Christianity Today<\/em> recently published an article<\/a>\u00a0on the classical education movement, written by Louis Markos. Theologian and pastor Doug Wilson is front and center. He founded the first classical Christian school, he wrote the book on classical Christian education, and he founded the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS). There\u2019s just one problem. Wilson is also a racist and a white supremacist<\/em>.<\/p>\n Markos limits criticism of Wilson in a single paragraph:<\/p>\n Another strong critique of classical Christian education has come from advocates like Preston Jones. In a 2002 article in<\/a>\u00a0Critique<\/em>, he took the ACCS to task for being anti-Catholic as well as denominationally separatist. Jones is also one of many who criticized ACCS founder Wilson<\/a> for his utopian views of the Old South, as outlined in a 1996 pamphlet<\/a> he co-authored. Though the pamphlet condemned racism and said the practice of Southern slavery was unbiblical, critics were troubled that it argued US slavery was more benign than is usually presented in history texts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Over the years, I have grown increasingly upset that evangelicals like Markos and the editors at Christianity Today<\/em> continue to reference and lean on Wilson as some sort of prescient theological giant without acknowledging his rank racism. The above paragraph may be Markos\u2019 attempt to acknowledge just that, but if that is what it is, its attempt it falls far, far<\/em> short.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s recall Markos\u2019 phrasing. He writes that Wilson has been criticized for \u201chis utopian views of the Old South\u201d as outlined in a 1996 pamphlet in which he argued that \u201cslavery was more benign than is usually presented in history texts.\u201d However, in that same pamphlet, Markos writes, Wilson \u201ccondemned racism\u201d and \u201csaid the practice of Southern slavery was unbiblical.\u201d One could read these words and still have\u00a0literally no idea\u00a0<\/i>what Wilson\u2019s pamphlet actually<\/em> said\u2014or who his co-author was.<\/p>\n Last year, I penned an article<\/a> taking evangelicals like Markos to task for failing to sufficiently condemn Wilson\u2019s racism. You see, Wilson isn\u2019t just a \u201ccontroversial\u201d figure, or one whose kid glove treatment of the U.S. South has left critics \u201ctroubled.\u201d In my piece, I outlined Wilson\u2019s beliefs and actions over the years, marshaling this evidence to argue that evangelicals\u2019 condemnation of Wilson should be sound and without hesitation.<\/p>\n I noted the following:<\/p>\n Wilson co-wrote a booklet defending antebellum slavery<\/a> with Steve Wilkins, co-founder of the League of the South, a white nationalist organization that has increasing ne-Nazi tendencies and participated in the violence at last summer\u2019s \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally at Charlottesville.<\/p>\n Wilson is an evangelical pastor who calls himself a \u201cpaleo-confederate\u201d and has multiple times urged judges to show leniency to child molesters who were studying at his (unaccredited) seminary in Moscow, Idaho, when they were found out. \u2026<\/p>\n Wilson oversees his own Christian school association\u2014his local school\u00a0celebrates Robert E. Lee\u2019s birthday<\/a> but not Abraham Lincoln\u2019s\u2026 (Wilson is listed as an editor of John Dwyer\u2019s revisionist text<\/a>, The War Between the States: America\u2019s Uncivil War<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0which glorifies men like R. L. Dabney<\/a>, a white supremacist who defended slavery and opposed public schools on the grounds that<\/a> it was unjust \u201cto raise taxes to give a pretended education to the brats of black paupers\u201d on the backs of oppressed whites.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You wouldn\u2019t get any of this from Markos\u2019 brief reference to Wilson condemning slavery as unbiblical but having \u201cUtopian views\u201d of the antebellum South. And you would have no idea that Wilson co-wrote his pamphlet with the founder of a literal white supremacist organization<\/em>. Wilson\u2019s association with Wilkins didn\u2019t end then, either.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s more detail from my article:<\/p>\n In the late 1990s, Wilson co-wrote a book defending southern slavery with Steve Wilkins, the co-founder of the League of the South. In their book, Wilson and Wilkins portrayed African Americans as inherently lazy, and southern slavery as inherently beneficial, even Christian. Wilkins, acting on these beliefs, co-founded The League of the South with Michael Hill. The League of the South participated in a funeral in 1995 at which Hill, referring to African Americans, spoke of<\/a> \u201celicit rights bestowed on a compliant and deadly underclass that now fulfills a role similar to that of Hitler\u2019s brown-shirted street thugs in the 1930s.\u201d<\/p>\n When Wilson co-wrote his book with Wilkins [in 1996], Wilkins was on the League of the South\u2019s board of directors. He would have been aware of language like that above, and aware that League members were advocating against creating African Americans Studies programs at universities in the South with arguments like<\/a>: \u201cIf blacks have done anything worthy of study (and I cannot imagine what that would be), then work it into a regular class. \u2026 Lets face the truth. Blacks did not invent \u2026 anything of note anywhere in the world. \u2026 When blacks beat my LSAT score and earn a spot in law school, I\u2019ll quit being racist.\u201d And still, Wilkins remained on the board.<\/p>\n And Wilson, who now calls himself a \u201cpaleo-conservative\u201d and continues to argue that the antebellum South was the last truly Christian nation of the West, co-wrote a book with him praising the institution of slavery as practiced in the antebellum South. And this man still has a platform in mainstream evangelicalism. Think about that for a moment. Think about the priorities that suggests. Think about the damage that does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In his paragraph on criticism of Wilson, Markos does not mention that Wilson co-wrote his pamphlet with the founder and board member of\u00a0a white supremacist organization\u00a0<\/em>that was at that very time<\/em> portraying blacks as subhuman animals. These facts are, apparently, not relevant<\/em>.<\/p>\n In 2004, Wilson was asked to clarify his relationship with the League of the South:<\/p>\n Now I am not a member of the League, and Steve [Wilkins] has recently resigned from the board of directors because his priorities have been shifting. But let me say this to support the League (mildly), even though I do differ with them. I am not a member of the League because I believe that the severe problems this nation has do not admit of a political or cultural solution. There is no way out for us apart from a massive reformation of liturgy and doctrine in the evangelical church nationwide. That is where I want to concentrate all my energies, and that is what I understand Steve as also wanting to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wilson says he is not a member of the League because he believes the country\u2019s problems need a liturgical and doctrinal solution, not a political or cultural solution. This is odd, because you might expect someone asked this question to say they are not a member of the League\u00a0because they disavow its racism.<\/em> But Wilson does not say this. He does not say it at all.<\/p>\n If you want to know what sort of rhetoric was coming out of the League concurrently with Wilson answering this question, well, have a look<\/a>:<\/p>\n No less a man than Rev. Robert Lewis Dabney noted over a century ago that Southern whites recognized an obligation to treat Christian blacks (slave and free) as brothers in Christ, and to recognize their common humanity (original sin, all created in God\u2019s image, etc.).\u00a0 \u2026<\/p>\n This does not mean, however, that we must subscribe to the flawed Jacobin notion of egalitarianism, nor does it mean that white Southerners should give control over their civilization and its institutions to another race,whether it be native blacks or Hispanic immigrants.\u00a0 Nowhere, outside of liberal dogma, is any nation called upon to commit cultural and ethnic suicide. \u00a0Furthermore, our surrender would ultimately be regretted by all parties as the remaining liberties were squandered by those who had no desire to preserve the Eurocentric, (and therefore \u201cracist\u201d), institution of the rule of law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It does not get any better<\/a>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s return for a moment to Wilson\u2019s clarification of his relationship to the League, because Wilson didn\u2019t stop with saying that he differed from the League in where the solution lay. No, he went on to praise the League and call them \u201cgood diagnosticians\u201d of the problems besetting American society today.<\/p>\n I believe that the League\u2019s attempts to stop what is happening are in the same category as the attempts being made by Focus on the Family to get prayer back in the government schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n As for the folks in the League of the South and Focus on the Family, God bless them. I wish them the best,<\/strong> and I understand why they want to get out there and make a direct challenge to the abortion culture, the homosexual culture, and so forth. But they will continue to fail because so many Christians still refuse to acknowledge Christ\u2019s ownership of their babies, refuse to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, refuse to teach them the glories of celebrating the Lord\u2019s Day, and refuse to conduct their worship services as though our triune God is holy, holy, holy.<\/p>\n The folks in the League are good diagnosticians.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wilson is not someone evangelicals like Markos or evangelical magazines like Christianity Today\u00a0<\/em>should be engaging with or writing about except to condemn.\u00a0Wilson is a literal white supremacist.<\/em>\u00a0Evangelicals need to stop treating Wilson as a member of the in-group.<\/p>\n This is really not that complicated, and yet here we are, over and over and over again. Why can\u2019t evangelicals condemn Wilson and have it done? Why do they feel the continual need to tip toe around him? Why are they so loath to call it like it is? Does he have<\/em> something over them?<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve read enough already, feel free to stop here. I have made my point manifestly clear already. There is only one thing left to discuss: Markos\u2019 description of Wilson\u2019s pamphlet was profoundly inaccurate and misleading. Wilson did not argue that southern slavery was unbiblical; he argued the opposite. He did not present southern slavery as more benign than textbooks present it; he argued that it was benign. At this point, I\u2019m going to turn to Wilson\u2019s pamphlet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Markos criticized Wilson\u2019s pamphlet, \u201cSouthern Slavery As It Was,\u201d for being a bit \u201cutopian\u201d about the \u201cOld South,\u201d and for portraying slavery as \u201cmore benign than is usually presented in history texts.\u201d Markos added that the pamphlet \u201ccondemned racism and said the practice of Southern slavery was unbiblical.\u201d I am left wondering whether Markos actually read<\/em> Wilson\u2019s pamphlet, because even this is a whitewash.<\/p>\n To start with, Wilson actually<\/em> argued that it was biblical<\/em> for a Christian to own slaves:<\/p>\n The abolitionists maintained that slave-owning was inherently immoral under any circumstance. But in this matter, the Christians who owned slaves in the South were on firm scriptural ground. May a Christian own slaves, even when this makes him a part of a larger pagan system which is not fully scriptural, or perhaps not scriptural at all? Provided he owns them in conformity to Christ\u2019s laws for such situations, the Bible is clear that Christians may own slaves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Why did Markos claim Wilson wrote that \u201cthe practice of Southern slavery was unbiblical\u201d? Perhaps he read only Wilson\u2019s introduction, which includes this bit:<\/p>\n Southern slavery is open to criticism because it did not follow the biblical pattern at every point. Some of the state laws regulating slavery could not be defended biblically (the laws forbidding the teaching of reading and writing, for example).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But even that<\/em> does not fully explain Markos\u2019 mischaracterization. After all, Wilson wrote only that some<\/em> of the state laws regulating slavery could not be defended biblically, not that the practice itself was unbiblical. Indeed, Wilson does not believe <\/em>that the practice of slavery is unbiblical.<\/p>\n Does Wilson condemn racism? Certainly! He argues that it would be racist<\/em> to suggest that slave men would have let<\/em> white masters and overseers have their way with their women.<\/p>\n You think I\u2019m kidding. I\u2019m not kidding.<\/p>\n Sexual Exploitation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Didn\u2019t sexual exploitation undermine and destroy the black family? Critics of the South have consistently answered in the affirmative. They accuse slave owners and overseers of turning plantations into personal harems. Again, unfortunately for the thesis, the evidence on which these assumptions and conclusions are based is extremely limited.<\/p>\n Such arguments overlook the real and potentially large costs that confronted masters and\u00a0overseers who sought sexual pleasures in the slave quarters. It would have been much easier, and less risky, for owners of large plantations to keep a mistress in town than to risk the possibility of the destruction of his own family by taking up with a slave woman. For the overseer, the cost of sexual episodes in the slave quarters, once discovered, was often his job. Nor would he find it easy to obtain employment elsewhere as an overseer, since not many masters would be willing to employ as their manager a man who was known to lack self- control on so vital an issue.<\/p>\n Further, to imply that black men would be indifferent to the sexual abuse of their women is to imply that they were somehow less manly than other men who would be indignant over such abuse. This common assumption about slave men is not only unrealistic and unsubstantiated but an insult to their humanity and patently racist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n So, yes! Yes, Wilson condemned racism! Being an abolitionists was racist! Telling the actual history of slavery is racist! Don\u2019t do those racist things! (Next thing we know, telling the real history of the Holocaust will be anti-semitic,<\/em> on the grounds that it is anti-semitic<\/em> to think that millions Jews would have allowed themselves to be taken to gas chambers!)<\/p>\n And yes, you should feel sick right now. This is horrific, triggering stuff. That is just\u00a0how bad<\/em> Wilson\u2019s pamphlet is. He wrote literal lies, disgusting, gross, harmful lies. He published this absolute rotting mess, and yet evangelicals like Markos\u2014and the editors at Christianity Today\u2014<\/em>can\u2019t bring themselves to call him what he is.<\/p>\n You want to know who the real bad guys in Wilson\u2019s pamphlet were? The abolitionists. No really, in Wilson\u2019s telling the abolitionists<\/em> were the real bad guys. I wish I were making this up, but I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n By the time of the War, the intellectual leadership of the South was conservative, orthodox, and Christian. In contrast, the leadership of the North was radical and Unitarian. This is not to say there were no Christians in the North, or that no believers fought for the North. It is simply the recognition that the drums of war were being beaten by the abolitionists, who were in turn driven by a zealous hatred of the Word of God.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Christian slaveowners weren\u2019t doing anything wrong, Wilson writes. It was the abolitionists<\/em> who were doing wrong, going against both God and the Bible.<\/p>\n It is obvious that in a fallen world, an institution like slavery will be accompanied by many attendant evils. Such evils existed with ancient Hebrew slavery, ancient Roman slavery, and with American slavery. The issue is not whether sinners will sin, but rather how Christians are commanded to respond to such abuses and evils. And nothing is clearer \u2014 the New Testament opposes anything like the abolitionism of our country prior to the War Between the States.<\/strong> The New Testament contains many instructions for Christian slave owners, and requires a respectful submissive demeanor for Christian slaves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Let\u2019s recall how Markos described this pamphlet:<\/p>\n\n