[Vision2020] An Open Letter to Dave Johnson, the Daily News,
and Lewiston Tribune
Joe Campbell
joekc at adelphia.net
Thu Jun 8 17:35:30 PDT 2006
Doug,
Sorry to take so long in getting back to you. I've been pretty busy since getting back from Slovenia.
You write: "Two members of our community did do some awful things. But the only risk that anyone faced occurred /before /those sins were discovered. After those sins were discovered by the church, no one was at risk at all. The reason no one was at risk after these discoveries was that we did what responsible churches are supposed to do in such circumstances."
I understand what you are saying here but you have to admit that from my vantage point I can’t be certain that any of this is true. (a) Several folks have said things that seems to contradict some of what you say above. Couple this with the fact that (b) I have actually read essays of yours where you argue that it is OK for Christians to lie to non-Christians, and (c) I have read essays of yours which suggest that you would not consider me to be a genuine Christian, despite my claims to the contrary.
Given (a), (b), and (c), what would you believe, were you in my shoes?
You write: "When a child molester is discovered, the laws of our community require that it be reported to the appropriate authorities, which is exactly what we did, within hours. The law should not require, and in fact does not require, an announcement to the public that someone is accused of child molestation."
Are you suggesting that every time you know about some law being violated by some member of your congregation, you are obligated to report it to the authorities?
After all, the "gambling ring" was illegal, you knew about it, yet you did not report it, right? So that has to count as prima facie evidence that you do not always report the illegal activities of your church members. Together with the claims from others that in fact you knew about allegations of sexual abuse before it was reported, it would be epistemically irresponsible of me to believe you. This is not proof that what you say is false but a responsible epistemic agent should believe otherwise.
Finally, you write: "can you see how, from our perspective, this is all just harassment simpliciter?"
Well, not really. It is hard for me to see how much of this is not harassment since I am generally on the side of this debate that is critical of CC and NSA.
I am a straight, white, church-going Christian, so I'm not sure why I would pick another straight, white, church-going Christian to harass. Sure, I disagree with some of your specific views but that is true of most other folks, as well. As you no doubt know by now, I'm a professional philosopher. Most of the folks I know disagree with me on some issue or other. Moreover, it is hard to get much work done in philosophy if you decide to harass those with whom you disagree.
My recent desire to talk about all this now has little to do with your religious and philosophical views and more to do with what I perceive to be a demonstrated disrespect for the law and the democratic process. You tell me I've got you all wrong but really, Doug, the actions of NSA and CC speak louder than your words. The attempt to recuse Ament gives me no indication that you care one bit about my views about this subject.
I am not saying that you are lying. For all I KNOW, everything you say may well be true. But why should I believe any of it?
Best, Joe
---- Douglas <dougwils at christkirk.com> wrote:
=============
Dear Joe,
I don't mind being called "Doug" at all. Let me address your points in
order.
1. Two members of our community did do some awful things. But the only
risk that anyone faced occurred /before /those sins were discovered.
After those sins were discovered by the church, no one was at risk at
all. The reason no one was at risk after these discoveries was that we
did what responsible churches are supposed to do in such circumstances.
In your follow-up email, you ask this: "give me one good reason to think
that you, Doug Wilson, do not believe that you and your congregation are
above and beyond the laws of our community?" Here is the good reason.
When a child molester is discovered, the laws of our community /require
/that it be reported to the appropriate authorities, which is exactly
what we did, within hours. The law should not require, and in fact does
not require, an announcement to the public that someone is accused of
child molestation. Rather, we have courts, and a legal process, that we
are supposed to follow. You can know that we will do this in the future
from how we have carefully done it in the past. In the Sitler case, we
scrupulously followed the law. The things you are apparently wanting us
to have done would have been unethical and probably illegal. So how can
you know we follow the law? Because we do.
2. The notorious "gambling ring" was shut down by us as soon as we found
out about it, and we promptly notified our congregation about what we
had done. What was it you wanted us to do? One of our slanderers has
dubbed it "a casino," which makes it sound like they had blinking lights
on the roof, and billboards by the highway. It was actually some dumb
college kids in Misdemeanorville who still had some growing up to do.
Fortunately, they appear to be doing so, while some of their obsessive
critics do not appear to be so fortunate.
3. You should note that the questions about zoning and boarding houses
are (at the very least) debatable issues. And until recently, one of the
items you could have added to your list was the battle over tax
apportionment, in which debate Logos School, CCM, NSA, and Christ Church
were all vindicated this last week by the State Board of Tax Appeals. So
perhaps a better question would concern why all these zoning complaints,
children taking wine for communion in the Kibbie Dome complaints,
slavery booklet complaints, tax apportionment complaints, perjury
complaints to the Attorney General, boarding house complaints, and
Greyfriar hypocrisy complaints ARE ALL COMING FROM THE SAME SMALL BAND
OF PEOPLE.
4. Consequently, we can say that of course there is reason for concern.
But it has been, from the very beginning, a manufactured concern.
Joe, can you see how, from our perspective, this is all just harassment
/simpliciter/?
Douglas Wilson
Joe Campbell wrote:
> Dear Doug,
>
> I hope you don't mind me addressing you by your first name. I prefer to be called 'Joe.'
>
> I'm having a difficult time understanding your point. Joan's point made a lot of sense to me. Two members of your group committed unspeakable sins, sins that put several members of the community at risk. As far as I can tell the fact that these acts occurred was hidden from the community.
>
> Nor was this the first time something like this happened. There is the notorious gambling incident: several violations of the law yet no charges filed. If you put it all together you seem to have introduced a frightening element into the community, where members of your congregation are allowed to commit whatever crimes they wish and we can only hope that you'll handle the situation correctly. Coupled with the zoning violations and illegal boarding houses hovering around your various organizations, it at least appears as if you think that you are above and beyond the laws of our community.
>
> Can you at least understand that, from the perspective of many of us, there is reason for concern? Yet when folks like Joan and Michael voice their concern, they are publicly attacked.
>
> What is the cause for this apparent double standard -- the public humiliation of your critics and the deadening silence of sins performed by your own?
>
> Best, Joe
>
> ---- Douglas Wilson <dougwils at christkirk.com> wrote:
>
> =============
> Visionaries,
>
> When people sin, other people suffer. Sin destroys. When people within
> the Christian community sin hypocrtically and with a high hand, their
> fellow Christians suffer. And whenever this happens, unbelievers are
> given free rein (by God Himself) to gloat about it. When King David
> sinned like this, he became the object of scorn in the songs of
> drunkards, and, it has to be said, he deserved every stanza. So we do
> not protest the chortling at our expense -- God is delivering no
> injustice to us. All His ways are good. If a Greyfriar student does
> something sexually grotesque, like Jamin did, or goes off on a
> pharisaical jag like Michael Metzler, it is certainly a personal
> embarrassment to me, as well as an embarrassment to the whole program.
> But ministerial training programs can survive embarrassments -- what
> they will not survive is a lack of integrity which refuses to discipline
> for such things.
>
> But when we discipline for such things, we try (as much as possible) to
> keep the discipline surgical, and limited to the offender. We try to
> avoid the approach taken by Jackie and Joan, Tom and Michael, which is
> to dump Agent Orange on the whole jungle. "Remember, only you can
> prevent forests." You, Joan, because of these juicy morsels just
> delivered to us all, are in a position to demand that we nuke the whole
> jungle, that we tell the whole story. Now, when we tell the whole story
> here, do you want us to tell the /whole /story? Do you care if anyone
> else gets hurt? If not, and I hope not, we might be able to come to an
> agreement. If your only purpose is to get me to agree that Jamin was a
> hypocritical Christian while in the Greyfriars program, I grant your
> point readily. You are quite right.
>
> And for the sake of accuracy, if anybody still cares, Jamin left the
> Greyfriars program on his own before we discovered what he had been
> doing. But when he was discovered later, we placed a letter in his file
> noting that he would have been dismissed immediately had the information
> come out while he was still enrolled. Although he has repented, he has
> still disqualified himself from ministry. Now if he had only had the
> sense to have a sexual affair with another man, Joan might currently be
> agitating for his reinstatement. What a strange world we live in.
>
> Joan, anything else you want?
>
> Douglas Wilson
>
>
>
> Bill London wrote:
>
>
>> The following is from Joan Opyr, posted to V2020 with her approval:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>> Dear Dave,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've known about the Sitler story now for nearly two months. I'm an
>>>>> opinion columnist, so I didn't feel that it was something I could or
>>>>> should break in New West Magazine. I'd be interested to know,
>>>>> however, why the Daily News and the Lewiston Tribune either didn't
>>>>> know about it or chose not to report about it until now. Also, why
>>>>> did yesterday's story focus on Internet rumors and Vision 2020
>>>>> nonsense? What Sitler did is terrible, and it has grave consequences
>>>>> for the community. He was a boarder in one of NSA's many illegal
>>>>> boarding houses, almost all of which are run by families with small
>>>>> children who rely on the NSA money to pay their enormous mortgages.
>>>>> That's interesting. Here's something else: I have complete copies of
>>>>> both the Sitler and Jamin Wight court files, and I attended Wight's
>>>>> sentencing hearing. Wight is the Greyfriars Seminary student who, at
>>>>> age 24, had a year and 1/2 long sexual relationship with a 14-year
>>>>> old girl in his illegal boarding house. He got a 4-year sentence
>>>>>
>>>> >from the judge and is currently serving 4-6 months in Cottonwood.
>>>>
>>>>> Two child sex scandals associated with Doug Wilson and Christ Church?
>>>>> I would not allege a cover-up; that's not what reasonable people are
>>>>> thinking. I would note, however, that Doug warned the elders of CC
>>>>> about Sitler but he did not warn the greater Moscow community. While
>>>>> the authorities dragged their feet, Steven Sitler was free as a bird,
>>>>> driving himself back and forth to counseling sessions with Pastor
>>>>> Wilson. What counseling qualifications does Wilson have? Is this
>>>>> the only counseling Sitler received before he was sentenced?
>>>>> Wilson's letter in Sitler's court file is a classic in
>>>>> Cover-Your-Ass. The other letters in the file (bar one, from the
>>>>> parents of a two-year old Sitler molested) are unbelievable. They
>>>>> all declare that Sitler is a "good Christian" and properly repentant.
>>>>> This isn't a criminal matter for most of the letter writers; it's a
>>>>> matter of sin and redemption. One woman goes so far as to blame
>>>>> Sitler's actions on his exposure to the evil, secular world of
>>>>> Internet pornography. Passing the buck? You bet.
>>>>>
>>>>> There's a bigger story here than Doug Wilson and Roy Atwood spinning
>>>>> like a pair of tops. There's a sad and sorry tale of pastoral
>>>>> negligence and, I think, newspaper negligence. Why do we not read
>>>>> about these sorts of things in the Daily News before they reach the
>>>>> rumor mills on Vision 2020? I can think of several important stories
>>>>> the Daily News has failed to cover, from Moscow's massage therapist
>>>>> molester to the prominent attorney who was a car stereo kleptomaniac.
>>>>> Will the Daily News or the Tribune be writing anything about Jamin
>>>>> Wight, who pled guilty to one count (pled down from three) of felony
>>>>> injury to a child? Surely Wight's story is just as interesting as
>>>>> that of Chris Morris, Wight's classmate at Greyfriars.
>>>>>
>>>>> By the way, you might have asked Morris why it took him four years to
>>>>> graduate from a three-year seminary program. You might also speak
>>>>> with the management at Winger's. It's my understanding that future
>>>>> Pastor Morris was fired from that restaurant with cause -- a cause
>>>>> that suggests Morris might model his religious career on the likes of
>>>>> Jim Bakker rather than Fred Rogers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>>>>> www.joanopyr.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>> _____________________________________________________
>> List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>> http://www.fsr.net
>> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _____________________________________________________
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> http://www.fsr.net
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>
>
>
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
�����������������������������������������������������
More information about the Vision2020
mailing list