[Vision2020] Did anyone else miss it or is it just me?

[Melynda Huskey]

Ted writes:

"Those minutes, however damning you think they are (although the argument against Christ Church resembles a Yugo with one wheel), are not public documents.  To be used by those outside of the church, as they have been, is just plain wrong."

I have been giving this a lot of thought, because it suggests an ethical dilemma.  Minutes from church meetings are undoubtedly not intended for the general public or for publication.  They are, in some sense, private documents.  On the other hand, the fact that church officers intended to oversee the decisions of an elected official--with his assent to that arrangement--and ratified that intention in official documents, is a matter of interest to the electorate, who voted for Paul Kimmel, not for the elders of Christ Church.  Unless someone makes that information public, of course, we can't know it.  Paul Kimmel certainly didn't volunteer the information in his campaigning:  "If elected, I promise you, citizens of Latah County, that I will be in submission to the elders of Christ Church on certain matters."  If such an agreement was made clandestinely, the public's right to know is increased, I think, rather than decreased.  After all, the Watergate tapes were intended to be private, too.

I also think it's important to keep a reasonable separation of issues.  Questioning the decision making or performance of an elected official is *not* an argument against his or her church--even when church affiliation is an element of the concern.  No one has suggested that Paul Kimmel ought not to have made county decisions based on his principles, beliefs, and values.  Some of us do feel, quite strongly, that for him to serve as a land agent for the church while sitting on the Board of Equalization approving tax exemptions for business subsidiaries of the church was improper  The additional information that he was being governed in his decision making by the wishes of his church elders adds a further cause for concern.

As for Doug Wilson, he just doesn't come into the matter at all, as far as I can see.

Melynda HuskeyGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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