I just now have gotten an opportunity to respond to Andy Webb’s “nuclear” response on the SJC process. His response was two-fold, the first being an explanation why charges did not originate against Wilkins from within the Louisiana Presbytery. Andy said this:
“The majority in the presbytery had already shown its hostility to such requests, and indicated its substantial agreement with TE Wilkins. For someone in the minority to move forward to make a case as a voluntary prosecutor themselves, when their almost assured failure to win the case would have caused them to be censured (note not charged – but censured) as a slanderer of the brethren (per BCO 31-9) would have been extremely foolish.”
No, it would have been courageous, not foolish. Confronting what you believe to be sin or heresy is not supposed to be a day at the beach. But it should be personal, honest, and open, and not accomplished by bureaucratic machinations at the next level up. So here is my bottom line again — any process that could result in Wilkins being condemned by implication, when he is never given his day in court, is a process that could be better used for wrapping fish in. Any process that says that Wilkins was in effect tried “because we tried Louisiana for not trying him, and found them guilty of not trying him,” and then surreptitiously slipped in what the result of what such a trial of Wilkins would have been, had we only had a trial, is not justice but rather a pea and shell game.
Andy’s second post was a tu quoque, basically saying that the process that we are objecting to now with the SJC was a process that Louisiana Presbytery itself tried to use in another cause involving Tennessee and the John Wood case. That case involved a woman who had apparently preached at a couple of evening services, and Louisiana had passed an overture asking that it be looked into.
I checked with Steve on all this, and so the following basic info is from him. I am almost certain that in an early form of this post, Andy said that this “inconsistency” happened when Steve was moderator of Louisiana Presbytery, but that observation appears to have been removed. That is good, because Steve has never been moderator of the Louisiana Presbytery. And the overtures that Andy is talking about did not originate with Auburn Avenue. One of them came from another church, and the rest came from a TE in that presbytery. Steve thinks he supported most of the overtures, and voted for them, but neither he nor his church were pushing or advancing them.
But here is the irony. One of the main advocates today of the SJC deciding Wilkins’ case, the man who has challenged the current questioning of the SJC’s authority and actions, is the same man who brought overtures in 2000 to denounce the SJC back then. He wrote up the “consitutional inquiry” that has been cited, he brought the overture to decline to adopt the SJC as the GA’s own commission, as well as an overture to condemn the SJC decision in the John Wood Case, along with an overture to remove from the SJC those members who voted with the majority in the John Wood case.
And so Steve notes that the “hypocrisy,” if there is any, “is not mine but his.” Steve says that “The authority of the SJC which he so vehemently opposed in 2000 (and I thought, had grounds to oppose), he now vehemently supports in 2007.” But Steve had problems with the structure of the SJC in 2000, and has problems with it now.
But this reminds me of another issue that I was just talking with a friend about today. I have been involved in a series of controversies since 2002. I was forty-nine when all this started. I had been a pastor since I was twenty-three, and before this most recent controversy season started, there was the occasional dust-up, but absolutely nothing like the last five years. I say this in order to lean against an optical illusion that might be understandably forming. All polemics all the time would be a tiresome business, and not characteristic of a fruitful ministry, and not what Christ calls us to. As I have noted before, a shepherd who doesn’t know how to fight is a loveless shepherd. But a shepherd who does nothing but fight — all wolves, all the time — is probably making up wolves. And he is almost certainly not leading the flock to green pasture. So there is a time and a season for everything.
In addition, when everything is polemical there is a tendency to circle the wagons, and never acknowledge any fault — for what you acknowledge as fault can and will be used against you. And if the fight is everything, admitting fault compromises your “everything.” This is obviously a false standard, and so over the course of this controversy, we have sought to maintain a willingness to acknowledge it plainly where we erred, or sinned, or misjudged in some respect. And this has not been an abstract willingness either — I can think of a number of instances where we have had to humble ourselves and say that we said something wrong, or handled something wrong. We believe this to be the right way to proceed, and we pray that God supplies us with the grace to do what we believe to be right, when the situation calls for it. I also honor men like Lane Keister, who has evidenced this same commitment to truth over party interest on the other side of this unfortunate aisle.
The last point is that controversy rivets the attention, and so we have to make sure that we are continuing to teach and emphasize the whole counsel of God. Balance, balance, balance. These controversies have occupied more of my energy and attention than I would have chosen, but at the same time, we have actively sought to avoid becoming the ecclesiastical equivalent of Johnny One-Note. The majority of the saints here at Christ Church don’t really know much of anything about these raging tempests outside because we are too busy trying to focus on the details of parish living. During this time, I have preached through Galatians, Ezra and Nehemiah, and 1 Timothy, done a series on a biblical worldview, and another one on Islam. In my writing, I have done a lot on atheism (books answering Harris and Hitchens, and answering Dawkins on this blog). I have published a book on marriage, and there is a forthcoming book on the impact of the gospel on the world. 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 defined by this. If any my friends out there see that definition forming, please feel free to say so.