Who Said This About Vaccine Mandates?

Who said this?

The claim I am making here is very limited. If a person has decided personal convictions about the contagious disease he is carrying, the society in which he lives has an equal right to have decided and contrary convictions about that same contagious disease he has. And if there is an outbreak of such a disease, and the government quarantines everyone who is not vaccinated, requiring them to stay at home, the name for this is prudence, not tyranny.

Prudence, not tyranny.

Let’s see. COVID is a contagious disease. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard that there is an outbreak in the land of that contagious disease. Although government has not quarantined everyone who is not vaccinated, it sounds like this person would support such a dramatic move.

This view is quite bold and controversial. This person would likely be quite unwelcome at a MAGA rally. I know people who would be moved to red faced indignation at the mention of a government requirement for the unvaccinated to stay home.

Who is this bold contrarian? This defender of the greater and common good? This public health warrior?

I hope you are sitting down.

Doug Wilson.

Yes, that Doug Wilson. The 2015 Doug Wilson here.

Now in 2021 Wilson cracks on about fake vaccine identification cards, as in how and why to make them. Why would anyone do that? The 2015 Wilson said the government would be prudent to quaratine the vaccine refusers. Now, he advises people to “non-compliance with a clean conscious.” More directly, regarding the vaccine, he tells his readers: “First, if you are in a position to resist openly, do that.”

The 2015 Wilson told us that the government would be prudent to mandate a vaccine. The 2015 Wilson said:

Now I do have views on the efficacy of vaccines, but I want to address another element of this — the idea that even if they were effective, a requirement that everyone get vaccinated is necessarily statist and tyrannical. Why isn’t this a matter of personal choice and conviction? The answer is that it is not a matter of personal choice because everyone else is involved.

Now, Wilson counsels open resistance to what he calls a Biden power play.

But overarching everything was the obvious and naked nature of the power play that is being run. The Biden regime has already floated the idea of restricting interstate travel for the unvaccinated, and how would you do that without “papers please” checkpoints? Checkpoints everywhere a road passes from North Dakota into South Dakota. Don’t tell me I have a feverish imagination—I wasn’t the one who brought it up. Bans on interstate travel for the unvaccinated wasn’t my idea.

But something like it was his idea just six years ago. He said it would be prudent for the government to require the unvaccinated to stay at home. It seems to me that such a policy would prevent interstate travel. So about that feverish imagination…

Cynical me thinks that Rev. Wilson found himself an issue of real passion to conservative followers on the right and he is riding it. Maybe I didn’t read long enough to find out why he changed his mind, but the difference is striking. While we may not need a comprehensive quarantine, I think he may have been closer to correct the first time. Certainly, vaccine mandates for certain activities (work, school) have precedent and should not arouse the feverish response ginned up by the 2021 Wilson.

 

 

Rod Dreher on Doug Wilson’s Scandal in Moscow

UPDATE: Doug Wilson has responded to Dreher’s article at American Conservative. Dreher then provides a helpful analysis.

In response to several requests, I have been researching Christ Church in Moscow, ID. As time permits, I have read blogs, court docs, and emails from concerned brothers and sisters about the church pastored by Doug Wilson. Most of what I have reviewed has been extremely disturbing.

With the publication of an article by Rod Dreher today, I may not need to do much more. On the American Conservative website yesterday, Dreher brought together many of the facts of the situation which involves child abuse and what appears to be a dysfunctional church in Moscow, ID.

In essence, it seems that the leadership at Christ Church in Moscow, ID have exercised extremely poor judgment in encouraging a serial abuser to pursue a kind of therapy via marriage. In the face of evidence that Christ Church’s pastor, Doug Wilson, provided remarkably unwise advice to the abuser and a young woman who married the abuser, Wilson has gone on the defensive. Cited by Dreher, Wilson said in defense of conducting this ill-fated therapy by marriage:

 Moreover, if everything is on the table, we do not believe the church has the authority to prohibit or “not allow” a lawful marriage.

To which Dreher countered:

Really? The church has no authority to prohibit a lawful marriage? I suppose same-sex couples in Idaho can show up at Christ Church and expect Pastor Wilson to marry them, then. This, and the claim that the church can’t withhold marriage from anybody, as long as both parties know what they’re getting into, is a pretty shameless example of passing the buck for a disaster. Wilson subsequently praised himself for the way he’s conducted himself in this matter, saying that persecution is a sign of his righteousness, and sneering that his wife celebrated the criticism coming their way by buying him a bottle of single-malt Scotch.

Wilson’s brazen self-defense is in contrast to a former pastor of Christ’s Church daughter church, Peter Leithart, who has apologized for his part in another case involving abuse.

Wilson has helped pioneer the classical schooling movement and has some disturbing views of American slavery. Wilson believes slavery, while not a moral good, was more benign than American abolitionists depicted. Lost causers and Confederate sympathizers love it.

According to some near the situation (speaking to me anonymously), things are getting more and more unsettled in Moscow with some of the empire unraveling. There might be more Scotch in Wilson’s future.

On a related note, Wenatchee the Hatchet has a post on connection between Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson.