[Vision2020] Wilson continues the lies

[J Ford]

Wilson's own words otherwise known as lies (Does the following mean the Dale 
will no longer be posting information regarding other people's sexual 
deviation - people NOT in the kirkhood?  Or is this just another stab at 
those who would expose Wilson for the liar and deceiver that he is?)  BTW - 
seems funny that NONE of what Wilson says here is backed up by the court 
papers - I know, I know....nuisance facts getting in the way of his art of 
lieing and patting-myself-on-the-back that he likes to do:

This is a public statement, made on behalf of the session of Christ Church:

On June 5, 2006, a disgruntled former member of our church took it upon 
himself to post an announcement on his web site about a former NSA student, 
Steven Sitler, who has been convicted of child molestation. This posting was 
done in the context of scurrilous speculation about our church and, given 
the history of that web site, was par for the course. Because of this 
posting, and how it has been picked up with glee at other irresponsible web 
sites, we have a pastoral need to comment on certain things which (for the 
sake of the victims and their families) we would have preferred not to 
discuss. But the salient facts which are now necessary to state are these:

1. The pastor and elders of Christ Church deeply regret that the enemies of 
our church have decided that additional pain to the families of the victims 
is worth the petty political points they think they can score with this.

2. When this criminal behavior was first discovered, the family of one of 
the victims came immediately to Douglas Wilson, who encouraged them in their 
responsibility to turn Steven Sitler into the civil authorities, which they 
were already intending to do, and immediately did. Our church immediately 
recognized the limits of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the lawful 
jurisdiction of the civil authorities in this, and turned it over to them. 
This entire process has been a textbook case of scriptural cooperation 
between church and legal authorities, with us providing spiritual counsel to 
those involved.

3. Information about the additional crimes came out in the course of 
pastoral counsel that was provided to Steven Sitler by us, and he was told 
to confess everything that he had done to the authorities, which he did. The 
goal throughout this process was to offer the grace of God in Christ to 
Steven without sacrificing what the Bible requires with regard to civil 
justice being done.

4. One slanderous claim on this attack web site was that the elders of our 
church withheld information from the parents of our church, information 
which they clearly needed to know. To quote that site: "This post is 
similar, except that it brings heavy tidings to the Palouse, providing 
information that the Kirk elders neglected to tell you" (emphasis ours). The 
problem for our enemies here is that we did inform the households of our 
congregation about the situation on at least several documented occasions 
last year. There is a detailed discussion of the issue (including Steven's 
identity) in my minister's report to the parish heads of households meeting 
on November 8, 2005. The minutes of the church-wide heads of households 
meeting for both Christ Church and Trinity Reformed (Dec. 13, 2005) also 
show that the situation was again discussed, with Steven Sitler again 
discussed by name. In addition, although Steven was not a member of Christ 
Church, his hometown church informed their congregation of what he had done, 
in the context of suspending him from the Lord's Supper.

5. While Steven Sitler was engaged in his horrific behavior, he did not 
think of what his behavior would do to his victims because it was "all about 
him." The pathetic individuals who are gleefully circulating this 
information now have the same problem. They pursue their own desires, and 
somebody else pays.

6. While this circumstance is particularly awful, there is always sin in the 
church: sins of predation, sins of parental neglect, sins of attitude, and 
sins in between all these. We are not called to live in a sinless 
environment; we are called to respond to the inevitable sin the way the 
Bible tells us to. We are called to minister to those maimed or hurt by it, 
to those crippled by inflicting it, and not to circle over any of them like 
vultures.

7. Steven is in the Latah County jail, where he belongs, and Douglas Wilson 
visits him there. The adversaries of our church who are behaving this way 
are in a different kind of prison, the kind that doesn't have visiting 
hours.

This is the situation I anticipated a few weeks ago on this blog, and now 
here we are. When I said in the comments section of that post that any sex 
scandal would have to manufactured in the same way the so-called gambling 
scandal was, this obviously did not mean that there was no sin involved in 
it. It means that our accusers want these to be examples of pastoral scandal 
when they are actually examples of individuals sinning and pastors and 
elders then dealing with them accordingly. It takes a special kind of mind 
to take a situation where elders deal with sin in the way God requires and 
somehow turn it into an outrage.

In my earlier post, I said this:

As a pastor for almost thirty years, I have seen quite a number of people 
destroy their lives, marriages or both through sexual disobedience. 
Sometimes there is church discipline. Sometimes the cops need to be 
involved, along with the prosecutor. Sometimes lawyers help a couple divide 
up what they both threw away. Sometimes there are children who were abused, 
kids whose wounds won't really bleed until they've grown. And so we can 
expect (at some point) the accusation that pastoring people who have wounded 
themselves this way is somehow a subsidy. But Jesus said that He came for 
the sick ones, not for the healthy. That is simply the grace and goodness of 
God.

As we contemplate the true destructiveness of sin, and we are sickened by 
what people can do, we always have to remember the undeserved grace of God. 
This grace has come to all of us, and it can therefore reach the most 
defiled. This includes people like Steven Sitler, but it also includes those 
people who take sick pleasure in scoring points with a human tragedy like 
this. For all concerned, please pray that God would mete out grace and 
justice according to His Word.
Posted by Douglas Wilson - 6/6/2006 6:14:29 PM



J  :]

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