[Vision2020] a question regarding Kirk exposure

[Michael]

May 05, 2006

 

Jerry,

 

Thanks for the thoughts.  I'd like to offer a response to you that should
provide further help as me, you, and others try to assess the
trustworthiness of your fresh claims here about my incompetence, imbalance,
double standards, presumptive and delusional arrogance, lack of love and
compassion, conspiratorial mindset, ugliness, jeopardized marriage (?), and
my destiny for a life of conflicts.  You packed quite a bit in a few
paragraphs; that is some well done concision in my book.  

 

Unfortunately, however, you have not dealt with any of the claims,
illustrations, definitions, analysis, arguments, evidence, and examples that
I have been providing every week for the last 5 months.  Not one really.
Instead, you merely attack my moral standing generally.  This is not
surprising, since this has been a methodology developed and refined by
Wilson and Jones over the last decade in order to deal with dissent or
challenge from without and from within.  This 'character assassination' has
slowly replaced argument, evidence, and the dignity of the kirker opponent.
I would actually call this a refined 'art' in the Kirk at this point.  The
kind of control and manipulation that this art is capable of producing is
remarkable; I think Wilson and Jones are very wise in using this art.  And
likewise, I think you were wise in employing it here on Vision 2020 since
you are not of the kind of intellectual frame, currently, to actually
address my challenges, argument, and evidence in a rational manner.  So once
again, my life in the Kirk is comprised of fending off gross slander about
my moral standing and psychological normalcy rather than reasonably
discussing facts.  

 

 

You Write:

You were willing to speak on behalf of Vision 2020, so you shouldn't mind
everyone hearing what you had to say.  If you would've requested me not to
speak about it in public beforehand like your pastor did explicitly in the
letter you put on your blog, I would have certainly extended that common
courtesy.  If you would like to take this off list, I'm more than happy.  

 

Me:

I am glad that you were willing to confess the truth here and admit that you
took a highly private email from me and posted it to Vision 2020 to ridicule
and critique it.  This doesn't make your fellow Wilson Apologists look very
good in hind site, given their rhetorical smoke covering up this very
question.  But you undue this minor moral problem by telling us the truth;
thank you.  Your defense of this strange action, however, leads us into more
troubling moral waters.  Your conscience must not be feeling purky enough to
provide a helpful argument on your behave, for certainly, no sane person
here in Moscow would expect a friend to feel justified in posting private
correspondence without permission simply because they spoke about Vision
2020, or implicitly referenced what they thought a majority of Vision 2020
posters believe.  Do I need to say more to this?  Obviously anyone 'would
mind' having their highly personal emails posted without notice to Vision
2020, regardless of whether or not they referenced Vision 2020.  I'm not
sure how to say anymore about this, for I do not want to imply that you are
lying here, but at the same time I do not believe this argument of yours
permits me to take it as a sincere defense.  

 

Your reference to my Blog is very curious since I only post correspondence
on my Blog if :

 

1) It is clearly assumed, or stated, that the material was for the express
purpose of being published to my Blog.

 

2) If I ask and get permission from the writer to post their material,
usually with clarification if the writer wants their name attached or not.

 

3) Or else the post clearly falls into the category of Kirk Leadership
aggression against me, my reputation, and my household.  I attempted to make
it very clear early on that I would post anything that fell within this last
category; I posted Wilson's 'copyrighted' letter to further confirm this
very principle. Because of this, Kirk Leadership always knew that what they
put in writing and emailed me would very likely be published at my whim;
they therefore had the luxury to craft their statements with this knowledge,
so that they could be tailored to both me and the public, which they
certainly took advantage of; if they wanted to say something privately to me
they could have stopped by for a chat over a beer.  I'm fairly certain that
the only material I have published against the wishes of the author was
material from Wilson; and yet again, even this did at least include the
author's knowledge that it might likely be published. 

 

Perhaps there has been a time when the particular circumstance permitted a
fourth option, but I currently cannot recall any; and perhaps there have
been times when I used poor judgment, but I am currently not aware of any.

 

Now, Jerry, consider:  your posting of my email to you does not fit in these
three categories at all; you seem to want to make it fit into something like
category (3), but it clearly doesn't.  You did not have the unique context
under which I posted correspondence without permission at all. You also knew
that I wrote that email to you with no thought that you might be motivated
to publish it publicly. Further, from the moral standpoint, the distinction
between posting something to one's private Blog and posting something to an
active and local list like Vision 2020 is fairly significant.  In sum, your
breach of my privacy goes far deeper than anything I have done within the
context of my own Blog, and even though I have been an active participant on
Vision 2020 throughout all this, it never crossed my mind to publish
someone's highly private correspondence to me to Vision 2020 without their
consent and without their knowledge of the possibility that it would be so
published.  

 

Your purpose of posting my private correspondence to you hardly makes sense.
Why would you offer such a surprise attack and breach this kind of privacy
and trust for a purpose that I can hardly fathom?  There is an additional
quality of hypocrisy in your dealings about all this now, since you claim
that you, pious Greyfriar Jerry, would never think of publishing that very
email if I had actually asked you not to.  This is subterfuge; of course I
didn't want you publishing something highly private and clearly written only
for your reading.  Of course I had no expectation that you would even
consider publishing that email from me.  If the possibility even crossed my
mind I would have 1) re-written it for everyone's enjoyment and 2) politely
asked you not to publish it.  

 

Yet, ironically, much of this is really beside the point.  The real point I
was originally trying to make about all this is that even if you did do
precisely what I have done, thus giving you the chance to generate that
lovely kind of argument we call "well you are one too," you are still a
hypocrite; and if your leaders and other in the kirk community do not point
this out to you, then they are hypocrites too.  The reason why this is the
case, as I have already tried to explain on simple and clear terms, is that
this action of posting private correspondence is one of the primary replies,
if not THE reply, that the Kirk gives to justify their moral indignation
against my blog, as well as their justification to despise any of the work
we have done on my blog for the last four months.  What I do not think you
understand-or perhaps you just understand it all to well to admit-is that
even if you did merely do what I have been doing (which is clearly not the
case in truth), you have none-the-less removed your very reason for reviling
my web site.  So you can either begin respecting the work we have been doing
at www.poohsthink.com <http://www.poohsthink.com/>  and start addressing
some of our challenges, evidence, and arguments, or else you need to admit
your moral incoherence and hypocrisy.  These really are your only two
options, Jerry.  If you think you can come up with a third option, please
let me know what it is.

 

 

You Write:

You need to come to grips with the fact that volume of words doesn't make up
for lack of competence.  It's ironic that would you would 'ahem' assuming
I've not read McLaren when your earliest 'arguments' with Wilson about
McLaren occurred when you admittedly hadn't read him.  Your perspective is
filled with this sort of imbalance and double standards.

 

Me: 

Well, I'm fairly certain that the last time I did some epistemic sweeping I
found the belief that "volume of words doesn't make up for lack of
competence" well in tact.  I wouldn't imagine trying to disagree with you
here.  I did not know that this was one of the disputed issues on the table
for discussion. If there is any phrase, sentence, paragraph, or post you
have seen me utter or write over the last five months that you think
exhibits significant incompetence, please do bring it to my attention.  I
always welcome helpful criticism, and if you discover it, I'm certain most
others have as well.  It seems in fact that charity would bid you to do just
this; withholding from me your knowledge of where I have been in error is
not very nice, particularly after telling all of Moscow that you have much
of this sort of knowledge.  I do hope that in your next post you will have
many examples of my incompetence to help me out here.  

 

As for the "ahem" word, I apologize; I had assumed that you had been
following my discussion about McLaren on Wilson's Blog. For anyone closely
following that, my meaning would have been crystal clear.  If you were not
reading Wilson's Blog however, I can see how misleading this word would be
for you.  I was referencing the fact that after I started reading McLaren I
start urging everyone to read the book before blasting it, ridiculing it,
hating it, and jeering at it-how unsuccessful my requests were became a
running joke.  

 

Apparently you have heard something about this discussion on Wilson's 
Blog however, since you reference my arguments I made on behalf of McLaren
before I had read his book.  Perhaps you got this from Aaron; he made a
similar accusation months ago.  Be relieved that your concern here is based
on pure mis-information.  What really happened was that I at first granted
that Wilson's conclusion about McLaren was correct and yet was frightened by
the way Wilson and some others were reasoning to this conclusion; my concern
was primarily 'internal' to the 'arguments' furthered against McLaren.  Once
I started researching McLaren on the internet, all of my factual findings,
including material written by him and others-pro and con McLaren-was
contradicting Wilson's assertions.  I therefore began quoting McLaren and
noting some of the information I was coming up with in McLaren's defense.
My primary thesis was not that McLaren was ultimately not guilty as charged;
rather, my primary challenge was with respect to the justice of Wilson's
'trial.'  I explicitly used courtroom metaphors in my criticism at the time;
at one point I explained that we were in process of destroying any just
institution for criticizing false teaching regardless of how guilty McLaren
really was.  It seems my concerns back them were only the tip of the
iceberg; we have clearly come full circle. Throughout all that time I was
explicitly noting the extent of my knowledge of McLaren and his views, and I
only started positively defending McLaren's full views along with the book
after I had read a number of chapters in the book.  In sum, your concern
here is based on complete ignorance of what actually transpired in our
discussions of McLaren on Wilson's Blog.  

 

As for "imbalance and double standards," if you are referring to more than
this one misconception about what I actually said about McLaren, then I'm
not sure what you would be referring to.  Could you help me out and provide
another example?  I would truly appreciate an opportunity to stand corrected
or else defend myself against these serious charges. 

 

 

You Write:

You are a self-appointed leader that no one follows, and assume the position
to correct and guide when no one recognizes the gift and, more importantly,
the love and compassion it takes do to so.  

 

Me: 

Jerry, once again I really am lost.  I'm a self-appointed leader?  I'm not
sure what you are referring to.  If you could help me out with an example or
two, I would appreciate it much.  I don't think anyone "follows" me and I
have never attempted to set myself up as a leader; I have been trying to
seek truth, survive the exiting of a pseudo-cult, escape character
assignation the best I could, and make a very difficult transition in life
while also trying to hold Doug Wilson accountable for his actions through
the only possible means I can fathom outside of physical violence-publicity.
I'm still hoping that my hard work here will one day prove helpful for even
you.  

 

If you are merely referring to people "assuming my position is correct" then
you are working with a very false belief; I know that this is what the
leadership of Christ Church has been aggressively trying to get you to
believe; they have even tried to get me to believe it recently through
intimidating utterances of this proposition.   The problem is that, because
of my vast correspondence generated from Pooh's Think, I know that in fact
most people not socially tied to the personality of Doug Wilson agree with
the majority of the positions I espouse. I even know for a fact that there
are underground kirkers still in the Churches who agree with the majority of
the positions I espouse.  Almost all kirkers who have left Christ Church
after expressing distrust of the leadership believe all of my positions,
just about down to the last one. I even have old friends, parents, and
reformed pastors giving their thumbs up to the majority of the views I
espouse about Christ Church.  I really hope you are willing to be corrected
here, since this is just the plain truth.  I have no doubt that inside the
kirk an opinion very disconnected from the outside world is able to
flourish; Wilson has been progressively cutting off the Kirk from the
outside world in various ways, which has included trying to close down
Vision 2020 and encouraging kirkers to stop reading the Daily News while
encouraging the vision of starting our own Kirk newspaper.  This is why it
is so important for you to just 'get out' a little bit more. 

 

 

You Write:

Chesterton has a great section in Orthodoxy where he talks about the maniac
and his water tight conspiracy theory.  If Wilson and Christ Church are as
evil as you say they are, why don't you just move on and get to something
lovely in this fantastic world?

 

Me:

I don't know what to say about me being a maniac selling a tight conspiracy
theory.  I do, however, appreciate the fact that you would allow my maniac
conspiracy theory to have the quality of 'tightness.'  At least I have
succeeded in something.  But I'm not all that convinced about a
relativistic, coherence theory of epistemic justification.  I have furthered
arguments, made specific claims, and provided evidence for your
investigation.  Conspiracy theory or not, all these are on the table for
your criticism.  Perhaps you could give one or two illustrations of my
conspiratorial maniacy.  If you could do this, I think I would be greatly
helped.  Again, I do not think withholding such knowledge from me is very
charitable; if you have good reasons to believe I'm a maniac, it would be
good for you to share them with me so that I could have good reasons to
agree with your assessment.  

 

 

You Write:

I imagine you think you are called to this, which is just more of the ugly.


 

Me:

Well, I don't want to be ugly.  I want to be beautiful, lovely, and
edifying.  So help me out here; how is thinking I'm called to do what I'm
doing ugly?  I'm not sure I get this.  But in any case, you can be relieved
to know that I don't think I'm called to anything very special.  Five years
from now I hope to be teaching at a community college in Arizona [or else
somewhere the Crotons don't have to get covered in the winter], and by then
I hope I no longer have need for a Blog.  I would like to publish a book by
the time I am 50 years old however; I hope that is not too grandiose a
desire for your aesthetic sensibilities.  

 

 

You Write:

I say these things intended as faithful wounds of a friend, hoping that you
will find something constructive to put your efforts toward.  If you don't
find some sort of balance, proportion and charity in your life, you will
continue to find conflict in the rest of the relationships you have.  How
will you deal with the next church (if you decide to leave), or marital
conflicts?  How do former conflicts in your life exhibit this pattern and
how can you look to yourself, before others, to take responsibility?  

 

Me:

Jerry, do you know anything about me? Well, I mean, anything other than
Wilson's lies about me? I think I have found enough constructive things to
put my time to.  Right now I have a marriage to tend to.  I have four
children I am raising.  I am in the process of building two houses as a
local home builder. I am a full time graduate student, and in fact would be
writing a paper on the Narrative and Judicial Decision Making right now if
you had not found the need to make public accusations against me about my
incompetence, imbalance, double standards, presumptive and delusional
arrogance, lack of love and compassion, conspiratorial mindset, ugliness,
jeopardized marriage, and destiny of a life of conflicts.  I suspect that I
am doing more constructive things at the moment than many sufficiently
Christian men in America. And as soon as kirkers slow down in their
maligning of my character, I will be able to once again participate in the
delightful debates and discussions on Vision 2020.  Hopefully I can lead the
way in getting other kirkers to start treating other members of Vision 2020
like human beings. 

 

As for "the next church," do you have any knowledge of "the previous
church?"  I've been a member of two other churches the last 10 years, and I
don't recall setting up a web site about my other pastors.  I have also been
a Wilson/CC defender over the course of the last 11 years.  Jerry, this is
one of my biggest concerns about the cultish state of Christ Church by now.
It does not matter who the person is, how long they have proven themselves,
or what their track record is. (Please read the qualifications for Greyfriar
students if you would like to know what the elders thought about me six
months ago). If someone dissents in the wrong sort of way they will be
harassed, insulted, belittled, maligned, and accused of all sorts of things.
It just doesn't matter what the damn facts are, as your beautiful,
defamatory post to Vision 2020 today has perfectly illustrated.

 

Your Friend

Michael Metzler  

 

 

 

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