After learning that New St. Andrews College now has permission to take over more of downtown Moscow, I thought I would check out its website. I had not done so since 2010, and I was in for a surprise.<\/p>\n

Instead of pictures of macho guys (and only a few women) wanting to rumble, I found no machismo and almost double the number of young women. Has there been a change in the culture of the college? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

In 2010 the headline is \u201cYo, Secularism, Why Don\u2019t We Step into the Alley?\u201d The page describes the NSA faculty as \u201cnot timid in a rumble,\u201d and they want to make the students \u201cdangerous\u201d so that they can \u201cthrow the lies of this age up against the wall, lifting wallets and the occasional gift card.\u201d It ends with \u201can invitation to a brawl.\u201d See for yourself at www.NickGier.com\/NSAGangWarfare.pdf.<\/p>\n

After the initial shock receded, my first thought was \u201cHow can they possibly recruit young women with this raw machismo\u201d? Out of seven images only one includes female students.<\/p>\n

Silly me, I forgot that some females might want to go to a college where they can meet \u201creal\u201d Christian men to whom they can be properly submissive. These evangelical brawlers would defend their honor in an alley or anywhere for that matter.<\/p>\n

NSA men, however, would not defend their ladies\u2019 right to vote. According to NSA\u2019s founder, Douglas Wilson, misguided women might decide to cancel out their husband\u2019s wise choices in church and political matters. Wilson also believes that only propertied males should vote.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cmuscular Christianity\u201d came out of the Victorian Age, where Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes encouraged young men to combine Christian ideals with physical conditioning. Thanks to muscular Christianity, I built up some pretty nice biceps at the local gym of the Young Men\u2019s Christian Association, but I still ended up with the Unitarians, who of course cannot fight their way out of a wet paper bag.<\/p>\n

I would like to propose that the New St. Andrew\u2019s thespians do an adaptation of West Side Story. Instead of the white working-class Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, the gangs should be renamed the Crusaders and the Infidels.<\/p>\n

I foresee two snags in this version of the play. Although the killing of Maria\u2019s brother by the Jet\u2019s Tony could go ahead, the love story between Christian Tony and non-Christian Maria would be a real stretch. NSA men must get the permission from a potential date\u2019s father (or from Wilson in loco parentis), and Maria would have to convert.<\/p>\n

Even more problematic is the fact that there can be no truce between the gangs at the end. For Wilson and other conservative evangelicals, there will be bitter warfare until Christ comes to smite the infidels.<\/p>\n

In 1964 Douglas\u2019 father, Jim Wilson, wrote a small book entitled \u201cPrinciples of War: A Handbook on Strategic Evangelism.\u201d In an interview I told Wilson Pere that I thought that upraised sword on the front cover of the book was rather provocative, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said that it was only a symbol. A very dangerous symbol, I was tempted to add.<\/p>\n

Wilson assured me that this was spiritual, not physical warfare, but being thrown up against a wall sounds pretty physical to me.<\/p>\n

Has Douglas Wilson\u2019s \u201cTrinitarian skylarking\u201d now turned into godly gang warfare? An example of the former is an outrageous April Fool\u2019s stunt. In 1999 NSA students stole University of Idaho letterhead and used the English department\u2019s FAX line to announce a feminist scholar who would lecture topless. Wilson later admitted encouraging his students to do the deed.<\/p>\n

As a \u201cpost-millennialist\u201d Wilson believes that there will a 1,000-year Christian theocracy with strict enforcement of biblical law until Christ deigns to appear. I might prefer to get it over with more quickly in the \u201cpre-millennial\u201d Rapture. I\u2019ll paraphrase John Milton\u2019s Satan: I would rather fry in the Rapture and take my chances in Hell than serve oppressive Christian masters.<\/p>\n

During the time that Wilson was taking my philosophy courses in the UI Administration Building, a saying appeared in the third floor men\u2019s restroom. It read: \u201cA long war is a small price to pay for eternal peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might ask: What kind of peace is this when everyone who has not converted to your religion has been killed? Now that would be the ultimate in Christian terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After learning that New St. Andrews College now has permission to take over more of downtown Moscow, I thought I would check out its website. I had not done so since 2010, and I was in for a surprise. Instead…<\/p>\n