Andy Webb recently answered the question of an OPC pastor who asked why my procedural concerns about this PCA mess were being dismissed. “I thought his questioning of basic fairness and burden of proof were troubling and would welcome meaningful interaction with them rather than personal attacks and name-calling.” Yeah, I agree with that.
In his response, Andy said that his response had not been intended as “an ad hom against Wilson.” Rather, it was intended to be an application of the maxim “consider the source.” Okay, and so how is that not an ad hom?
Andy then argues that FV advocates by definition will cry procedural foul so long as our views are not upheld, which is manifestly false. He says, “the only way the FV community will consider a report ‘fair’ and the scholars who prepared it ‘wise’ is if it approves their theology.” Oh, I don’t know. My threshold is much lower than that. I would have considered a study committee report procedurally fair if they had not, for example, stacked it with all opponents, nothing but opponents, opponents all the way down.
Substance and process are different issues. I have repeatedly named FV critics who are obviously fair-minded and judicious men. I know they are out there, and I pray that some of them are on the SJC. So there is a difference between a decision with which we differ and a decision which is obviously a judicially-coated bum’s rush.
Then Andy gives a summary of the whole Wilkins’ deal. I will follow the numbering of his summary, and add comments as we go.
1. Wilkins is a member of Louisiana Presbytery, which has only 8 churches, and has in the past harbored other malefactors. “For instance, Jeff Steel, former pastor of an LA Presbytery church, went on to become Father Jeffrey Steel and an assistant to N.T. Wright. Simply put, this is not a Presbytery where an attachment to the FV or NPP is considered odd.” Wilkins is suspect because another pastor in his Presbytery went Anglican? I wonder how many presbyteries in the PCA are suspect on this interesting basis.
2. “Steve Wilkins own attachment to the FV is unquestionable.” Okay, I’ll give him half of this one. FV and Auburn Ave Theology (named after Steve’s church) are interchangeable, and Athanasius Press, the publishing arm of Auburn Ave, published a book entitled The Federal Vision, which had an essay by Steve in it. But unquestionable attachment to the FV is a very different thing than asserting that the opponents of the FV are representing it accurately. Wilkins is FV, all right, but if FV is what some people say it is, then he is not, and neither am I.
3. This next one is astonishing. “Despite the size of the Presbytery attempts have been made to bring charges against Wilkins by members of the presbytery. These attempts have never produced a trial because the Presbytery has consistently refused to do so.” Oh? Every day I learn something new about PCA polity. I did not know, for example, that charges can only be filed if Presbytery allows it. Or let’s suppose another suppose. Let us assume that the men who objected to Wilkins did file charges properly, and the Presbytery, in defiance of the BCO, refused to act. So why wasn’t Louisiana Presbytery brought up short on charges for that?
Excuse me. How is this possible? Is Andy making an accusation here that Louisiana “consistently refused” to act on charges properly submitted? Is he able to prove this? Is he able to bring charges? If Louisiana really did something like this, that really would be actionable.
4. In January 2005 Central Carolina Presbytery asked Louisiana to examine Wilkins’ formally, which they did, deciding that there “was nothing chargeable in Wilkins’ views.” No comment here.
5. This one takes us back to #3. “Given that no action against Wilkins was available from within the LA Presbytery, several Presbyteries determined . . .” Okay, humor me. Let’s go over this assertion again, for it has been made two times now. “No action against Wilkins was available from within.” That is a substantive assertion, one we ought to be able to hang our hats on. So where is the peg? What happened? Were there not enough members of the Presbytery to file charges? Did they file charges and the Presbytery kept losing the paperwork? Can charges only be filed if the charges themselves are approved by a majority vote of the Presbytery? Or was it some other thing I haven’t thought of? Notice Andy’s curious circumlocution here: “”No action was available . . .” What is that supposed to mean?
6. Although one appeal from the outside presbyteries was rejected, another one based on BCO 40-5 was taken up. This memorial charged that Louisiana was guilty of “important delinquency and/or grossly unconstitutional proceedings.” This is how Louisiana first found itself having to answer to the SJC. Another Presbytery asserted that they had done wrong, and the SJC considered it.
7. “The SJC determined that our memorial was in order, and that LA Presbytery had erred both in the methodology of their investigation and in their decision to exonerate Wilkins.” Emphasis there is mine. I have to assume that this cannot be understood as a finding of Wilkins’ guilt, but rather a determination that exoneration was premature or improperly grounded. Louisiana was told to reinvestigate, using new guidelines. Notice that all these are inquiries, investigations, reinvestigations, sets of questions, and so forth. No trial yet. No charges (to this day) have been filed, and the procedures that a trial would call for have not yet been applied.
8. Louisiana examined Wilkins again and exonerated him a second time (Is that the word we want, exonerated? He is not on trial). The vote was 13 to 8, and 7 of the dissenting votes filed a complaint with the SJC.
9. In the meantime, the GA assembly overwhelmingly approved a study report which condemned what they considered to be FV theology. The runaway train aspect of this whole affair is summed up nicely by R.C. Sproul’s statement on why there was no minority report, why it was okay for the committee to be stacked. You don’t put the defendents on a jury, it appears. Right, but it was a study committee, not a jury. And if it were a jury, you don’t put avowed opponents of the accused on a jury any more than you put friends, employees, or cousins of the accused on a jury. Either way you go with it, that was all screwed up. If a study committee, why no minority report? If a jury, why were adversaries of the accused allowed on it?
10. This last October, the SJC approved the complaints against Louisiana, and have indicted Louisiana to appear and explain itself. We are all now waiting to see how that turns out.
Got all that? And so now we return to the original question, the one that Andy was replying to. Andy made all these points without interacting at all with the points I have been raising. So here they come again, in short form, in just a minute.
But first, let us by-pass the mysterious failure of charges to appear from within Louisiana. Let us wonder no more about it. Let us pretend that that didn’t happen, and let us pretend that the PCA really is dealing with an anomalous situation, where charges from within are impossible, and yet something absolutely must be done. A big pretend, but let’s do it, shall we? After all, we can put out of our minds the fact that seven members of the Louisiana Presbytery were able to file a complaint with the SJC, but somehow their ability to file charges from within the Presbytery was beyond their ken. Look, I am not asking you to believe it. Let’s just pretend that we are okay with how the SJC got this mess on their agenda.
Now, given this, the questions I have been raising are basic, and Andy’s claim that the PCA has been moving at glacial speeds does nothing whatever to answer my concerns. Glacially slow injustice is still injustice. So here are my questions again.
Will Louisiana be charged with failure to indict Wilkins, or failure to convict Wilkins?
If the former, then a full trial for Wilkins, not Louisiana, will have to be held in some venue, and Wilkins will have to go into that trial with the full presumption of innocence, right? I am asking Andy here. Right?
If the latter, if the charge is a failure to convict Wilkins, then how can this be sustained when Wilkins has not yet had his day in court? And when every setting where he has been able to answer questions (not in a trial setting) has been dismissed? So when will the SJC arrange for a trial for Wilkins, with the full presumption of innocence, so that they can then charge Louisiana with a failure to convict him?
And last, as Louisiana comes to appear before the SJC, do they have the full presumption of innocence, and is the burden of proof on the prosecution? Does the prosecution have to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that Louisiana was negligent in their second interview of Wilkins? Or does Louisiana have to prove their innocence, as one member of the Commission (at least in part) thought?
These are basic questions, and Andy has given us a history lesson covering the whole saga. But he has not answered the questions. So, Andy, is Louisiana innocent before the SJC until the prosecution proves them guilty in open court? And are they judicially innocent of a charge of “failure to indict,” or are they judicially innocent of a charge of “failure to convict?” And if the latter, when will Wilkins have his trial? And does he have the presumption of innocence?
Or are you of the conviction that obviously guilty people shouldn’t have fair trials?