Steven Sitler (was Re: [Vision2020] Dale and Beingpicky)

[Michael]

Princess,

 

Because of the strength of your points here and the surface plausibility of
your argument, I am inclined to offer a challenge to your defense of Wilson
(although I wish you would reveal your identity).  I did not want to make
this a Wilson-bashing contest, but for the sake of clarity and balance, I
will need to darken the skies a little bit; for me, the hope for a just and
loving Wilson is simply no more. However, I do applaud your valiant defense;
I wish I could agree with your post.

 

I believe there are many problems with your argument here, but here I will
just name a few: First of all, there are years worth of context already in
place; at this point, after the kind of confirmed testimony against pastor
Wilson and his repeated habit of using sheep as a shield or else attempting
to destroy them when they publicly dissent, it is not reasonable to ask
outsiders to all this (or to those already critical) to judge each and every
one of Wilson's actions in a neutral void.  The overall story line is
essential; context is crucial at this point. Your argument does not grant
this larger story.

 

Second, Wilson has already responded to this in detail.  The way Wilson has
responded to this has been petty, self-defensive, slanderous,  dishonest,
and revealing of the fact that he is really the last person in Moscow to
care about the feelings of the victims right now.  To defend Wilson against
the implicit accusations here you must also defend the way Wilson has thus
far responded to this.  But you do not do that here. The way Wilson responds
to these kinds of situations is one of the primary concerns of X-Kirkers who
believe that Christ Church is a cult.

 

Third, your primary claim here is unfortunately not true at all.  Generally,
your point seems to be that if Wilson was a bad man he would have declared
the news publicly, but if Wilson was a good man he would have concealed it
the way he has.  However, I have known Wilson for over a decade, and based
on this I cannot imagine Wilson wanting to trumpet this information
publicly.  One of the things that started giving me the creeps a couple
years ago while I was studying directly under him in a special, private
mentorship, was the fact that it was becoming apparent that Wilson's little
darling was the political and financial success of New St. Andrew's College.
Wilson is an ambitious leader, a politician.  He is not a pastor, and he is
certainly not a humble ambassador of the gospel.  He is building a
reputation, a following, an institution, and in his greatest hopes, an
entire sub-culture and mighty cathedral.  I can only imagine that you are
either in the Kirk, princess, or else have part of your social identity
wrapped up with pastor Wilson; rarely do those fully 'outside' all this not
see much of what I am outlining here.  Wilson persistently conceals problems
within the church, particularly anything relating to the health of NSA. More
to the argumentative point: Advertising that a NSA student, in good standing
in church and school, had been doing what he was doing for 18 months within
the protective walls of Kirk-Jerusalem is not what we would call a good
marketing tactic for New St. Andrews.  

 

Fourth, given Wilson's psychology, I think it is very plausible that he
thought this was not going to get out.  But either way, his goal would be to
mitigate the damage as much as possible, just as he is trying to do right
now--a method that includes demonizing me like never before. 

 

I am astounded at Wilson's response to this so far, which has weakened my
hope to keep all this civil and protective of the victims.  This should not
be primarily a battle between Metzler and Wilson, but Wilson is aggressively
bent on making it so. If this leads to further revelation of Wilson's
corruption, so be it. It will be his doing. 

 

Sincerely,

Michael Metzler 

     

 

 

J Ford's allies over at Little Jim-Bob Way dot com are spinning this as "The
First United Church of CYA." If Rev. Wilson was really the sort of person
his enemies claim he is, the easiest thing for him to do as pastor of Christ
Church would have been, immediately upon Sitler's problems coming to his
attention, to hold a press conference announcing to the whole world what had
happened, and calling for victims everywhere to come forward into the light
to join in the public prosecution of this criminal. The easiest thing for
him to do would have been to write to the judge, "Lock him up and throw away
the key." In other words, the easiest thing for him to do, if he was the
kind of man his enemies claim he is, would have been exactly the sorts of
things they loudly proclaim he should have done. Now that would be CYA. But
what did he do? Knowing full well that this could not be kept secret, and
knowing full well that his enemies would have a field day with it, he took
an approach that shows genuine concern for achieving healing -- both on the
part of the victims and on the part of the perpetrator. Since the details
are not knowable, it is not possible for me to say whether Rev. Wilson took
the course of greatest wisdom in the way he dealt with it. But what this
whole incident makes manifestly obvious is that his overriding concern as
pastor is to faithfully serve Jesus Christ. It is safe to surmise from this
that compared with his concern for faithfully serving Jesus Christ, he could
care less what his enemies think about him -- indeed, he could care less
what his own flock thinks about him. I say that not in any absolute sense,
but only relatively speaking. In the end, when push comes to shove, he only
cares about what Jesus Christ thinks about him, and nothing else. Because if
he was any other kind of man, publicly washing his hands of Steven Sitler
would have been the easiest thing to do. I'm not saying we can conclude that
Rev. Wilson took the wisest course of action. But this whole incident
reveals mountains about the essential purity of his most basic faith
commitment. And the fact that Rev. Wilson's enemies can't see this plain
fact is because they are the sort of people that he claims they are: 

spiritually blind.

 

-- Princess Sushitushi

 

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