<br><br><h2 class="date-header">Monday, December 31, 2007</h2>
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<a href="http://federal-vision.blogspot.com/2007/12/where-does-he-get-this-stuff.html">Where does he get this stuff?</a>
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<p>A friend called the other day to ask if I was interested in pursuing
the scandal where Douglas Wilson and the Kirk elders used fraudulent
documents to "vindicate" Wilson from wrongdoing (Dr. Gier alluded to
these two incidents in <a target="_blank" href="http://federal-vision.blogspot.com/2007/12/heres-link.html">his post</a>).
I replied, "We have enough documented scandal here to blog for an
entire year without invoking the phony minutes or the letter without
signatures." And that's not hyperbole.<br><br>For example, I just noticed that someone on the <a target="_blank" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bbwarfield/message/26426">Warfield list</a>
asked for a church referral in Salt Lake City to which a brother
recommended Christ Presbyterian Church, OPC. Of course, Christ
Presbyterian Church is just one more assembly of Christians in a
seeming endless parade of believers who caught Wilson playing fast and
loose with the Ninth Commandment. This particular false witness
involves the case reported in <a target="_blank" href="http://shaderenegade.blogspot.com/2002/04/presbytery-of-dakotas-takes-on-doug.html">this story</a> by <i>P&R News</i>. The letter was written by CPC's clerk of session in response to falsehoods that Christ Church uploaded to the web.
<br></p><blockquote>May 27, 2003<br><br>The Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals<br>C/o Brett Baker, Moderator<br>P.O. Box 1158<br>Woodinville, WA 98072 1158<br><br>Dear Brothers:<br><br>Our
attention was recently brought to the minutes of your 2002 meeting as
they appear on your website. In those minutes is a false report from
Christ Church, Moscow, concerning their controversy with Christ
Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City, and, the Presbytery of the Dakotas
(OPC). There are several misrepresentations, but the most serious is
that, "some time after [Mr. Maneri] left, charges were brought against
him in the OPC."<br><br>We have attached the text of the correspondence
between our churches. As you can see, we have repeatedly told the
elders in Moscow that Mr. Maneri was charged individually and before
witnesses while a member and an elder. Mr. Maneri had attended worship
on the previous Sunday and was leading a meeting of the pulpit
committee when he was charged before witnesses. After being charged,
but before a trial could commence, Mr. Maneri resigned his office and
asked that his name be erased from the rolls of the church. The Book of
Church Order he vowed to receive does not allow a resignation to
automatically stop a discipline case. We went forward with a trial to
protect the church and in hope of restoring our brother.<br><br>When
Mr. Maneri was publicly circulating advice from Doug Wilson not to
appear at his trial, we contacted Mr. Wilson and then his session. Our
hope was that their goals would be the same as ours. As you can see in
the attached correspondence, our complaints have been met with
sophistry and word games that should be an embarrassment for elders of
a Church of Christ. Our goals in all of this have been to shepherd the
Church of Jesus Christ and to restore a brother whom we love. We have
continued to pray for him with tears, even after his excommunication.
It is our hope that despite the interference of Mr. Wilson and the
Moscow session that he will yet be restored.<br><br>We ask that you
read the attached correspondence and remember that no one on our
session had previously communicated with Mr. Wilson. A friend of Mr.
Wilson was accused of grave sin. Mr. Wilson made no attempt to
determine the facts of the case from us before advising him not to
attend his trial. When we challenged that advice, we were told that we
would have to prove that we had risen above the contemporary Reformed
norm" before Mr. Wilson would reconsider his advice. We do not accept
that our discipline should be presumed defective. It is up to Moscow to
demonstrate its illegitimacy before they counsel our members to reject
it. We understand that at the time, Moscow had the same provisions
against unilateral resignation. How can Doug Jones state in a recent
letter to the Moscow church that "in the covenant bond of membership,
both sides are obligated to agree to severing membership covenants,"
but then portray us as disciplining a "nonmember"?<br><br>We have been
told that we have no standing to appeal to your court, but we ask that
you remove this false report from your website. We send this directly
to you, because you are perpetuating a false report. We do not believe
we can do anything more to prevent Moscow's misrepresentations, but we
ask that you not join them. We would be happy to detail the other
errors, if you would like. Though we have no official standing before
you, we do implore you as Christian brothers to deal with the larger
situation. We do not believe that you would want us treating your
churches as Doug Wilson and the Moscow session have treated us.<br><br>Sincerely<br><br>Lou LaBriola, Clerk of Session</blockquote><br>And
on this fully documented note of yet more fœdero-schismatic activity, I
want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, hoping that next year the
Church will have put away from among us that wicked person and his
Federal Vision.<br><br>Thank you.
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<h2 class="date-header">Sunday, December 30, 2007</h2>
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<a href="http://federal-vision.blogspot.com/2007/12/self-deceit.html">Self-Deceit</a>
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<p>A couple of weeks ago Prince Blog wrote an extended post that
appeared to wave a truce flag at his "enemies." Of course, he only
calls a truce when he needs time to reload, but that's not the point
here. The point is that he closed his post with these words:<br></p><blockquote>In
short, I want to be active in this controversy to the extent I need to
be — I don't want to shirk — but neither do I want to be <i>defined</i> by this. If any my friends out there see that definition forming, please feel free to say so. (<a target="_blank" href="http://dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=4875">
"All Wolves, All the Time,"</a> emphasis original)</blockquote><br>This
statement is interesting for a number of reasons; I want to consider
one. After the post went up, it moved a friend of mine (who knows
Wilson <i>very well</i>) so much that he called to say, <i>"For the first time in my life I actually feel sorry for the man."</i> Not having read the post I said, "Okay, you have my attention — <i>why do you feel sorry for him?"
</i>
My friend played off Orwell, saying, "By the time a man turns fifty, he
has the reputation he deserves. Doug has systematically defined himself
over the last decade with one scandal after another, particularly this
Federal Vision mess and his hostile disruption of the PCA's process.
It's as though he specifically intended to make a spectacle of himself
all these years and despite this, he wrote, 'neither do I want to be <i>defined</i> by this.' I pity him. He is so self-deceived that he has no idea he <i>is</i> defined."<br><br>This
leads to another interesting quote, which I took from Dr. Clark who
quoted an article written by Dr. Darryl Hart on the Federal Vision in
the <i>Nicotine Theological Journal</i>. <a target="_blank" href="http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/nicotine-theological-journal-24/">Dr. Hart wrote</a>,<br><br><blockquote>Never
before have such heavy guns as the church's highest courts and
multi-year study committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous
theological novelty.</blockquote><br>Consider this. Dr. Hart is <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wscal.edu/faculty/bios/hart.php">Adjunct Professor of Church History</a>
at Westminster Seminary California and he probably has more letters
after his name than all the CREC ministers combined. In other words,
he's not a popular story teller. He doesn't imagine historical
revisions and self-publish his fantasies in book form calling them
factual accounts. Moreover, he's not an anonymous attack blogger who
fully documents each of his posts. And as long as we're on it, he isn't
even a self-willed <i>autonomous</i> attack blogger who pretends his
federation of marionettes holds him accountable. Dr. Hart is the real
deal with real credentials, and he wrote, <i>"Never before have such
heavy guns as the church's highest courts and multi-year study
committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous theological
novelty."</i><br><br>This leads to yet another fascinating quote from Prince Blog, who just the other day posted this comment on <a target="_blank" href="http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/grace-not-as-amazing-as-once-thought-or-%e2%80%9ci-once-was-lost-then-i-was-found-but-now-i%e2%80%99m-lost-forever%e2%80%9d/#comment-42101">
Green Bagginses</a>:<br><br><blockquote>All
the refutations of FV I have read that maintain an FV/Westminster
contradiction generally get that result by misrepresenting what FV is
saying, or Westminster, or both.</blockquote><br>Of course, we all know
that these words have served as the FV party line since the beginning,
but the remarkable thing is that (1) they still repeat it, and (2) it's
possible that Wilson has actually believes it, which is an extremely
frightening thought for him. Read the two quotes back to back:<br><br><blockquote>Never
before have such heavy guns as the church's highest courts and
multi-year study committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous
theological novelty. (Dr. Darryl Hart)<br><br>All the refutations of FV
I have read that maintain an FV/Westminster contradiction generally get
that result by misrepresenting what FV is saying, or Westminster, or
both. (Douglas Wilson)</blockquote><br>A church historian (who is also
an officer in the church) observes that the Church has never used such
heavy guns to defeat such a deficient theological novelty, and Wilson
cavalierly accuses every one of these big guns of misrepresenting his
doctrinal frivolities <i>and</i> the Westminster Confession of Faith, as if the two stand side by side.<br><br>On
my sidebar to the right there's a section called "A Great Cloud of
Witnesses: Fœdero Links." Beneath it there's a long list of articles
and official reports published by various Reformed denominations,
presbyteries, federations, and seminaries. Every one of them, <i>without exception,</i>
repudiates the Federal Vision in unmistakable terms. More specifically,
five denominations — the BPC, the OCRC, the OPC, the PCA, and the RPCUS
— identified Douglas Wilson by name in their reports, yet he
steadfastly maintains that all of them, <i>without exception,</i> have misrepresented the FV and/or the Westminster divines.<br><br>These
facts lead me to believe that my friend is on to something. Douglas
Wilson really is pathetic. Self-deception can't run much deeper than
this — <i>can it?</i> He pays magnificent lip service to Mother Kirk with grand, exalted language, but when Mother Kirk replies to him — <i>by name</i>
— condemning his doctrine with overwhelming judgments of breathtaking
proportions, he accuses her of misrepresentation instead of repenting
of his sins. <i>And yet he does not want this to define him.</i> Yo mama.<br><br>Prince
Blog of the land of Mablog may deceive himself, esteeming his "meagre
and frivolous theological novelty" greater than the unanimous opinion
of the Church's highest courts. Indeed, he may delude himself by
thinking that this monumental folly — this catastrophic error in
judgment — has not defined him. To be sure, he may even fix his madness
in stone by mocking the Church and her ministers all day long to his
heart's delight. But the future does not bode well for Prince Blog
because all his self-deceit cannot change the one simple truth that
these things <i>are</i> defining moments and <i>they have defined him.</i> Even worse, Scripture offers no cure for his definition, or condition, as the case may be, for Solomon warns, <i>"He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
</i> Just ask Saddam Hussein.<br><br>Thank you.
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</span></span><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><br><br>Juanita Flores<br>Advocate for the Truth from Jesus