For those interested, Christ Church has reposted a statement on one aspect of the Terry Morin affair. That statement and supporting documentation can be found here.
Those who have been following this sideshow know that one of the charges being leveled against me is that of trying to palm off an unsigned letter from the CEF elders as though it had actually been sent by them. Our response that this was done accidentally is dismissed as further evidence of my Mendacity.
The short form of what happened is this. The blow-up of 1993 occurred over my conversion to paedo-baptism. All that stuff happened. When it became obvious at our December 1993 heads of household meeting that the elder proposal letter had indeed been ill-advised, I drafted a follow-up letter from the elders to the congregation, one that I thought would help repair the damage they had done. I submitted it to the elders to send out, which they did not do. When the whole thing was over, I put all the papers and documents from this saga over the sacraments into a notebook, including the draft letter that had not been sent out.
About ten years went by, and a completely different controversy arose. A disgruntled ex-member left our church and began to assemble all the “dirt” he could. He connected with Terry Morin, and included some affidavits from Terry in his ten-pound package of charges. Why Terry cooperated with him without checking remains a mystery. But the fact that a former elder of our church was joining himself to this project was significant to us. The elders of Christ Church did not want to leave me to defend myself in this, and so they appointed a committee of elders to handle the whole thing, a committee I was not on. I gave them the notebook with all the stuff in it. Going through it, they assmed that the copy of the letter from the elders in there was a letter that had been sent out, and so they quoted from it in their response. When that quotation was challenged, we realized the mistake, apologized for having made it, and pulled it from our web page. But at no time was there a conscious attempt (on the part of anyone) to use a letter that had not been sent as though it had been.
The reason for the apology is that the rules of evidence apply to us as much as to anyone else. If we say anything in this or any dispute that cannot be independently confirmed, then we must not use it to advance our case. If we make a mistake in this regard and are called on it, we must acknowledge it completely, and drop any attempts to continue to use the erroneous evidence. This is precisely what we did.
In such a situation, we must apologize simply because it is the right thing to do — even if we know that we are dealing with people who do not accept requests for forgiveness, but rather use them as a basis for new charges. That is what has happened here. Because we acknowledged that we said the letter was sent out (when it was not), and then apologized for the error, that acknowledged mistake is then transformed by our adversaries into something they can use to serve their bitterness. But, as God is my witness, this was a mistake. Not a lie, and not a forgery. Not even close.
The reasons for the mistake were entirely honest. This was a ten-year-old controversy that we had not been obsessing about during that time. The whole thing had been sitting in a notebook on a shelf for over ten times around the sun. We had not, like some, been brooding over it. When the subsequent controversy broke, and the earlier controversies were merrily rolled into it, on our end we were getting up to speed again. One of the reasons why Christians who are offended by something should go to their brother immediately is because (after a decade) you are not just dealing with all the ordinary sanctificational issues like pride, humbling yourself, and seeking to put yourself in your brother’s shoes, you are also dealing with the additional complications of simple memory. I remember certain things from that infamous meeting in 1993 vividly, and I am sure Terry has a different set of vivid memories. Had Terry and I been able to work it out three months after it happened, we would both have had the advantage of a lot more and better information. What do you do when someone comes to you about a conversation you had with them many years ago, during which (according to them) you said something that was extremely hurtful, and you don’t even remember the conversation at all? A host of questions pop up. “Did I say that? Could I have said something like that? Did I ever think that?” The way of Christ is best — leave your gift at the altar, and go deal with it right away. Bitterness is one of the deadliest sins, and incubated bitterness is far more damaging. When it springs up, it defiles many (Heb. 12:15).
A second reason the mistake was entirely an honest one is this. The elders of Christ Church (who, incidentally, during this entire time, have acquitted themselves like true shepherds) are friends of mine. In the midst of a pretty steady stream of heaved vegetables and dead cats, they have been a sessional rock. It was their decision (one my wife and I greatly appreciated) to lead the way in defending my name and reputation. Because of that act of kindness, one of the documents in the notebook was mis-categorized.
By the way, in the previous sentence, I originally typed “in the file” instead of “in the notebook.” But I changed it because that is the kind of thing that could cause some of our adversaries to accuse us of conflicting stories. “Was this information in a file? Or in a notebook?” It was both, a file of information stored in a notebook. But it is easier to just change the word to notebook, and thank the Lord for another troublesome controversy averted.
I bring this up, not to blame the elders for this very understandable mistake, but rather to defend them in their defense of me. Throughout the course of this thing, I have been slandered one way, and they in another. Consistently they have been represented as a bunch of men in my hip pocket, and that of course, I must control everything at Anselm House (bwa ha ha, etc.). Christ Church is Moscow’s Death Star, and I spend my time in the nether recesses of Anselm Star making oxygen tank noises under my black helmet. But these elders are not capons; they are men who have everything a band of brothers should have — characteristics I regard as being beyond price. I am surrounded by men of high intelligence, loyalty, backbone, independence of mind, a commitment to scriptural like-mindedness, a spirit of mutual submission, and a love for Jesus Christ, His Word, and His gospel. I am privileged to serve, I am convinced, with one of the best sessions a pastor could have. They have, in this instance and others, defended my reputation at the expense of their own. I am exceedingly grateful for it, and would do the same for them.