In our earlier discussions of charges, perjury, etc. we showed that it is contrary to Scripture to allow slanderers and defamers a free hand. The Scriptures require us to sift and weigh evidence in order to avoid participating in the false accuser’s sin after the fact. A judiciary proceeding that does not require independent confirmation, …
The Letter That Was Not Sent
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 …
Scurrilous Is As Scurrilous Does
In ancient Israel, one of the purposes of the Mosaic code was to start putting restraints on the still more ancient practice of blood vengenace. It had been that when a man was killed, a relative of the victim would be “deputized” by his tribe or family to go and execute vengeance. Now clearly, this …
More On RC
I want to follow up my previous post on RC Jr. I am doing this, not because I have anything new to say, but rather because the situation demands that we go over the basics again and again. My point has been that those who jump into a situation like this with glee, and who …
RC Sproul Jr.
I have not really said anything in particular about the web controversy that has engulfed St. Peter Presbyterian Church and the Highland Study Center (R.C. Sproul Jr.’s ministry), and I am not going to say anything specific about it now. But I do need to say a few things at the general level. If you …
Self-Incrimination
The requirement of independent confirmation is not waived simply because a person confesses to something. That independent confirmation may certainly be circumstantial, but authorities in any realm ought to be wary of simply accepting someone’s accusation against himself. Say that a man, wracked with guilt, confesses to a murder. He goes to the police and …
Blogs and Accusations
It has come to my attention that an announcement was made to the Warfield list concerning a web site that has been set up by a member of our church, a site that has been recycling a number of old accusations against us. I am confident that many of the readers of the Warfield list …
Nameless Others
Chesteron had a famous comment where he spoke of tradition as the democracy of the dead. He thought we ought not to exclude someone’s voice from a discussion on the technical grounds that they were not still alive. The point was well-taken, but there are some discussions and arguments where voices ought to be excluded. …
Tie Goes to the Runner
I need to begin with a couple of jokes that you may have heard before. But they are offered not so much for the joke value as for what they illustrate about the power of interpretive grids, which is the point of this post. There was a guy who was convinced that he was actually …
Humiliating the Apostle
We must consider another variation on “by their tactics ye shall know them.” When controversy erupts in a church, and it is over the color of the carpet in the nursery, the end result can be a personal and/or ecclesiastical mess. But when the stakes are higher, it is not rare for the civil magistrate …