[Vision2020] Re: Stop

[Bill London]

Sent from Joan Opyr to Vision2020 at her request:


> Stop, Doug; stop spinning.  Put out the kick-stand, get off the 
> gyroscope, and stand on the solid ground.  Bite the bullet.  Accept 
> responsibility for the part you played in this whole shameful, 
> disgusting mess.  Apologize.  Make amends.  Tell your congregation, and 
> the broader community, that you made a terrible mistake, that you have 
> learned from it, and that it will not happen again.  Humble yourself.  
> Ask for forgiveness.  Expect the worst, but hope for the best.  You 
> write, talk, preach and lecture extensively about being a "Man of 
> Chest."  Why not practice being a simple adult?
> 
> A serial child molester attended New St. Andrews for 18 months.  He 
> boarded with a Christ Church family.  He was welcomed into Christ 
> Church homes, homes full of vulnerable children.  Sitler confessed his 
> crimes to you -- or sins, if you prefer -- but for eight long months, 
> you did not see fit to alert more than a few select members of your 
> church.  Some in the Christ Church family are only just now finding 
> about Mr. Sitler, and they are finding out in the worst possible way: 
> through an unmoderated Internet chat group.  They should have been told 
> by you, their pastor.  While you dithered and you strategized and you 
> waited, children who may have been in need of counseling and assistance 
> were neglected.  Your negligence is inexcusable.  Don't try to excuse 
> it.  Don't try to change the subject.  Own up.  You broke trust with 
> your congregation, Doug, and you broke trust with the broader Moscow 
> community.  At this point, you may not be able to fix things, but you 
> might at least accept the responsibility you bear and repair what 
> damage you can.
> 
> You tell us that Jamin Wight is a hypocrite, and that he was expelled 
> from Greyfriars.  Spin, spin, spin.  When Wight committed his crimes, 
> he was a student in good standing.  But you tells us that none of this 
> is your fault.  This is all about your "enemies," about people who out 
> to get you; who are out to bring you down; who are out to destroy the 
> saints of Christ Church.  No, Doug.  This is not The Pastor Wilson 
> Show.  This is not the time for you to play bride at the wedding and 
> corpse at the funeral.  It's time to play focus on the families, Doug.  
> Focus on your flock and, if you can find it in your Grinchly heart, you 
> might try to spare a thought for the rest of Moscow as well.
> 
> This is a town of only 21,000 people.  According to 
> http://www.watchdog.com, there are 20 registered sex offenders in the 
> 83843 zipcode.  You're not responsible for any of them, except insofar 
> as we are all responsible for one another.  We all have an obligation 
> to our children and to ourselves to be protective and vigilant.  When 
> it comes to Jamin Wight and Steven Sitler, however, you do bear a 
> peculiar burden.  No one could or should blame you or Christ Church for 
> what these men did, but you are open to fair criticism in your response 
> to their actions.  Why the eight month delay in telling (select) 
> members fo you congregation about Steven Sitler?  Why did you not 
> mention of Jamin Wight?  If you failed to mention them because you were 
> worried about bad press, you sadly miscalculated.  You've now got bad 
> press in spades.  You could have avoided that.  You could have avoided 
> all of this by the simple expedient of justly serving your flock and by 
> having a care, however slight, for the Moscow community.  Instead, you 
> sat and you fretted, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You plotted 
> and planned and strategized not like a minister with a trouble flock 
> but like Donald Rumsfeld with Abu Ghraib.
> 
> The penitent man is humble before God; he kneels before God.  (No, I'm 
> not quoting the Bible.  I'm quoting from "Indiana Jones and the Last 
> Crusade."  If Jesus is too turn-the-other-cheeky for you, Doug, then 
> perhaps you'll listen to Harrison Ford.  Or Chuck Norris.)  
> Technically, I am off Vision 2020, but I will ask Bill London to 
> forward this letter to the list.  I left the list several weeks ago 
> without writing one of those annoying public farewells, AKA the Cartman 
> "Screw you guys, I'm going home" letter.  Instead, when the level of 
> noise-to-content on Vision 2020 reached intolerable, I exited, stage 
> left, and got together with my friend Chasuk to begin work on a 
> moderated community blog called Liberal Moscow.  It should be up and 
> running next week.  Chasuk will make an invitation/announcement on this 
> list, and I do hope many of you will join us.
> 
> But that's for next week.  To get back to the issue at hand, I don't 
> know how others feel, but friends have forwarded me some of the 
> insensible back-and-forth on Vision 2020.  It comprises the inevitable 
> mix of a few seeds of truth, a lot of misinformation, disinformation, 
> and far too much rank speculation.  You say, Doug, that your concern is 
> primarily for the victims of Sitler and Wight.  If that were so, you 
> wouldn't have made such a dog's dinner of the whole damned thing.  You 
> would have addressed these matters up front, clearly and forcefully.  
> Instead, eight months of silence suggests that you instead worried 
> about how to spin this so that your "enemies" didn't use these cases to 
> rain down shame and disrepute on your college and your seminary.
> 
> You sat behind me in court at Jamin Wight's sentencing, Doug, and you 
> and my mother-in-law exchanged some harsh words afterwards.  What then 
> did you do?  This was on May 12th.  A look at the archives on your blog 
> (http://dougwils.com) indicates that you beetled down the hill from the 
> courthouse to Anselm as fast as your legs would carry you.  You did not 
> pass go; you did not collect $200.  You immediately posted a paranoid 
> and cryptic warning to those in know that you anticipated a hostile 
> broadside against the Church from its infidel enemies.  You said that 
> "the Intoleristas" would be eager to take this tragedy and use it to 
> bring you down, the victims be damned.  You were wrong.  Again.  This 
> story broke on Michael Metzler's blog (http://poohsthink.com).  Michael 
> is (or until very recently was) a Greyfriars' student himself and a 
> member in good standing of your own flock.  It was from Poohsthink that 
> this story exploded onto Vision 2020.  Those of us you call 
> Intoleristas, and against whom you direct your imprecatory prayers, 
> have known about these cases for weeks.  I  have known about them for 
> months, but I have said nothing.  I didn't write about Sitler and Wight 
> on Vision 2020, nor yet on New West.  Perhaps I should have done the 
> latter; New West is, after all, paying me.  But to be honest, I didn't 
> think I could do the story (or the families involved) justice.  I 
> didn't think I was qualified to break this case to the public because I 
> am not a trained journalist.  This was a story for a professional.  I'm 
> still waiting for one to step up to the plate -- preferably a real 
> hard-ass with a strong investigative track record.  Attention any 
> budding Woodward or Bernstein: this one's all yours.  Please, do it 
> justice.
> 
> That's my story and my hope.  Now let's ask why none of the 
> "Intoleristas" made this public?  Perhaps it was because they each came 
> to conclusion that doing so would hurt the victims.  Some things are 
> more important than the desire to kick your ass up between your ears.  
> The families of Christ Church and the victims of Sitler and Wight are 
> real, live human beings.  They are not a backboard for scoring 
> three-point rim shots off the great Douglas J. Wilson.  You thought 
> that's what the families were to us, didn't you?  Because that's what 
> they were to you.  (Please, prove me wrong on this.  It would be a 
> relief to me to think that you cared for your flock more than you care 
> for your reputation and your lofty ambitions.  I honestly don't want to 
> think as ill of you as I do.  I don't want to believe that a man of 
> your abilities, your intellect, and your obvious charm is as 
> self-centered as I've come to fear that you are.  I don't enjoy being a 
> cynic; I consider it a moral failing.  What I want is to believe in the 
> perfectibility of humankind.)
> 
> I've written before on Vision 2020 about the double-entendre in the 
> title of your book, "Future Men."  I'll soon be writing about it again 
> -- this time for New West.  I'll repeat myself here and rehash what I 
> said in that earlier post, just in case you missed it.  In my many 
> written exchanges with the male members of the Kirk, I've come to 
> understand that all of the men who follow you, Doug, are "future men."  
> None of them are men, meaning adults, in the here and now.  You all 
> operate in a kind of Peter Pan Neverland.  You play-act at being Oxford 
> dons; at being professors, or seminary students, or poets, 
> philosophers, theologians, theocrats, great writers and great thinkers. 
>   As you puff on your cigars and swill your fine brandy, you also play 
> at being jolly Victorian patriarchs.  You claim authority and status, 
> respect and power that you have not earned and do not deserve.  You 
> claim omniscience.  There is nothing that you will not pretend to know 
> and no subject on which you will not speak with the blustering 
> inerrancy of a precocious 14-year old.  Back when you started Logos 
> School, Doug, you advertised a full classical curriculum.  At the time, 
> you were taking beginning Latin at the University of Idaho.  What 
> qualified you to teach it at your school?  Sheer hubris, that's what.  
> You wanted to teach Latin because you wanted to offer a full classical 
> curriculum and so, by God, you did.  No wonder you are so dismissive of 
> public education and university teaching credentials.  If you admitted 
> that there were such a thing as genuine qualifications, you'd be up 
> Brown Creek without a paddle.  I suppose we should consider ourselves 
> lucky that you didn't decide that you were self-qualified to perform 
> brain surgery -- but then Granny Clampett of "The Beverly Hillbillies" 
> had already beaten you to the punch with her pioneering work on the 
> head transplant.
> 
> I know that you are an admirer of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," Doug.  So 
> am I.  "The Art of War" is a masterpiece of strategy if what you want 
> to do is conquer.  I don't want to conquer; I want to abide.  I want to 
> survive and thrive and live a genuinely good life to the best of my 
> ability.  I sincerely wish that you would (or could) do the same.  I 
> recommend to you Yagyu Munenori's "The Life-Giving Sword."  I've taken 
> to reading it instead of Sun Tzu, paying special attention to "the art 
> of the no-sword."  Once you've internalized the strength of your sword, 
> you need never use it again.  Think about that.
> 
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
> www.joanopyr.com
>