Prevailing Winds "For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom . . ." 2 Cor. 3:17, TNIV

June 17, 2009

Biblical "One-Flesh" Unity — No Room For Patriarchy Here!

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 3:32 pm

“The man takes the initiative to remove himself from his parents; he goes to his bride and joins her in the marital bond. The man’s freedom of action in moving away and making his own choices does not reflect a family organization dependent on a father-ruler. Under a strictly patriarchal system, the father-ruler would be the one making those decisions; the new couple would be aggregated to the patriarch’s family, and would remain under his authority. The independence enjoyed by the man in marrying and forming a separate “one flesh” entity argues against a patriarchal structure of the family as God’s intent for the pre-fall economy of creation.

Singularly, nothing is said of the bride’s relationship with her own parents. She seems to be a free agent, in command of her own life . . . The woman represents the stable point of reference. It is the man who moves toward her after leaving his parents. He attaches himself to the woman. She is not appended to his life. He is the one who adds his life to hers, and he “cleaves” to her. The process of a man’s separating from his father and cleaving to his bride reflects anything but a patriarch-dominated society . . .

Once the patriarchal pattern of societal organization became institutionalized, it was the bride who moved away from her home. Abraham’s command to his servant illustrates the point. ‘Go . . . and take a wife for my son Isaac.’ The same order might have been given for the acquisition of a piece of property, a horse, a chariot, or a pair of sandals. Such a condition is worlds apart from the creation ideal reflected in Genesis 2:24.”

Bilezikian, “Beyond Sex Roles”

The Wind That Carries Away What Divided Us

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 3:21 pm

“The account of Pentecost places considerable emphasis on the unifying power of the Holy Spirit. Men and women . . . were all gathered together. The hurricane sound surrounded all of them, and all of the were singularly designated as recipients of the Holy Spirit with a living flame. They were all filled with the Spirit . . . This enablement meant not only that the Spirit was giving them new powers to proclaim the gospel in all the world but also and more importantly that the human race was again being united into one body. The scattering and the ethnic and linguistic splintering that had occurred at the tower of Babel were reversed through the ministry of Christ. The divisions . . . that had resulted from the fall were finally overcome in the new community. The oneness of Eden was being recovered.”

Gilbert Bilezikian, “Beyond Sex Roles: What The Bible Says About A Woman’s Place in Church and Family,” Baker Academic, 2006

June 16, 2009

"Illegal Alien " Drunk Driving is Different, I Guess

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 7:40 pm

I am not aware of any factor in the crime (sin) of driving while drunk that relates to one’s immigration status. I am unclear how the tragedy of drunk-driving fatalities is mitigated by the legal immigration status of the offender, nor do I understand how the driver’s undocumented status further contributes to the condition of the victim.

I suspect the answer from some would be, “Well, if they weren’t here, they’d be driving while blitzed in some other country.” True enough, I suppose. But when undocumented people get drunk, drive, and kill someone, the crime is the same, and we all know that drunk driving is a societal problem simply because of its nature — which depends on the impairment of the driver, not the race, immigration status, aptitude at Scrabble, or preference for Shiraz over Merlot. We don’t, for example, decry the horror of blondes driving drunk, or racists driving drunk, or contract Haliburton workers home from Iraq driving drunk. We focus our outrage at the crime committed.

There is nothing about hair color, bigotry, or participation in mercenary capitalism that increases the likelihood of downing a few drinks and driving home — something that, by the way, I suspect many of us have foolishly risked. Our character, then, determines whether we take the risk or not, and I’m at a loss at how the Immigration and Naturalization Service can confer or deny character in this or any other issue.

On the other hand, for those who hate Mexican immigrants, the fact that they even brush their teeth in this country is distasteful. So let’s file the issue of undocumented immigrants and drunk driving under “Drunk,” not “Illegal,” and look for solutions to both issues.

June 14, 2009

A Proper Housewife, I Am

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 4:48 pm

An offline critic has asked if, in maintaining my blog and being a shrill harpy, I’m giving proper attention to my duties as a wife and mother.

But I couldn’t answer right away, as I was at the stove yesterday making a lentil curry with fresh spinach for my vegan son, chicken with fresh cilantro, rice, and beans for my husband, and preparing the stock for the chicken soup I’m serving guests today at 4. I even wore an apron, although I ditched the pearls and pumps.

And I’d go on, except that I’m busy bleaching a load of whites so my husband has fresh workshirts for the week. I suspect I’ll even clean out the cat box after church.

Why do I suspect this won’t make a bit of difference?

Sadly and Regretfully . . .

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 2:51 pm

. . . my premier critic, the winsome Mr. Nass, has decided that my demonstrations of local bigotry and unwise association with and affirmation of white-separatist, white-supremacist groups is worthy of his Roll On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off response. (For those of you not into text shorthand, that’s what ROTFLMAO means).

Now, if Nass and his boys simply think I’m an idiot, that’s fine with me. There are certain people whose approval, never mind admiration, I’m perfectly happy to decline. On the other hand, given his juvenile response to very real instances of Gospel defamation here in Moscow, and his additional offering of truly racist observations of the terrible plight Blacks have foisted onto a victimized white America have me convinced that he has a heart nowhere near tenderness. (He says, also, that I talk about “racism” too much. I’ll try to substitute “un-Godly hate,” if it makes him feel better).

At this point, you ask, “Why would you respond at all to him, Keely?” Some of you would add, “Why, you give every sign of being a reasonably sane person!” But here’s the deal: I don’t give a Dontbian’s Ass about what he thinks of me. I couldn’t care less about my standing in his circle of privileged Anglo-Celtic warriors, who also loathe me. If you’re known by the company you keep, you’re certainly commended by the company who despise you.

But what if there was a Kinist, a Reconstructionist, an unsaved bigot, a neo-Confederate, or just a confused Classical Christian student out there who’s been uncomfortable with the theology they’ve been fed? What if the “gospel” of the old South fits them like a pair of sneakers from three seasons ago? What if someone who doesn’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, Reconciler of the divided and Advocate for the poor and the outcast, reads Prevailing Winds? What if they saw a different Jesus, one in whom no racial, class, social, or gender distinctions prevent full access to and service in the Kingdom? What if all of this made them ditch the Kirk, Kinism, neo-Confederates and uber-patriarchs and join a truly Christ-honoring church?

What if my words led someone, by the grace of God working through me, to read the New Testament and discover this radical Savior for themselves?

My responses to Nass really aren’t for him, and I won’t engage him any more unless his comments provoke something that I think God can use in a sense apart from his smugness and ignorance. I can be smug and arrogant, too; if Nass’ attitude causes me to answer him with correct doctrine and practice but with a less-than-kind demeanor, then I am convicted.

I won’t stop taking on people, especially locally, who degrade the Gospel and sully its witness on the Palouse. I won’t even stop employing my own dainty little Serrated Edge in doing so, if it seems right — and never against those outside the Church. But wrestling with a man who thinks all of this is a hoot, except for the “blacks are bad for America” part, risks becoming a sideshow leading away from the main event — the work of my precious Lord Jesus, and my part in proclaiming it.

Dontbia Nass Speaks Again . . .

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 2:51 am

. . . but you’ll have to read it for yourself in the comments section of the post below this. He makes, in two comments, two points:

The first is that Wilson is disliked because of the offense of the Gospel, not because of his own behavior. Uh, no. Read my point about other Gospel-preaching ministers on the Palouse and the respect they enjoy in their communities.

Second, and far more disturbing, is Nass’ acknowledgment that he has actually benefited from a the inclusion in American society of a few blacks — arch conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Voddie Baucham, and Walter Williams — but that he’s sure, overall, that their presence has been too damned costly for white America. He says whites are more intelligent overall than blacks and other ethnic minorities, asserts that Kinists perform a valuable “contrarian” viewpoint to society, and ends by calling me a racist, because I’m focusing on race.

He also seems to think I want to ban Kinist and other hate sites, when my thoughts on censorship of lunacy couldn’t be more opposite than that. See, I hate what you believe, Nass, and while I theoretically would defend to the death your right to say it, I’m much more interested in what’s actually, not theoretically, going on:

You get called out, you call yourself out. No matter. The blogosphere gets to see what kind of bigots defend the bigotry of Doug Wilson, and those readers can draw conclusions that anyone not an ass, a lackey, or an imbecile could draw.

June 13, 2009

Not From Under A Rock, Part 2

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 7:43 pm

Point 2: Kinism preaches an anti-Biblical, anti-Christ gospel.

Anything that even hints of an acceptance, association, or accommodation of racist “Christianity” should be avoided by the concerned Christian minister. That would include avoiding any possible association with groups that maybe don’t like the overt racism of some, but who hail the antebellum South as a model of racial harmony, progress, and blessedness. It would mean running as fast as your penny loafers can take you from people who exalt Southern white heroes, history, and purported ethnicity WHEN that exaltation is bolstered by “Anglo-Celtic” pride and “Southron” rights and culture that are, by definition, exclusion of ethnic minorities. And it certainly would include preaching, writing, and teaching that black people were better off under slavery than they are now.

So here’s a sample of Kinist belief. Tell me if it looks like neo-Confederate and Rushdoony-ish propaganda gone even more haywire. Better yet, tell me if it looks like Jesus.

From Spirit/Water/Blood, a “Christian” Kinist group, posted yesterday:

“Amen! Our enemies have raised the Black Flag, shouting No Quarter! White people will receive no quarter.

Right Now, in the Forced Union (note: a name that those who lament the South’s loss in the Civil War use for the United States – kem), children under the age of @ 8-9 years of age are non-White, do the progression. Next year 10, then 11, 12, 13, etc. This does not take into account, 30 – 50 million more non-White Invaders (in a very short time) with Obama’s Shamnesty. We can survive 400 years of slavery, but we can not survive Genocide. We face the end, unless the Living God intercedes for us.

Solo Christus,
Sic Semper Tyrannis” (end)

How in the name of all that’s holy does someone sign such a racist screed with “Solo Christus”?

By the way, Kinists believe that slavery was horrible . . . because it brought blacks (“jigaboos” is often substituted) into what was formerly an all-white nation (except for those pesky Native peoples). Now, believing that slavery wasn’t so bad (not as bad as liberal, sodomite-loving, pro-abortionist pagans have taught), isn’t Kinism. But a defense of the evil of slavery and the disregard of the particular horrors of America’s peculiar institution, as well as assertions that White rule over Blacks was better for them than the offense of forced integration has proved to be, isn’t going to convince too many people on the outside of the difference.

More important, it doesn’t look like Jesus, either.

Not From Under The Rock

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 6:13 pm

My gentlemanly critic, the Covenant fellow who goes by the pseudonym Dontbia Nass, has requested that I crawl back from under the rock from which I came, unless I can “prove” that Doug Wilson and his attendant ministries and cohorts are guilty of letting Kinist/Reconstructionist/Anti-Government/Neo-Confederate thought and theology trickle into the Kirk, and do so with little or no regard for the witness of the Gospel. And since I also accused Kinists — making sure to note that Wilson has condemned their theology and beliefs — of preaching a false Gospel, I’ll spare myself a slither or two under the rock and discuss that, too. Huh. I might even mention my problems with the soteriology of Wilson, et al, and the Federal Vision.

Not all in one post, of course; I’ll have a series of “Not From Under The Rock”s.

First of all, I don’t condemn Wilson “for giving me bad vibes.” Goodness, no. He’s actually been quite pleasant to me in person and over email. It’s the sour taste for the Gospel that he’s seasoned Moscow with by his puckish, gleeful approach to engaging with his non-believing critics.

So: Point 1 — He and His Fellows Act Like Frat Boys, Not Ministers of the Gospel

Wilson and his merry men have offered Moscow numerous examples of his scorn, if not disgust, for those unbelievers who criticize him and for those who don’t, but still don’t know Christ. Granted, a man who insists that the religious transformation of the Palouse area of North Idaho will occur through Psalm-singing, Sabbath dinners, and strong, male-headed families probably isn’t too concerned with evangelism and service. Nonetheless, most Gospel ministers, and certainly no others in town, are not even remotely as cheerful in tossing out their offenses to the community.

When one of Wilson’s New St. Andrews fellows copped — stole — letterhead from the University of Idaho and printed up fake news releases about a topless, feminist lecture series on campus, and did so as an April Fools joke, Wilson lauded his pal’s zany sense of humor — after, of course, the UI investigated the illegal use of its letterhead by a Classical Christian Scholar. The community, already embroiled in controversy over NSA’s move to the downtown Moscow business district, increasing the tax burden on businesses there and violating the City’s zoning code, got another taste of the Wackiness that Westminster Wroughts when Wilson and a couple of Kirk men of chest, during the Trinity Fest that swooped down on Moscow months later with 300 or more neo-Confederate classicists, strapped on their guitars to belt out “Sweet Home, Alabama” as their public paean to the South.

Most ministers, if aware that their congregations are disliked and held in suspicion by their neighbors, probably wouldn’t choose to sing a South-lovin’ song written in angry response to Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” a blistering attack on the Confederate South and those who love it. Most ministers wouldn’t hold conferences about the glories of the Confederacy, the wonders of racist theology and the honor of racist theologies. R.L. Dabney, for example, is a Wilson hero, even though Wilson says he decries his racism. Why even bother with him, then, when you know he’s a racist and a hero to other racists who claim the name of Christ? Most ministers who want to understand theology, or understand American history, can find more honorable men (and women) to learn from and promote than a man whose sickeningly racist denouncement of the inherent worth and dignity of black people is fodder for both neo-Confederates, Kinists, and even “classical Christian” schools in the Kirk- influenced ACCS, whose office is in the Ambrose House building in Moscow. Men and women who care about the effect of the Gospel on their communities would run like bloody hell from Dabney, from Robert E. Lee, from Stonewall Jackson, from the League of the South, the neo- and paleo-Confederate movement — anything that smacks of racism, bigotry, or racial insensitivity. If, that is, they either thought about the effect on their unsaved neighbors, or thought that sort of stuff was too awful to be even remotely associated with, even privately.

Of course, if you’ve co-authored, with a League of the South member, dear friend, and frequent associate a book that attempts to defend Southern slavery from both Scripture and history, the two points above probably don’t matter much to you. And while I’ll discuss “Southern Slavery As It Was” in a future post, I’ll conjecture here that that type of careless insouciance makes it seem OK for a Christ Church elder to post on his blog a thoroughly racist cartoon with Barack Obama introducing himself by saying, “Ise Yo New President!” — a post that prompted from one of the elder’s pals an even worse joke about the President’s assassination. That joke, and the original, were removed by a petulant blogmeister who honestly couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Huh.

Wilson likes to think that he and his fellow Kirkers are being singled out because of the tough, uncompromising Gospel he preaches and the unwavering reverence he holds, in and out of the pulpit, for Scripture. Bullshit. Most evangelical pastors on the Palouse actually preach the Gospel and hold the Word of God as dearly as Wilson says he does — and they don’t provoke the ire of the community, ever. No, Wilson, et al, are the objects of scorn because Wilson, et al, behave badly in the public square, and any other community, not just a community of “washed up hippies,” would learn to despise a man who delights in offering it a stiff middle finger.

How I wish he’d just offer them the Gospel of Christ, with service and humility.

Want one more? When NSA’s presence in the downtown business district was causing such an uproar in the community — because someone had filed a complaint against their presence — what did Wilson’s son, Nate, and an NSA pal do? Offer any acts of service to the community? Pass out any tracts? Do a canned-food drive? A street festival for the community not based on neo-Confederate history? Nah. They filed, just for the hell of it, to make a point, to extract the vengeance that is only God’s and that only the gravely immature attempt, a complaint against the occupancy of Moscow’s public alternative high school. They responded to a valid civil complaint by filing another one in a snit of snottiness, putting a school that works to educate 30 or 40 at-risk kids at risk itself. And when Nate’s comrade-in-arms, NSA Registrar Aaron Rench, assured me that, gosh, if any of the kids lost their chance for school or were threatened in any way, he knew Logos would take them.

I think you probably don’t want to know what I said to Aaron Rench that day.

June 11, 2009

Correction

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 5:54 pm

James von Brunn, the neo-Nazi who murdered a guard yesterday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, maintains a website called Holy Western Empire, not “Nation” as I had written.

Thank You, Jesus!

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 5:13 pm

I’ve been praying for the last 12 years or so for a man I went through school with, first grade ’til our 1978 graduation from high school, who’s in prison for murder. Thanks to the Internet savvy of my son, I was able last month to locate his address, and I wrote to him, not knowing what to expect but wanting him to know, at least, that I’d been praying for him.

“Joy, exploding” was how I received Raymond’s letter this week; “thank you, Jesus!” was all I could say for about half an hour through tears of joy and gratitude. Raymond’s love for the Lord and his tender heart shined through the letter, and I am so thankful that he’s all right, believing in the Lord Jesus, and trusting him for his release late in August.

In school, we were in the same world; out of school, his was different from mine. A Black kid from an impoverished Black neighborhood even bleaker than the mostly Mexican-American and Anglo one I lived in had very little opportunity, support, or aspirations. Put another way, my brother, only a year younger, had a wealth of opportunity, support, and aspiration, simply by being born white to a two-parent home. I grieve at the way Raymond’s life went, just as I rejoice in the successful, secure life my brother has — knowing that he rounded the bases on an uneven playing field tipped inordinately his way.

My friend and I will continue our correspondence, and I thank my God for a husband who encourages my reaching out to Raymond and looks forward to how God might use us in his life, as well as how he might minister to us. Please pray for my friend, and rejoice with me that I found him — and that he found Him.

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