Opinion - The Big Problem with Doug Wilson

Well before we get into this video today, I want to just remind everybody about my intersectional bona fides. I am a Puerto Rican. DNA tests confirm what you should just know if you know the history about Puerto Rico is that my blood, my ethnicity, my ancestry is a mix of African, Native American, and European.

That is what history says it should be and my blood mix is exactly where it should be. 20 African, 20 Native American, which leaves 60 European. If you know the history about Puerto Rico as well, then you would also just have to assume that based on the DNA and based on the historical witness that we have, that the chances of me having a slave ancestor are just about 100%.

Actually, most people, the chances of having a slave ancestor are about 100%, but I'm talking about the kind of slavery that people care about today. You know, the African slave trade, that kind of thing.

For some reason, people don't seem to care about slavery if it happened thousands of years ago, but the slavery that happened that people care about today, the African slave trade, people brought over in the Middle Passage, what you learned about in school, that kind of thing.

I have ancestors that endured that kind of thing. Just a quick reminder before we get into the topic. Now, I have talked on my YouTube channel and also my podcast about slavery a number of times. In fact, this is what I get, I think, probably the most vicious heat for talking about this particular topic.

I get a lot of heat for a lot of different topics, but I would say that the most vicious things that people say about me have to do with this particular topic. I remember one time there was a woman who, after hearing what I had to say about slavery in the Bible, said that I was a supporter of the sex trafficking that goes on today.

In fact, she sent me a picture when she was insulting me in this way. She sent me a picture of a woman who had been branded by a sex trafficker and said, this is what you're supporting. And obviously, I am not supporting that.

But anyway, people aren't ready for this. People aren't ready for this. But the reality is that the Bible does not say, you shall not enslave. That's a quotation from Russell Moore. He said that the Bible teaches that you shall not enslave.

That is simply not the case. I remember, you know, I have an advantage, I think, in some of my commentary, because I kind of grew up in evangelicalism as an adult. And so I kind of remember what I was taught.

I remember, you know, who taught it to me. And I remember the experiences I had when I was kind of being deprogrammed from some of this typical evangelical type of dogma. I remember there was a sermon series.

I lived in New York. And actually, one of the books that was instrumental in my conversion was a book by Tim Keller, the Presbyterian minister. And it was his book, The Prodigal God. I remember I'd never heard the gospel presented in a very clear way before.

And the way he wrote, it was just amazing to me. I remember reading that book. And just in just being so moved by the gospel of God and God's activities in salvation and saving people for himself. I remember being so moved by it.

And so I credit that book in many ways to sort of awakening me to the realities of the gospel. So what I used to do is I used to watch and read and listen to a lot of Tim Keller materials. And there was one sermon series that he did in New York, where basically what he did was it was kind of like an apologetic series.

He basically went, and he said, here's 10 questions that many people in New York, many cosmopolitan types have about the Christian faith, and here's my answers to them. And I remember, it was fantastic, because a lot of the questions that he went over were questions that I had.

I was one of those New York cosmopolitan types, so to speak. So I remember loving that series and just gaining so much value from it. Of course, there was an exception. By the time I had listened to this, I had read the Bible pretty much cover to cover.

And so he did one about slavery, because a lot of atheists and a lot of unbelievers and secular types have a problem with how the Bible teaches about slavery and how Christians of the past have dealt with slavery.

And what I find so interesting about this particular sermon is that I didn't find too much to disagree with outright, but I knew that he was actually spinning things a little bit for the Bible, because I had read the Bible, and I had read what it said about slavery.

And though Tim Keller didn't say that the Bible says you shall not enslave the way Russell Moore did, that's just a flat-out untruth about the Bible. He didn't say that. Tim Keller's much more careful than Russell Moore, much probably more intelligent as well.

He didn't outright say that, but the whole thrust of his sermon was that. And I knew that that wasn't correct. I knew that that was not correct based on what the Bible said. I had been taught the apologetics regarding slavery that everyone gets taught.

Oh yeah, that slavery back in the day, that was a different kind of slavery. It was much nicer than the slavery of Africa. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Christians misinterpreted the Bible to say that it condones or even allows for any kind of slavery.

They were abusing the text. That's what you get taught. And I kind of knew that that wasn't actually correct. And I think, look, if we're all honest with ourselves, there are parts of the Bible that do not fit with our theology.

Whatever your theology is, there are parts of the Bible that do not seem to fit with your theology. And so what you do when you encounter it is you're like, what is this? I don't believe this. And what you do is you read commentaries from your perspective and you're like, good enough.

Good enough. That makes sense. And it really doesn't make sense. And it's like, people are kind of like, you know, that's an uncomfortable feeling. People are trying to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling all the time.

And so they read things that they agree with. And even though it's not quite 100%, you know, making sense, you kind of just say, good enough. There's an explanation for this. Anyway, so that's what I have to say about slavery.

Why Doug Wilson Becomes a Lightning Rod

Now, you may be thinking, Adam, what's the deal with this? What's the point of all this? The title of this video is about Doug Wilson. And it is. It is about Doug Wilson. You know, honestly, Doug Wilson is another lightning rod.

I did a video last week about Pulpit and Pen and Jordan Hall and the people that work for him or with him rather. And he is a tremendous lightning rod. That was a very popular video for me. You know, I'm a small channel.

So got a lot of views, a lot of interaction in the comment section. You know, for me, people, you know, either love him or hate him. They have an opinion. He's a lightning rod. He's a he's a controversial figure.

There's just no question about it. That's very clear. If you had to pick two controversial figures, though, in evangelical circles, I think Jordan Hall would be one and Doug Wilson would be the other.

Everyone has an opinion about Doug Wilson. People ask me how I feel about Doug Wilson, his theology, and how do I feel about some of the things that he says and writes about people ask me about this. I don't know why they ask me, but they do.

Full disclosure, you know, I'm I do a podcast on the Fight Laugh Feast network. That's, you know, Doug Wilson and his boys, you know, that that's that's their business. More full disclosure, I attended a CREC church for about, I don't know, six to eight months, something like that.

It was a pastor who does hold to the federal vision and things like that. And I have to say, I, you know, really learned a lot about what federal vision is and what it teaches from this guy. And, you know, there's flavors of federal vision.

Right. So there's more extreme and less extreme. This this pastor, the one I sat under for a while was on the more extreme side. There's no question about it. And I came out of that understanding that I was not federal vision.

I did not hold to the federal vision. However, I appreciated some of what they were trying to do. I appreciated some of what they were trying to do. And I don't want to speak for Doug Wilson, but it strikes me as this is part of why he was involved in some of that.

And it's a very clear kind of principle that everyone agrees with, but very few practice. And, and it's, it's basically this, that I don't want to read the Bible and ever be in the situation that I just described, where you read something that does not comport with your beliefs.

And so you go off to your, your, your, your camps, you know, materials, and you read their explanations for it. And even if it doesn't make perfect sense, you just accept it because you know, that's, that's, that's what you do.

I think that was the thrust behind some of, you know, what federal vision was trying to do. And I think that that's true with, with Doug Wilson as well. I don't know, look, I've never spoken to Doug Wilson before, but as a, as a bystander, that's kind of how it strikes me.

I'll give you a perfect example of this. I'll give you a perfect example of this when it comes to baptism, right? I think, again, I don't speak for him. I've never spoken to him in my entire life. I think when it comes to Doug Wilson's belief about baptism, he wants to believe baptism in such a way that he can say with Peter, without qualifying and without nuancing something to death, he can say, baptism now saves you.

He wants to read that and not turn it into something that means baptism doesn't really save you. You see what I'm saying? So he wants to understand that in a way that fits with everything else he knows from the scripture, you know, faith without works, you know, faith apart from works, all of that stuff he has to incorporate into this.

But at the same time, he just wants to say it, baptism now saves you the same way Peter says it. And he doesn't want to have to backtrack and qualify and make excuses for and all that kind of stuff. I get that.

I get that. Now you see, I, I, I'm not federal vision. And one of the reasons why is because I think that sometimes when you say it, just the way Peter says it without explaining, it can be more confusing and maybe less helpful.

You know what I mean? But I can see the argument against that. We're saying, I just want to read the Bible the way it's written. That's what I want to do. You see, so, so, so, so, so Doug Wilson, his big sin, his, the big problem with Doug Wilson is that he is committed to just being able to teach the Bible as it's written.

And he, that's all he wants to do. He, the Bible says it, he wants to believe it. He wants to teach it. And he doesn't want to make excuses for it. That's the big thing. That's the big thing. And so we can, we can, we can apply this to other areas as well.

And I think, again, this, if you're not a federal vision proponent, you know, you can, you, you would see this as, this is how you get into trouble a little bit. And I understand that. I understand that.

But if you are a federal vision proponent, you kind of understand that this is, this is part of why you are probably, because, you know, again, I don't want to have any problem passages. That's something that I've heard Doug Wilson say.

I don't want to have any passages that give me, you know, those, that, that, that uncomfortable feeling of, of, of not really, you know, understanding how this fits. You know what I mean? That that's, that's, I think an admirable thing.

That's an admirable thing. I think that's something that we can all learn from Doug Wilson a little bit. Even if it doesn't make you want to teach, baptism now saves you the way Peter says in the, in the scripture.

Anyway, why am I mentioning all this? Here's the thing. This is, this is why people don't like Doug Wilson, because he's willing to just kind of go ahead and say, look, I've read the Bible. So have you.

And, and, and, and speak on, on, on the issue of slavery in an authoritative way. Look, you can read the Bible cover to cover, and you cannot find anything that says you shall not enslave. You can't find anything that says that having a slave is in of itself, forget about major sin, a sin at all, a sin at all.

You can't find it. Now there are aspects of the slave trade that we can say, non-starter right there, man-stealing, that is a sin. No question about it. You kidnap someone, whether to sell them, whether to keep them, whether to do whatever with them, that is a death penalty crime.

And if you ask Doug Wilson about that, he would say, yes, man-stealing is a death penalty crime, because again, he doesn't want to have any problem passages. So if it says man-stealing is a death penalty crime, that's what Doug Wilson's going to believe.

That's what Doug Wilson's going to teach. But it does not say that even holding a slave is a sin. You see today, what we're being expected to hold to is that holding a slave. Well, that in it of itself is grounds to question your salvation.

That's a sin. And not only a sin, that's a sin of the most egregious kind. This is from his article. Doug Wilson wrote an article last week called the Slaves of Jonathan Edwards. And here's what he says.

He says, the difficulty with this approach taken by Meyer, this is the kind of approach I'm describing about slavery, is this. He says, while he is careful and judicious, urging us not to overreact, as well as cautioning us not to underreact, he simply assumes great sin on the part of Edwards.

He assumes this from the mere fact of slave-owning. He wants us to avoid great sin and how we respond to it all, but he is in effect urging us to follow Aristotle's golden mean. But what we ought to do is ask ourselves if we have any evidence, biblical evidence, that Edwards was guilty of any personal hypocrisy or compromise in this circumstance.

Listen to this. This is a very important line. The issue is not whether we think slavery as an institution was a good thing. It was not. It is not whether the slave trade was wicked and cruel. Of course it was.

The issue is not whether there were numerous masters who mistreated their slave. Of course there were. The issue is whether or not Edwards following the teaching of the New Testament for men in his position.

We have no evidence that he did not, and a reasonable bit of evidence that he did submit to the authority of Scripture in this. See, the point here is that we got to stop being embarrassed by this Bible, right?

Because this is the big problem with Doug Wilson. He is not embarrassed by this Bible. He's not embarrassed by the book. No matter what it says, it doesn't embarrass him. And I remember from that Tim Keller sermon that I heard, it was apologetic in the bad way.

Like almost like you could tell that there was some like, I know it says this, but I'm sorry. And you don't get that with Doug Wilson. He's happy to teach and to affirm everything that the Bible says.

Everything. Whether it's about men and women, whether it's about slave and free, whether it's about the institution of slavery, whether it's about whatever it's about, it doesn't matter. He's willing to accept it.

You see, when God commands the Israelites to slaughter the pagan nations, man, woman, and child, Doug Wilson's not sorry to teach that. So many, so many evangelicals are very sorry to teach that. In fact, they look for excuses.

They look for reasons why it doesn't mean what it actually says. Oh yeah, no, he said when man, woman, and child, but what he meant was just militarily conquer them. Don't really kill all the men and women and children.

That's not really what it meant. You see what I'm saying? This is the big problem with Doug Wilson. He believes what is considered heresy, heretical in our secular world. Believing that Bible without apology, without making excuses, without softening the edges, without making it palatable for unregenerate man, that is abject heresy.

You see, the secular culture will put up with you as long as you don't go whole hog with that Bible. A perfect example of this is the scorn that I see put on people who believe in six-day creation. This is another perfect example.

The scorn that is put on people like that. Those people are the dumbest, most idiotic, moronic of the morons. People that believe in six-day creation. The reality is, it's not just in the secular world that that's the case.

It's in the intelligentsia evangelical world as well. Six-day creationists are buffoons. They're embarrassing. I mean, how many times have we heard a smart hoity-toity apologist talk about how embarrassed they are about six-day creationists?

Look, whether or not you're a six-day creationist or not, you can understand how they arrive at these conclusions by just reading the text and believing what it says. Now, I understand where you guys that are not six-day creationists read and you believe what it says.

I get it. I'm not saying you're all compromisers, but the reality is that you can believe in a non-six-day creation and not heap the scorn that is so often heaped on all those fundamentalist, idiotic, backwoods, six-day creation believers like me get.

I mean, that's just the reality. So just believing that Bible and believing it without apology, without softening, without all that stuff, that is the ultimate heresy in our culture today. That's the ultimate sin, and that's the big problem people have with Doug Wilson.

The big problem is that. There are other problems. I know you guys probably are going to fill the comment section with other problems with Doug Wilson. I get it. I get it. I get it. But you see, the reality is that there are lots of people that you don't agree with theologically that you do not heap scorn on the way that people get heaped scorn, people like Doug Wilson get scorn heaped on them.

You see, there's something special about Doug that people seem to just, I cannot make a comment about Doug without either getting unfriended by someone, being told off by someone, how could I support him, this and that.

And that's not the kind of response I get when I quote somebody else that somebody doesn't disagree with. You see, someone disagrees with. So you see, there's something special about Doug, and I think that it's this, there's a little bit of swagger in the sense that this is the Bible, this is what it says, and I'm not going to apologize or soften it or backstep it or anything like that.

Here it is. Deal with it. And so, you know, that's kind of what I wanted this video to be about today. On that topic, I have something else for you. I was gifted this book. It's called Sacred Conviction.

Sacred Conviction, the South Stand for Biblical Authority. It's written by Joseph J., which is not a real person. Well, the person who wrote it is a real person, but this is not his name. And the reason why it's not his name is because this book is heresy as well.

And I'm not talking the Christian kind. I'm talking secular heresy. This is forbidden knowledge. This book is of the forbidden type. And so I don't blame the person for not revealing who they are, because this is the kind of thing that you cannot put up with in our culture today.

It makes the argument that one of the—I mean, look, the Civil War was a complicated war. There's no question about it. Everyone knows that. This takes a look at it from a theological perspective, and it makes the argument that the South was standing for biblical authority, right?

They wanted to, just like I described, believe what the Bible says, not try to soften it, not try to backtrack it, and it's just that simple. And the North was trying to apply all kinds of different laws and ideas and things like that.

They would make arguments like this. Well, it's not about what the Bible actually says. It's about the overarching principle, the thrust of the debate. It's about the eschatological trajectory of things.

And that's why slavery in and of itself is evil, even though the Bible doesn't say it is. It's evil because of the trajectory of the text. See, these are the arguments that people make today for all kinds of nonsense, LGBT and all this social justice stuff.

It's the same kind of idea. And this is why you don't see social justice warriors often discussing text, the scripture, the Bible itself. No, they've got all these other authorities that they're bringing into this debate and saying, well, the theological trajectory, the overarching teaching, and that kind of thing.

And this is an interesting book. This is an interesting book. Now, I've only just read it. I haven't had a chance to look at all the notes and the footnotes and things like that. But basically, this is the thing that I'm talking about here, right?

This is the thing. If we can agree that the Bible does not outright ban slavery for Christians, I hope we can agree to that because it doesn't. If we can agree with that and then say, okay, let's take a step back and say, okay, the Southern slavery had all kinds of issues with it.

But one of the things that was not an issue was the existence of slaves themselves. Slavery is not condemned in the Bible. It just isn't. Some of the aspects that led to slavery, like the kidnapping and some of the mistreatment of slaves, that was a problem.

Yes. But you see, the Bible talks about those separately from the actual slavery itself. And so if we want to be Christian, we have to actually be Christians and say, okay, well, let's ban kidnapping for one.

Let's ban the abuse and mistreatment of slaves for two. And then there we go. You see, the problem is that, look, I'm a Yankee. I learned this the way Yankees learned this, right? I learned this the way Yankees learned this.

In school, basically, what I learned was people from the South were essentially barbarians and evil in every way. And every slave master was beating their slaves to death and things like that. That's what I learned.

But it simply wasn't true. And so we want to be Christians about this, not, you know, social justice warriors, dare I say, where we make stuff up and hold people to that standard. See, that's never going to work.

We have to stick with the Bible standard. That's what I appreciate so much about Doug Willis. That's what I appreciate so much about Joseph Jay's book. And really, that's pretty much all I have for you today.

Why He Thinks the Slavery Debate Matters for Every Other Doctrine

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless. You know, another thing about this article that I appreciate so much is it kind of put into words something that I've been feeling for a while, because you might ask, Adam, why do you talk about slavery?

Like, this is, it's just not, strategically, it's a stupid idea. I mean, people are going to hear that you're saying the Bible does not blankedly condemn slavery, and they're going to turn their brains off because it's just, so even if it's true, like, why bring attention to it?

Why bring attention to it? And the reality is that this is an important thing, because if we're willing to sort of ignore Scripture in this area that the culture finds abjectly heretical, contrary to anything that civilized people would believe, if we're going to ignore Scripture in that area, then we've already lost the entire debate.

We're arguing over the whole store here. You know what I mean? Everything is on sale, and we have to make sure that we, you know, we don't give an inch. We don't give a foothold. We don't give anything, because if you deny Scripture when it talks about slavery, then you've already lost the debate where it talks about sexuality.

You've already lost the debate where it talks about gender identity. You've already lost the debate where it talks about literally anything, and this is the big problem. This is the big problem, and I think this is why a lot of people are, like, openly and kind of aggressively six-day creationists.

It's the same thing. It's the same idea where they say, if you ignore Scripture here—and again, I know all the arguments. I get it, but this is why people are so in your face about this, because if you ignore Scripture here, you've given up the argument everywhere, and that is something I have a lot of sympathy for.

I really do. Here's the last part of Doug Wilson's article. Ignoring Scripture is the prelude to denying Scripture, and denying Scripture is the prelude to attacking Scripture. So, if you have admitted a principle into your thought process, you will find it difficult to turn that false principle off when the devil finally springs the trap.

Listen to this, because this is happening currently. If you thought that all that Robert E. Lee business was going to stop there and not proceed merrily on to Washington and Jefferson, then the word for you resembles naïve and rhymes with chump.

And if you think it'll stop with Washington and not proceed onward to Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and from them down to Philemon and through him to his friend Apostle Paul, then as the saying goes, you have another thing coming.

See, here's the thing, guys. We already have credible Christians questioning the salvation of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield because of the fact of owning slavery, which the Scripture does not say is a sin.

So, we have people that are credible Christians that we would consider brothers, right? That we would consider brothers. You know what I mean? We have people that are saying, you know, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, their salvation is in question based on something that man created as a standard of righteousness, not God.

Based on something man created as a standard of righteousness, not God. How far are we from the point where we're essentially banning George Whitefield teachings and Jonathan Edwards books from our seminaries, especially the woke ones?

How far are we from that? I don't think we're very far at all. And then if you do that from something that was unbiblical in the first place, Doug Wilson is saying here, well, why not do that with Philemon?

Because Philemon was the perfect opportunity for God to say, you shall not enslave. And he did not. He did not. And I've read all of the apologetics about why he didn't, but he really did mean it. So, I've read all of the the, the, you know, smooth sounding arguments that say, I know he didn't say you shall not enslave, but the book of Philemon still means you shall not enslave.

How? I don't know. I don't know how that makes any sense at all, but I urge you that feeling that you get when you read that kind of stuff and like, that doesn't make any sense. That's probably because it doesn't make any sense.

It's not true. And then he, as he says here, you know, once you reject Philemon, he had the perfect opportunity to deny, to, to, to, to, to ban slavery right there. God had the opportunity. He didn't take it.

Well, then why should we listen to anything Paul says? In fact, Paul is one of the most problematic people in history to the woke crowd. I mean, everything he says almost is problematic. So why won't we just cancel Paul?

See, this is the problem, guys. This is why I choose to talk about this so much. This is why Doug Wilson obviously chooses to talk about this so much because this is the debate. This is the debate. And it happens to be being had over something that is unsavory.

Slavery is unsavory. Let's just be honest about that. Nobody likes the idea of it. In fact, in, in, in scripture where, you know, it would condone it is when there's a sin that's happened. There's some kind of a crime that's happened and that's where indentured servanthood comes into play and all that kind of stuff.

So there's nothing good about it in that regard. This is something that happens when, when somebody has sinned. So we don't have to like it, but at the end of the day, like, you know, this is the debate guys.

You just have to deal with that. One more thing that I was thinking of, I, you know, I had a brother reach out to me and, and, and, you know, push back a little bit on something I said about slavery and the reality of prison, the prison system, and how I think that the prison system is unbiblical.

And what we should return to is a principle of restitution in crime. So if you get stolen from, then the person who stole from you doesn't go to prison. That's ridiculous. Instead, they pay back what they owe.

And if they don't have the money to pay back what they owe, they should be your servant and work off the debt. In other words, right? That's, that's how it should work. That's a biblical, godly way to, to adjudicate, you know, the crime of theft.

And somebody pushed back on me and said, you know, Adam, like, I, like, I have an example of my own life. Like, like, I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want that. He says, I had a relative of mine, like a half brother or something and said, and he said, you know, he stole from me a lot of money and he's in prison.

I'm glad he's in prison because I feel safe and I don't, I don't want him near me. I don't want him near my family. I don't want him working for me. And the reality is like, and that's this pushback. And the reality is that I would feel the same way, right?

Like if somebody stole from me, I don't want to see him. In fact, this is how it is in my own life. When people, I've had people in my life that have backstabbed me and hurt, tried to hurt me and some successfully hurt me.

And I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to see them ever again for my whole life. That's what I want. But what I want doesn't matter. You see what I'm saying? What I want doesn't matter. It's what God says should happen.

And so if I, if someone steals from me or someone, let's just, let's just take my example of someone backstabbing me and I don't ever want to see them again. I don't want to talk to them again. And they come to me and say, Hey, I don't want to talk about this.

I have a duty to talk to them. That's what God wants. He wants to bring harmony back into this situation. So if somebody who, who totally screwed me over, um, and I never want to see them again for the rest of my whole life, cause that's honestly in my flesh.

That's how I feel about people who screw me over. I don't ever want to see them again. If somebody comes to me and says, man, let's, let's talk about this. Let's, let's reconcile this. Let's let's let's let me tell you how I felt.

I have a duty to talk to that person before God, God commands it. And that's the same thing with this slavery, the servanthood thing, just because you never want to see the person who stole from you again, doesn't mean that's what God doesn't demand.

He might demand that you see, he wants to bring harmony back into this situation. He wants to bring restitution back into this situation. He wants to make things right. That's God's system. It's restitution for crimes.

And so you might not want to ever see the person who stole from you again, but it doesn't really matter what you want. It's about what God commands, because if you want someone locked away in prison, then you're wanting something that is unjust and unbiblical.

That's not what God wants. And so every, in every area of your life, we got to consider what does God say is right? What does God say is good? And let's not apologize for that. Let's just agree with God.

That's what repentance is. It's changing your mind. It's agreeing with what God says, saying the same thing as what God says. That's required of Christians. Anyway, I hope this is helpful.