Two retractions

1) I am always eager to read about the 1950s Hebrides revival for various reasons, including 1) I once knew a man who visited the area at the time and talked engagingly about it and 2) I'm hungry for God - aren't you?

In the past I've recommended Duncan Campbell's autobiographical account of the Hebrides revival. At the start of this year, I mentioned that I was reading Island Aflame by Tom Lennie, a new and edifying historical account of those events. I recommend that you read both, and you will gain a lot from the experience. But if you do, you will be forced to conclude that whilst being used of God in an astonishing way, with the evidence indicating that true revival did go where he personally went, again and again (even to other countries) - and would that God would use any of us even just 1% of how he used him - yet Duncan Campbell did have an unmortified personal problem with fabricating events which simply never happened. A full account of the revival was needed to put the record straight on that.

2) I have also occasionally linked on this blog to edifying and/or incisive pieces written by Douglas Wilson, of Moscow, Idaho (as well as writing some criticisms). As is well known amongst those theologically interested, over the years he has produced a number of good writings on family, education and (with rather more reservations) culture particularly.

However, he also has, and for long has had various unmortified issues (but in more recent years they seem to have moved more to the fore and become significantly more dominant in his output), such as (a sample list, not intended to be comprehensive) 1) an unmortified zest for unnecessary controversy 2) deploying controversy as a recruitment and marketing tool 3) neglecting to engage responsibly and adequately with critics, preferring to brush them off with responses far beneath the level of someone of his education, ability and understanding (and this not just for unworthy challenges, but at all sorts of levels) 4) (related) frequent fundamental unseriousness in his writing style which is not (as his defenders claim) mere misunderstanding of his sense of humour and playfulness, but crosses the line into a regular ongoing refusal to switch out of his default mode and deal with serious issues in a way that respects their importance and which respects the readers 5) straying far outside of his areas of competence and embarrassing himself and the church (such as his recent attempts to argue that overall voter numbers constitute a statistical proof that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged - if you want to suppose it was, please distinguish this from his statistically hopeless arguments for it; I may or may not explain the specifics of this one day) 6) A line increasingly implied of "them and us", "only we are faithful, you have to be with us to be faithful", "unless you're talking about what we're talking about, and doing it in the same way, then you lack discernment" 7) a catalogue of serious and consequential doctrinal errors, of which his particular brand of Christian Reconstructionism is one which is particularly serious and influential, resulting in prodigious amounts of empty and prideful talk and time-wasting across the Internet, instead of the godly edification and challenge which leads to serving the needy and lost. His "objectivity of the covenant" doctrine is also both largely novel and has serious consequences. This list could be considerably expanded.

The sorts of controversies and issues that constantly arise around Douglas Wilson would lead most men to ask "how exactly did we get into the situation where we keep needing to talk about this, and refute this and that crazy thing?". Unfortunately Wilson does not seem to understand that if you regularly attract the wrong company and those who thought they were following you make predictable classes of ruinous errors, you can't always blame this on people failing to understand the full breadth of your vision or pay enough attention to another pile of your writings. At some point, a wise person has to ask why certain classes of problems keep happening and ask, is all the blame on the other side because those people have failed to understand my full vision?

I would very much regret pushing anyone towards the influence of Douglas Wilson and his brand of thinking and acting on the Internet. I condemn nobody who has benefited from any of his efforts or resources, as indeed have I (though even at the beginning of encountering them, 25 years ago, I found the undertone which I thought I detected that nobody else quite knew how to be faithful today in all the world as well as his circle did, hard to stomach).

In many things we offend all, and the number of my own failings and omissions (too many to enumerate) rises up to the heavens. We repent, and Jesus Christ will keep his promise and pardon us, and wash us through his blood. Douglas Wilson makes it clear that this is his faith too, and this is what he preaches when he sticks to the Bible. But, I think that for honesty and clarity it has to be said: of Douglas Wilson's writings the good parts, you can get elsewhere (despite the impression you might sometimes get from him and those around him); and the other parts, could lead you far astray from a productive life of service and into many lost years of useless and empty chatter. "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good".