Doublethinking Doug Wilson

So I wanted to just start today's video with a reading from from the Psalms. This is Psalm 15 a

Psalm of David. These are the words of God. Oh Lord who shall sojourn in your tent who shall dwell in your holy hill

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart Who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor nor takes up reproach against his friend

In whose eyes a vile person is despised but who honors those who fear the Lord who swears to his own hurt and does not change

Who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent He who does these things shall never be moved.

These are the words of God. I love that Psalm It's a really good Psalm. It talks about the moral requirements of someone who's gonna dwell

In God's kingdom is gonna dwell on his holy hill and we ultimately know that that that our own righteousness can't take us there

You know, and that's why this Psalm is primarily first and foremost about Christ, but it's not only about Christ We have to also recognize that there's a way that this

Psalm applies to our lives as well And these are the things that we ought to be doing. You know what I mean? We should do what's right.

We should speak the truth in our heart. We shouldn't do wrong against our neighbor But there's one here that doesn't fit right there's one here that makes it's a little bit weird like One of the requirements there's ten listed here to dwell on in God's tent and on his holy hill is

Those whose I in in whose eyes a vile person is despised despising vile people that's one of the requirements for being on God's holy hill that doesn't seem to fit a lot of our

What we think we know about the scripture Despising vile people. That's a weird one.

That's a weird one You know what? I want what I want to talk about today is kind of a continuation from yesterday's video on Doug Wilson And I I had caught

I go back and forth often about whether to do a serious video or to do another kind of like mocking sort of satirical video like yesterday and And all of that kind of stuff and I decided

I talked to my brother this morning And it was a serious conversation and I decided to do a serious video

So I hope this doesn't disappoint you, but I hope it's helpful for you Because you know the reality is like like the

Doug Wilson controversy yesterday it had this really weird sort of aspect to it like Honestly, some people call this inconsistency.

Some people call this double think some people call this Cognitive dissonance, but but there's a dissonance in In the arguments that we're it's being expected to believe about Doug Wilson and and it's it's really bizarre when you think about it because on the one hand

Doug Wilson is like presented as this brash sort of not bashful just sort of Loud mouth sort of in -your -face jerk that doesn't mind offending you.

In fact does it intentionally way? I saw a lot of people saying that yesterday and The big the big evidence yesterday that I kept getting presented was that he used the word cunt

That was the big sin. He used the word cunt to describe two people That's what people kept saying and now now the funny part about this is that that the word cunt

I know a lot of you I'm saying it here and you're like, oh my goodness. How can a Christian utter this word?

It's almost like a sacred word that you can't say It's a sacred word that we have to actually replace with with something else like the

C word that's actually a better way for me to say it the C word and So the idea here is that you say the

C word this magical word and that Disqualifies you from being a pastor or it's somehow a sin regardless of the context.

So I'm saying it in a certain context here The word cunt and for a lot of you that's corrupting talk

That's that's actually defiling me to say this word in this particular context I don't believe that for not not for a second.

And so and so the reality is that What we have here is a situation where Doug Wilson is being presented as this guy who's

Intentionally offensive and he'll just own it and he defended it people were pointing to the fact that not only did he say the word cunt

But then he defended using the word cunt later and that's just doubling down on his sin He's this just guy doesn't care what you think doesn't care if you think he's a jerk doesn't care

If you think that he's unqualified for being a pastor because he used the word cunt

Simultaneously to that though is this other weird idea and And this is where I think the double think it comes in the cognitive dissidence

Comes in because in the same threads Often that we got this whole idea of him being unqualified and and not ashamed of being unqualified from using the word cunt

I'm also supposed to believe that he's so bashful and so Sneaky and so wants you to like him and wants to be approved by you

That he won't own his federal vision theology that he still holds even though he says he doesn't and So he's still federal vision, but doesn't want to own the title and I find that to be so bizarre

So on the one hand he's he's so brash and brazen that he will use a word that everyone agrees is an icky word

Even I agree. I think it's an icky word. No question about it Get greats on me when

I hear that word So he's so everyone agrees that that's a word that that shouldn't be used and he's so brazen that he'll use it

But he won't own a title of his of a theology that he does hold

That hardly anybody understands. So so these are these are contradictory ideas.

He's on the one hand He's he's so sneaky and bashful. He doesn't want to own his theology that barely

Esoteric Complicated nuanced theology that nobody really understands. I can't tell you how many times I've talked about Doug Wilson federal vision people

Go, what is what the heck is federal vision? You know, I mean most people don't understand this but he's too bashful to own that but he will

Even though he has owned it in the past You see I'm saying this is the other thing He's he's he's called himself federal vision in the past So so even though he has done that in the past hardly anybody understands it

He wants you to like him so much that he won't he's too bashful to own that But he will say the the c -word and defend it

Not only that but he's written articles drawing attention to the fact that he's no longer going to call himself federal vision

He doesn't think it's theologies change But he understands that there is some confusion because federal vision people that call themselves federal vision believe a variety of different things that he does

Not believe and so he's written he's written an article about this Not like he just he just secretly stopped calling himself that like in this like in the last

Jedi If you noticed halfway through the movie They stopped calling the resistance the resistance and started calling them rebels and nobody identifies

Why it's just if they just made the change that the the the first order starts calling them rebels The resistance starts calling themselves rebels and nobody on it.

No one's like no one's acknowledging the fact that we've made a shift here We just they just made the shift Doug Wilson has drawn attention to it.

So here is why I'm making this shift It's confusing people. I don't believe what so -and -so over here believes anymore or not anymore.

I don't believe it I never have and so I think it's confusing for us both to call each other federal vision.

I Agree. Now, here's some red meat for you If you all you need another reason to not like me I attended a federal vision church for about six months six to twelve months something like that There was a period where I had decided to leave my church because I was

I was worried that they were getting too charismatic II to Bethel churchy And so I left them but I was already intending on moving to Vermont at this time

So I had a short period where I needed to find another church to go to and I found a CRE C church in Brooklyn The pastor was fantastic and not only was it a

CRE C church But it was one of the more extreme varieties like this the pastor had more extreme beliefs not it didn't really carry over into the worship service

But he was one of the more extreme versions of federal vision. He's a great guy I learned a lot about how to preach from him.

I learned a lot about you know how to be a man from him that kind of thing and he was a great guy and He wasn't like this evil guy that was trying to get one over on you and believe something like work salvation

Without telling you about it. He's sneakily wanted you to believe work salvation so that you could become a secret sneaky heretic

It wasn't like that. He's just a regular guy He's a pastor trying to be faithful being faithful to his family his wife his children his his

His his church and all these things trying to do church discipline trying to baptize believers teaching them to obey everything

Christ commands That's what he was trying to do and he had some beliefs that I did not agree with and you know what? That was okay by me

He had some beliefs that I don't agree with but I didn't have to assume he was like this secret heretic

I don't understand what this obsession is of people trying to find cuz cuz cuz cuz heretics Here's the thing about heretics like yes, they sneak in unnoticed, but then they teach objective heresy

They're not going to tell you that you know, listen I believe in salvation by faith, but really they believe in salvation by works there.

That's not how heretics work They want you to believe their heresy directly. It's not you can't trick someone into heresy.

It just it's very weird It's very weird position. I think But but but here's the thing guys.

Here's the thing Isn't it? Isn't it possible? that when

What am I trying to say here? Because there's there's two there's two schools of thought There's two there's two schools of thought here and and I think that they're related

I said this in my video about Doug Wilson before like I Think a lot of the aggression when it comes to the pushback on Doug Wilson It has very little to do with the theology because there's a lot of people whose theology

I don't agree with that I think is ultimately kind of dangerous that and and a lot of people out there that Theologies that they think they don't get the vitriol that Doug Wilson gets

I think what happens here is that he's just not ashamed of it. He's not gonna nuance things to death, right?

He doesn't want to he doesn't he just wants to be able to say what he Believes and when and what he believes is what he thinks the

Bible teaches and he just wants to say it, right? He just wants to say it Peter says baptism now saves you

Doug Wilson wants to be able to say baptism now saves you without Qualifying it to death without qualifying it to death.

And so and so the reality is here I think that there's a there's a real problem with people seeing how unashamed of the

Bible he is unashamed of Despising vile people like the

Bible says we should That's one of the qualifications in Psalm 15 Unashamed of doing that and they feel they feel ashamed because they know that they're not that kind of person

They know that often they try to make excuses for what the Bible says directly they try to allow room

For some, you know some nuance They say words like human flourishing When they went when it in inappropriate ways where it applies, it doesn't apply

It's not that the Bible doesn't talk about human flourishing in that way Affirming someone in there in their sexual perversion in any way

Allowing room for their sexual perversion in any way damages them Doug Wilson knows it because the

Bible says it He'll just say it He'll just say it damages you and if you promote it that that's disgusting.

You're hurting people And a lot of you out there that make room for it and don't really confront it directly

Don't know what it means when Psalm 15 says that one of the qualifications for dwelling on his holy hill is to Despise vile people.

Here's what it says. Let me read it again Who sojourns on your holy hill who shall dwell on your holy hill

He who walks blamelessly he who speaks truth He who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor nor takes up reproach against his friend in whose eyes a vile person is despised

You see one of the attractions of federal vision I think and and one of the reasons why one of the one of the ways it's influenced me in a good way is

Doesn't I don't have to have Complete I put this you don't have to subscribe to every doctrinal distinctive that I have in order for me to look at you as a brother

I Think this objectivity of the covenant thing is a very good impulse You know like like I'll give you a perfect example at Justin Peters, you know

Got into a little hot water for saying some things about Kanye West and I thought what he said about Kanye West was stupid

Right, but I don't have to hate Justin Peters. I don't have to call him a heretic

I don't have to say Justin Peters has a false gospel in order to in order to say that what he said

I think was stupid It's okay for me to say that what he said was dangerous and stupid and not

Disqualify him. Oh, he really believes in salvation by works or salvation by doctrine He that's what he really believes even though he says he believes in justification by faith

What he's actually believing on the down -low is a secret heretic Is that he has to show all this fruit before we can even say anything about his salvation?

No, that's not how it works. I don't have to say that about Justin Peters That's this is one of the attractions about the objectivity of the

Covenant stuff You baptized believer. You have a credible profession of faith. Are you under church discipline?

I mean, these are the questions So, okay I'll treat you like a believer and You might be a young believer that says some wrong things you might be a mature believer that just says some things that I don't agree with and that I think are very serious, but We can still have fellowship, right?

I mean, I always talk about baptism and you know, like you if you believe differently than me on baptism I think it's a very dangerous thing that you're teaching your kids

I think it's a very dangerous kind of damaging thing to not be a Presbyterian when it comes to baptism.

That's what I believe but We can we can work together

You know what? I mean? Like we can we can love each other We can we can acknowledge that the other person is trying to be faithful to God even as they articulate something differently than I do

And and look there are some there are some non -negotiables, right? But these are the things man this is what bothers me is that is that a lot of these non -negotiables like People will say well

Doug Wilson is federal vision, even though he's not a federal vision. They'll insist on calling him federal vision It Doug Wilson's federal vision denies justification by faith alone and then

Doug Wilson be like I don't deny justification by faith alone I believe in justification By grace through faith and all that kind of stuff, but he really teaches

That you have to obey. I Teach that too. You do have to obey But not to be justified before God because we make a distinction, you know, we make a distinction

We might articulate it slightly differently. We might do that kind of stuff but but but you see like like You know who doesn't dwell on his holy hill?

people who slander Others and so for you to say that, you know

I don't believe in justification by faith and all that kind of stuff when I do and I teach it and I completely teach it

It's Anyway, but but yeah, this is this is the weird thing about it is this is a weird

It's very weird. I find that that you know Doug Wilson is simultaneously like this brash guy who doesn't care what you think

When it comes to something very obvious that everyone disagrees with but on the same time He's cares very much what you think when it comes to this esoteric thing that very few people fully understand including myself

I don't necessarily think I understand it completely either But anyway, I I hope this is helpful.

I hope you're not disappointed that it wasn't a funny video I was intending on doing something different with this video, but but that's okay.