site from front to back. That said, and speaking personally, I affirm the Reformed gospel, including Calvinism, which does not mean I idolize Calvin (trust me, I do not) but neither do I demonize him. Here is an essay by a church historian that addresses some of the things you mention: “The ‘Calvin as Tyrant’ Meme”
I wonder when someone will purloin some of Doug Wilson’s stationary…
I should probably add that I love breasts, and the female form as a whole. God made the female form to glorify women, and it does.
I also like good jokes. The BBC mockumentary about flying penguins is one of the finest April Fools Day jokes of all time.
But I don’t like hypocrites. If you are willing to play jokes, you have to be willing to have them played on you as well.