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1. A bizarre comment thread has developed after Wilson attempted an objective historical analysis of the history of American journalism (Wilson argues for bar brawling after dismissing the possibility of empirical, rational knowledge of the world).

   A Kirker layman explained that prophet Wilson is a better source of information than all the free American journalists and academics combined:

   I want to read writers who know where they stand and don’t pretend to be floating miles above their subject. Journalists and academics write themselves out, as if they didn’t exist. Their writing does not contain opinions but only assumes the correctness of whatever is fashionable. It’s hard to say how much of that is lack of self-awareness and how much is cynical manipulation.

   And then another gentlemen admitted – date stamped and in writing mind you – that religion is a form of brain washing:

   Brain washing either by worldly wisdom or by the water of the Word is inevitable. Audio Bibles are one of the best uses of modern technology.

   None of Wilson’s readers are protesting. That is perhaps an understatement. This is a nice sampling of Wilson’s readership.

    

   Comment by Michael Metzler — April 23, 2009 @ 8:52 am

    

2. My own take is that academics are largely people who enjoyed school, found success in school, and saw the chance to continue that success. One should predict no more radicalism or public involvement from them than from any other group of similar social background — perhaps a bit less, given the extent to which rule-abiding is necessary for success in school, or perhaps a bit more, given the extent to which the university environment (in some ways) encourages it.

    

   Comment by Eric Schwitzgebel — April 24, 2009 @ 7:43 am

    

3. Eric,

   Good point about social situation. I was thinking of the academic here more from my own point of view; but it is true, most academics are those who in a sense never left school. But what then, is the role of tenure, if not to protect the freedom of radical ideas?

    

   Comment by metzler — April 24, 2009 @ 4:15 pm

    

4. To protect the freedom of any old ideas! (Whether it’s necessary for this in the current cultural milieu is debatable. Also debatable is whether the benefit is worth the cost.)

    

   Comment by Eric Schwitzgebel — April 24, 2009 @ 4:26 pm

    

5. Hmmmm. Darwinianism is an old idea, yet was too radical for teachers to espouse in Tennessee as late as the 1920s. But something tells me that the old ideas in analytic philosophy do not deserve this kind of preservation.

    

   Comment by metzler — April 24, 2009 @ 4:38 pm

    

6. Wow. I just read Molly Worthen’s New York Times Magazine investigation of Mark Driscoll. This made me think of my self-appointed question about X-elder:

   Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself.

   Mark Driscoll is one of the few pastors Wilson provides a link to on his blog. The infamous Bayly Brothers is another.

    

   Comment by metzler — April 24, 2009 @ 8:01 pm

    

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