All Heat No Light

Sometimes the difference between making yourself clearly understood and leaving yourself open to wild misinterpretation can be measured in minutes.

Picture this. You’re on social media last week checking out the feeds of a couple of evangelicals you follow, and you come across this exchange:

Do you assume Doug Wilson is urging Americans to go to war with Iran in solidarity with Israel? Maybe.

A Question of Timing

Israel’s attack on Iran was Friday morning, though there’s no doubt it was anticipated in the US media days earlier, so I suppose much depends on when you read it. And whether you look at the timestamp. And whether you calculate time differences. And whether you give the benefit of the doubt when you come across a comment that looks a little questionable. Assuming you don’t do any of the above, a casual read might cause you to misconstrue Doug’s meaning.

In any case, of the 113 commenters who reacted to Doug’s comment on X on June 12 or 13, a non-trivial minority assumed he was promoting US intervention in the war between Israel and Iran.

Oops. He wasn’t.

As the timestamp shows, Doug posed his question to Stephen Wolfe on Thursday evening. He says he didn’t know about Israel’s attack on Iran at the time, and the timestamp gives us no obvious reason to disbelieve him, even if we were so inclined. Nevertheless, he was promptly called an “Israel First boomercuck”, “stupid”, “rabbi”, “tiresome” and “gay” (though that last one was framed as a question, not an assertion). Doug’s a big boy, and he’s unlikely to go home and cry in his beer over the nasty names. He just wrote a column about it instead, as some of us are inclined.

Fuel to the Fire

Now, Stephen Wolfe’s book on Christian Nationalism argues its case from the Reformed position, though Wolfe himself insists he is no theologian. My point? In true supersessionist fashion, there’s a strong likelihood the words “chosen people” in his comment were intended to refer to Christians, not Jews. I believe Wolfe is saying that in addition to family, friends and country, he would be willing to die for fellow believers in Jesus Christ. He is not implying he is willing to die for the nation of Israel. The casual reader on social media cannot be expected to know this, and it’s not impossible that Wolfe deliberately used that turn of phrase to tweak dispensational readers. At least one commenter seems convinced this was the case. Why not? “Chosen people” are trigger words these days. Either way, Wolfe’s use of the phrase surely contributed significantly to the assumption that Doug was talking politics rather than personal ethics. That’s not Wolfe’s fault, necessarily, or Doug’s. The latter was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time asking the wrong question of a guy who may have been being just that tad bit too clever-clever for anyone’s good. However, it added fuel to the fire.

Also adding fuel to the fire: Doug’s reference to Jerusalem and Jericho probably set certain individuals off on the wrong course. But that came right out the parable he was using to make his argument. Doug later clarified his position on American involvement in a war with Iran. By then, of course, the horses had bolted. I guess it’s still useful to secure the barn door for next time:

“I am fully supportive of Israel’s responsibility to fight her own wars. We should have nothing to do with it. Our only responsibility should be to veto condemnations of Israel in the U.N. That would be standing up for Israel’s responsibility to fight her own wars.”

So if Wilson wasn’t just “shilling for Israel”, as he’s frequently accused of doing, what was he trying to get at anyway? I will concede it’s not obvious to me.

Not Shilling for Israel

Doug writes:

“My reply had nothing to do with whether America should go to war with Iran. But it has everything to do with whether a Christian’s ethical duties to ‘neighbor’ can be provincially restricted in any a priori way, in the way that Stephen framed it.”

Okay, so he’s posing a personal hypothetical to Wolfe that involves rewriting the original parable of the good Samaritan to approach the concept of Christian neighborliness from a different angle. However, as commenter JD responded:

“It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that, if you have to explicitly contort scripture by changing the language and geographical and temporal context of parables to justify your position, you aren’t on the biblical side of the argument.”

I find that argument persuasive.

Now, as to Doug’s actual question, would I put myself at risk to defend a fellow believer under personal, physical attack, like the man in the parable? Should I? I think it very much depends on the situation, on how quickly and accurately you are able to discern what’s actually happening, and on your assessment of whether your involvement will actually make any sort of measurable difference in the situation. I hate to speculate about hypotheticals, and especially highly inflammatory hypotheticals. I’m well prepared to leave this particular case alone.

A Teaching Moment?

Frankly, the whole episode was unfortunate, with respect to both the timing and the magnitude of the misunderstanding. Sadly, it’s not the first brouhaha of its sort, and it won’t be the last. What can we learn from this episode and other similar episodes on social media?

• Most people don’t read carefully, including Christians.
• Sarcasm and theological in-references don’t come across to most casual readers.
• Hypothetical questions about how to apply scripture rarely result in profitable exchanges.
• If people are determined to misread you, they’ll misread you no matter how much you qualify what you are saying. But why hand your detractors the rope to hang you with by engaging in short-form repartee that is more open than most to misinterpretation?
• Lots of Christians are not supportive of Israel in the present moment. Lots are. Doug’s comment had almost 400 ‘likes’, notwithstanding the nastier responses.

Few of these are novel observations. Much more to come on this issue, I am sure.