When Dan Rather put out his report on George Bush’s National Guard service during the Vietnam War, within hours, bloggers had shown that the evidence he was relying on was fabricated. When politicians try to pull their old-style political tricks, within minutes someone somewhere has exposed the thing. The most recent example of this was the exposure of Democratic plants among the questioners at this last Republican debate. We see new examples of this kind of thing all the time — the interconnectivity of everything is transforming everything. From blogs, to YouTube, to Google Alerts, to real time responses, the game today is a lot faster, and, more to the point, completely different.
Of course every new technology presents us with new ways of sinning, and the Internet is certainly no exception. Thus we see anonymous attack blogs, trolls, vicious gossip moving around the world at high rates of speed, and more. But the glass is also half-full, as these good examples of the new media demonstrate. This is because the old technologies created established ways of sinning also, and they usually involved various cozy arranangements, bureaucratic insider connections, and old-boy networks. When the Presbyterian Church did what they did to Machen, the full injustice of it was fully manifest . . . to historians. Their actions were pretty brazen, but it didn’t matter at that time.
Until there is a mechanism to catch you, it doesn’t matter how brazen it is. My father has told me of a certain baseball player, back when major league baseball only had one umpire, who didn’t mind being completely open like this. It didn’t matter to him how many people knew what he was doing, so long as the wrong person didn’t know. When he was on first basae, and a fly ball was hit to the outfield, the ump had to run out to see how the ball was fielded, and so this runner would just take the short cut to third base, behind the ump, right across the pitcher’s mound. Of course everybody in the stadium saw him do it, but the ump didn’t see it, and the ump was the only one who counted. When the smoke cleared, there the runner was, on third.
Like generals who always fight the last war, the masters of the old media have not adapted to the new conditions at all. They are still running the old plays, using devices that used to consistently work for them back in the day. The establishment guys are like this base runner, and they are having trouble adjusting to the fact that we now have a full umpiring crew. The point about the new media is that a significant portion of this new umpiring crew is now an informal, interconnected web of observers, all around the world. And unlike the fans in the stadium, they can do more than just yell about it.
I say all this because the process currently being used on Louisiana Presbytery and Steve Wilkins would have worked, smooth as satin, if this were 1975. In that day, the gatekeepers had genuine functional authority, and someone in the process received justice or injustice depending on whether the gatekeepers were godly or ungodly, or depending on whether they had a firm grasp on the biblical principles of justice. In a similar way, in 1975, if CBS had run a similar story to the Bush National Guard story, they would have gotten away with it. But how public events occur and are reported has completely changed. This change has not by-passed the Church; it affects us as much as it affects anybody.
So, where do I get off, intruding myself into this PCA story? There are two layers to my involvement, and hence two answers to the question. One, I was a player already so it is not a matter of intruding. This is not a case of me picking up a passing dog by the ears. I was at the 2002 Auburn Avenue conference as a speaker, and so this is not a case of me butting in.
Further, a number of leaders among the FV critics have now picked up the accusations of some of our local Moscow critics, and have begun using these accusations as weapons in the broader FV conflict. And if I am being being used as an argument, I reserve the right to act as a robust counterargument as well.
Further still, those citing anonymous attack blogs as credible sources are demonstrating that they believe them sufficiently authoritative — which needs to be pointed out. They are demonstrating for us what they believe justice looks like — and I want the whole world to know what they believe justice looks like. The leading cheerleaders of this prosecution of Steve Wilkins via Louisiana continue to demonstrate in public that they are prepared to accept, and have accepted, anonymous testimony.
In addition, this use of slander from our local Intoleristas clearly shows that they thought it was way past time to change the subject. Having everybody look at whether the PCA was treating Louisiana with all biblical justice was disconcerting, and it was quickly felt that everyone would be much more edified if they were directed to anonymous blogs identifying me as a mountebank, ruffian and poltroon. Someone like me who was loudly insisting that the accused has to have the presumption of innocence and that the burden of proof must rest with the prosecution was clearly up to no good. Like Aristotle, who taught us that the ad hominem is a logical fallacy, I plainly must have something to hide. Otherwise, why would I say something as crazy as that?
But here is the second point, and, I think, it is a far more significant one. I am writing, not just as a participant in this particular controversy, but also as part of the new media. When Dan Rather misled the American people, and Little Green Footballs called him on it, the cries of outrage were predictable. Little Green Footballs was not part of the internal accountability network, meaning by this that they weren’t part of the internal no-accountability network. The real complaint was that because they were not in the formal framework of accountability, it was far too easy for them to provide actual accountability.
If a denomination like the PCA wants to indict an entire presbytery, this is a public event. It does not just concern the members of the PCA. As a public event, it is fully appropriate to raise questions of justice and process, and to point out what is being done, or not being done, to ensure that justice is being honored. It is particularly appropriate for me to do so since my name is invoked so often.
Flip this around, and ask what people, critics included, think I should do. Here is the set-up. I am not in the PCA, but I do have a blog that is widely read and followed in the Reformed world, including a lot of people in the PCA. A controversy erupts in the PCA, but the controversy also involves me and what I believe, and a number of PCA men are accusing me of teaching things I don’t believe or teach at all, and they are accusing friends of mine in the PCA of teaching those same things when I have good reason to believe that those are misrepresentations also. In the course of the controversy, some of these PCA men who have misrepresented my doctrinal views in their books, articles, reports, and blogs have also started citing anonymous reports attacking my character. Here is basic question — if you were in such a circumstance, do you believe it would be appropriate for you to weigh into the discussion? Particularly if you were in a position to make the truth plain to thousands of people following it? Of course you would. I would be a negligent Christian, pastor, and friend if I stayed out of it.
One last comment. It grieves the Holy Spirit of God when Christians who ought to be edifying one another are tearing each other down instead. And anything that grieves the Spirit ought to be a grief to us as well. But we need to be wary of committing the fallacy of composition. The fact that a disruption in the Church is grieving the Spirit does not mean that every participant in that disruption is grieving the Spirit equally. Relativism doesn’t work here any better than it works anywhere else. The row at Antioch grieved the Spirit, and the hypocrisy of Peter and Barnabas grieved him as well. But the fact that Paul confronted the hypocrisy for what it was did not grieve the Spirit, even though it made Paul a participant in the disruption. And someone like Paul could be grieved that it was necessary for him to do what he had to do, but not be at all grieved that he did it. It was a shame that it became necessary, but it was, at the end of the day, necessary.
In the same way, I am grieved that the Reformed world in North America has decided to disgrace itself in this particular way. I am grieved that this combat has broken out. But I am not grieved to be a combatant. Rather I am honored to be Steve Wilkins’ friend, and I am privileged to be in a position to supply relevant testimony. It has been the good pleasure of God that situated me in the midst of this conflict. Because I am in conflict with fellow Christians, I want to make especially sure that I fight honorably — this is important because a number of people in this imbroglio don’t know the difference between hitting hard and hitting below the belt. This is part of the prevailing confusion over the standards of justice. Just as, in the South, you can say anything you want about anybody, just as long as you add the little exculpatory tag, “Bless his heart,” (He’s a lying skunk, bless his heart”), so in Christian circles, you can come sneeveling around with slanderous accusations circulated by anonymous and lying cowards, just as long as you say something suitably pious as an attachment to the slander. “I read on covenantsludge.com that Doug Wilson has coats made for his wife out of Dalmatian puppies, but we must always remember to pray for him even as we report this to the saints, with grief in our hearts, considering ourselves lest we also be tempted.” A little like trying to fix the problem of the dead rat behind your fridge with a little air freshener.
And if I respond to this with an honest, above-the-belt response — like comparing it to a dead rat behind the fridge — the response, from die-hard conservative types, is to fall into the postmodern morass of relativism. “Above the belt? Below the belt? Define belt. Who’s to say what a belt is? Both sides are hitting. Why does the belt matter?”
So here’s where we are. The SJC was involved in this unnecessarily. The trial, if there needed to be one, should have happened in Louisiana Presbytery. If there wasn’t one at presbytery, then this was the failing of those men who believed a trial to be necessary and did nothing, and not the fault of those who did not believe it to be necessary and did nothing. Because of how irregular this whole thing is, and how obviously it is politically driven, observers are right to be nervous. Any process that could conceivably result in Steve Wilkins being forced out of the PCA for “heterodox views,” as this process certainly could, without Steve ever having a full, complete, open and honorable trial, with a presumption of innocence, is a process that deserves to have honest men everywhere ladle piping hot contumely over the top of its pointy little head. If this kind of vigorous response makes folks feel uncomfortable, then they should stop defending the indefensible. As one commenter on this blog put it, when sorting out a conflict among the kids, what do we think when one child says, “It all started when he hit me back”? Folks who want me to shut up about the PCA sure aren’t acting like they want me to shut up about the PCA.
One last comment about the anonymous attack blogs. I don’t talk about them as much as I do because they bother me, or because I fret that people might believe what they read. I have thicker skin than that. I talk about them as much as I do because they are the best present that anyone in this conflict has ever given to me. I feel like I have fallen into a chocolate pie. How hard could it be to show reasonable Christians, still making up their minds, that testimony of this sort is risible testimony? And not only have the eliptical orbit critcs started up these blogs, but many established leaders with names among our critics have begun to cite them. This means one of two things: either they are shrewd men but their cause is now officially desperate, or they are men who really don’t know what they are doing. In either case, I can deal with it.
In the meantime, all you PCA pastors who have ever had to deal with a hard discipline case, here is what could happen to you, under “the new justice.” You once had to discipline a man in your congregation for adultery, or beating his wife, or sexually molesting kids, or something pretty skanky like that. He is not repentant, and he hates the church for the discipline. A couple years go by, and your church gets into a conflict with another church down the road — involving how much baptismal water is necessary for a true baptism, or what constitutes proper Advent colors, something crucial like that. The disgruntled former member sees his opportunity, and sets up a web site detailing all the tyrannies he suffered while a member at your church, and the only reason he doesn’t sign his name to the lurid account is that he “is fearful of the retaliation he might suffer.” Heh. I can understand why a wife-beater would be concerned about his reputation. I can understand why he might need to contend for righteousness from the shadows. Can’t be too careful.
Is this an impossible scenario? Not on your life. And this controversy has now revealed the fact that, for a number of our Reformed leaders, acceptance of this kind of testimony, taking it at face value, is perfectly fine with them. They might want to put some sort of high bar on this for acceptance, of course, like “it is only acceptable to receive spurious testimony from anonymous sources if you are contending for the gospel.” This is not the position of the odd person here or there. This is the position taken against us in the last several weeks by a prominent PCA pastor, a member of the PCA study committee, and an editor of a national book critiquing the FV. Is this bothering me? No, not at all. As long as they are trying to railroad my friends, I wish they would do so more and more. My reputation only suffers among people who don’t know or care what justice is. Their reputation suffers among those who do know what justice is. Which would you prefer?
But they are not doing this simply because they are critics of the FV. Men like Tim and David Bayly are critics of the FV too, and they hate this kind of crap. Anonymous slander-acceptance is happening because the men in charge of the crusade against the FV are political, not principled. And because though they are politically-motivated, they have now painted themselves into a political corner.