[Vision2020] Letter Not Sent?

[J Ford]

In an attempt to "excuse" his behavior, Doug puts the blame for a letter, a 
letter he says was never actually sent, squarely on the shoulders of his 
"elders".  Again, I ask:

Is this a sign of what a "minister" is supposed to be like?  Can a 
"minister" of this caliber really seriously be considered a leader of his 
flock when all he ever, ever does is pass the buck?  Are his "elders" going 
to continue to let this "water of my duck's back" type of "ministering" by 
Doug Wilson continue?  Are they going to sit by while he blames them for 
actions many, many people know he committed?  And, finally, just how many 
stories is he going to spin surrounding this ONE incident before people wake 
the heck up and see just what kind of person Doug Wilson really isn't?  If 
he is willing to "sacrifice" the elders as lambs for this "slaughter" just 
what is he going to do when the tax issue (or any other issue involving him 
and his church) come to a head?

The responses to this blog are included so that you can see not only the 
negative responses he is getting but the "blind acceptance" that his 
followers tend to give him.  The original post is located at:

http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=1998&Data=3003#posts

The Letter That Was Not Sent
Topic: A Justice Primer

For those interested, Christ Church has reposted a statement on one aspect 
of the Terry Morin affair. That statement and supporting documentation can 
be found here.

Those who have been following this sideshow know that one of the charges 
being leveled against me is that of trying to palm off an unsigned letter 
from the CEF elders as though it had actually been sent by them. Our 
response that this was done accidentally is dismissed as further evidence of 
my Mendacity.

The short form of what happened is this. The blow-up of 1993 occurred over 
my conversion to paedo-baptism. All that stuff happened. When it became 
obvious at our December 1993 heads of household meeting that the elder 
proposal letter had indeed been ill-advised, I drafted a follow-up letter 
from the elders to the congregation, one that I thought would help repair 
the damage they had done. I submitted it to the elders to send out, which 
they did not do. When the whole thing was over, I put all the papers and 
documents from this saga over the sacraments into a notebook, including the 
draft letter that had not been sent out.

About ten years went by, and a completely different controversy arose. A 
disgruntled ex-member left our church and began to assemble all the "dirt" 
he could. He connected with Terry Morin, and included some affidavits from 
Terry in his ten-pound package of charges. Why Terry cooperated with him 
without checking remains a mystery. But the fact that a former elder of our 
church was joining himself to this project was significant to us. The elders 
of Christ Church did not want to leave me to defend myself in this, and so 
they appointed a committee of elders to handle the whole thing, a committee 
I was not on. I gave them the notebook with all the stuff in it. Going 
through it, they assmed that the copy of the letter from the elders in there 
was a letter that had been sent out, and so they quoted from it in their 
response. When that quotation was challenged, we realized the mistake, 
apologized for having made it, and pulled it from our web page. But at no 
time was there a conscious attempt (on the part of anyone) to use a letter 
that had not been sent as though it had been.

The reason for the apology is that the rules of evidence apply to us as much 
as to anyone else. If we say anything in this or any dispute that cannot be 
independently confirmed, then we must not use it to advance our case. If we 
make a mistake in this regard and are called on it, we must acknowledge it 
completely, and drop any attempts to continue to use the erroneous evidence. 
This is precisely what we did.

In such a situation, we must apologize simply because it is the right thing 
to do -- even if we know that we are dealing with people who do not accept 
requests for forgiveness, but rather use them as a basis for new charges. 
That is what has happened here. Because we acknowledged that we said the 
letter was sent out (when it was not), and then apologized for the error, 
that acknowledged mistake is then transformed by our adversaries into 
something they can use to serve their bitterness. But, as God is my witness, 
this was a mistake. Not a lie, and not a forgery. Not even close.

The reasons for the mistake were entirely honest. This was a ten-year-old 
controversy that we had not been obsessing about during that time. The whole 
thing had been sitting in a notebook on a shelf for over ten times around 
the sun. We had not, like some, been brooding over it. When the subsequent 
controversy broke, and the earlier controversies were merrily rolled into 
it, on our end we were getting up to speed again. One of the reasons why 
Christians who are offended by something should go to their brother 
immediately is because (after a decade) you are not just dealing with all 
the ordinary sanctificational issues like pride, humbling yourself, and 
seeking to put yourself in your brother's shoes, you are also dealing with 
the additional complications of simple memory. I remember certain things 
from that infamous meeting in 1993 vividly, and I am sure Terry has a 
different set of vivid memories. Had Terry and I been able to work it out 
three months after it happened, we would both have had the advantage of a 
lot more and better information. What do you do when someone comes to you 
about a conversation you had with them many years ago, during which 
(according to them) you said something that was extremely hurtful, and you 
don't even remember the conversation at all? A host of questions pop up. 
"Did I say that? Could I have said something like that? Did I ever think 
that?" The way of Christ is best -- leave your gift at the altar, and go 
deal with it right away. Bitterness is one of the deadliest sins, and 
incubated bitterness is far more damaging. When it springs up, it defiles 
many (Heb. 12:15).

A second reason the mistake was entirely an honest one is this. The elders 
of Christ Church (who, incidentally, during this entire time, have acquitted 
themselves like true shepherds) are friends of mine. In the midst of a 
pretty steady stream of heaved vegetables and dead cats, they have been a 
sessional rock. It was their decision (one my wife and I greatly 
appreciated) to lead the way in defending my name and reputation. Because of 
that act of kindness, one of the documents in the notebook was 
mis-categorized.

By the way, in the previous sentence, I originally typed "in the file" 
instead of "in the notebook." But I changed it because that is the kind of 
thing that could cause some of our adversaries to accuse us of conflicting 
stories. "Was this information in a file? Or in a notebook?" It was both, a 
file of information stored in a notebook. But it is easier to just change 
the word to notebook, and thank the Lord for another troublesome controversy 
averted.

I bring this up, not to blame the elders for this very understandable 
mistake, but rather to defend them in their defense of me. Throughout the 
course of this thing, I have been slandered one way, and they in another. 
Consistently they have been represented as a bunch of men in my hip pocket, 
and that of course, I must control everything at Anselm House (bwa ha ha, 
etc.). Christ Church is Moscow's Death Star, and I spend my time in the 
nether recesses of Anselm Star making oxygen tank noises under my black 
helmet. But these elders are not capons; they are men who have everything a 
band of brothers should have -- characteristics I regard as being beyond 
price. I am surrounded by men of high intelligence, loyalty, backbone, 
independence of mind, a commitment to scriptural like-mindedness, a spirit 
of mutual submission, and a love for Jesus Christ, His Word, and His gospel. 
I am privileged to serve, I am convinced, with one of the best sessions a 
pastor could have. They have, in this instance and others, defended my 
reputation at the expense of their own. I am exceedingly grateful for it, 
and would do the same for them.

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 2/15/2006 1:12:00 PM |

    "[L]et not the sun go down 3,652 times (ever-so-carefully accounting for 
leap years!) upon your wrath." (Ephesians 4:26b, VVV*)

    *VVV=Valerie's Vernacular Version

        V (K) - 2/15/2006 2:53:18 PM | Report Comment


    Doug, This explanation doesn't fly. Weren't all three individuals on the 
Judicial commitee, Doug Jones, Chris Schlect, and Jim Nance, members of 
Christ Church back in 1993? So if the 'letter without signitures' was sent 
out at that time, as you state they erroneously assumed, wouldn't they have 
received it? Yet, when they came upon it in the folder you provided, they 
assumed it WAS sent out. They decided to claim that an unsigned letter WAS 
sent to the membership when none of them remembered recieving it. Or do they 
claim they DO remember recieving it??? Doesn't make any sense. Mark

        M K - 2/15/2006 5:20:43 PM | Report Comment

    I misspelled 'signatures', sorry.

        M K - 2/15/2006 5:22:50 PM | Report Comment

    After 10 years, I'm willing to cut just about anyone a lot of slack in 
the memory department. Heck, in my church people's memories of "who said 
what" are already severely out of synch after a year or two. If we didn't 
implicitly trust one another that our hearts are all in the right place, it 
would be very easy to suspect others of "deliberately attempting to rewrite 
history." Misunderstandings about what constitutes "the facts" in the 
here-and-now -- events as they are taking place -- are commonplace. I would 
be astounded if such misunderstandings did not occur with regard to an event 
that was already ten years old.

        Christopher Witmer - 2/15/2006 5:41:36 PM | Report Comment

    Valerie, like the British empire, the sun NEVER sets upon some people's 
wrath.

        Christopher Witmer - 2/15/2006 5:49:46 PM | Report Comment

    M, perhaps the argument is like a bumblebee. Perhaps it shouldn't be 
flying, but the fact remains that it does fly -- because it is the truth. 
The use of that letter was simply an honest mistake, period end. The only 
sane reason they would have for quoting it is if they thought it had been 
sent out. If they *knew* that it had not been sent out, then they also had 
to *know* they were trying to pull a fast one on the scores of people who 
did not get the letter, many of whom would remember that they had not gotten 
it. As John Bunyan might say, "It maketh no sense, man." Occam's razor: the 
simplest explanation is probably the best. St. Paul's razor is also good: 
the most charitable explanation is to be preferred.

        Douglas Wilson - 2/15/2006 6:09:50 PM | Report Comment

    And, of course, an even more basic question remains. How did they see 
signatures that weren't there??? Maybe I should be asking Doug, Chris, and 
Jim this, but you have put forward a post in which you wish to explain what 
happened to 'those who have been following this sideshow'. So that's why I'm 
asking you. Your post raises many more doubts and questions than it answers.

        M K - 2/15/2006 7:13:02 PM | Report Comment

    LOL! Another one for the "Best Of" file. I like to refer to Occam's 
razor myself, but St. Paul's razor! I will definitely have to remember that 
one!

        C D - 2/15/2006 7:21:53 PM |

J  :]

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