A PCA pastor named Dewey Roberts has recently taken me to task for what I have written about the SJC — or, as he put it, my “campaign of ‘disinformation’ against the PCA and the SJC.” He has thrown down the gauntlet, and I think that when you read how he has phrased things it will be obvious that I need to respond.
He said, and I quote,
“I have told friends of mine that Wilson is a prolific writer, but not a profound thinker.”
Of course I am not a profound thinker. Things come to me in the shower, for Pete’s sake.
“Nothing illustrates that better than his disinformation against the SJC. He truly does not know of what he speaks. One of the lost tools of learning is to do ‘critical’ thinking — not criticising thinking. Critical thinking helps us to look at issues objectively and to be aware of our own biasses.”
Right, and being unaware of one’s own bias is what all those other guys must be doing! I think Dewey means here that Wilkins was run out of the PCA by men who were looking at life objectively, and who were thoroughly aware of their own bias. Heh.
“The next time Wilson posts something negative about the SJC, I am going to ask him two questions: First, can you show, Mr. Wilson, where or how the SJC acted contrary to the constitution of the PCA?”
But of course, I have never pretended to be even remotely acquainted with the ins and outs of the PCA BCO. Quite the opposite, as I have cheerfully acknowledged before. My case against what the SJC has been doing has been grounded on the basic principles of justice as outlined in Scripture. I don’t know the constitution of the PCA, and don’t pretend to. I do know the Bible, and I do know what is being done. Now I assume that what is being done is contrary to (at least) the spirit of the PCA’s constitution, but this is actually a judgment of charity. Because this whole thing is such an obvious railroad job, I have a hard time believing that the constitution of an historic Reformed denomination would explicitly sanction anything like it. But I defer to those who have actual knowledge of the BCO.
If someone were to show me that this travesty had been perfectly legal in all essential respects, I would not therefore be impressed. Something does not become just simply because it can be justified procedurally. When the Sanhedrin met to condemn Jesus, I’ll bet they had a quorum. And, because of how this controversy has gone thus far, I need to hasten to add that I am not accusing FV opponents of being Christ-killers, or maintaining that Steve is Jesus. Steve is Machen, not Jesus. And, because of how this controversy has gone thus far, I need to hasten to add that the preceeding sentence was a joke. Partly a joke.
But the Sanhedrin reference makes an important point, relevant to this discussion. Legality is not the same thing as righteousness. Those who bribed Judas were very concerned with legality, and upcoming audits. They didn’t want the money Judas returned to them to be found in the wrong account because that would be bad. Their problem was that they did not conduct their business with the Final Audit in mind. As a result, they were simultaneously scrupulous and unjust. And that is a basic problem.
“Second, can you show, Mr. Wilson, what constitutional rights belong to members of the CREC to prevent this ‘travesty’ about which you complain concerning the PCA?”
Sure, and this is preeminently a fair question. Allow me to make three points here, which between them cover the short term and the long term. First, we have no standing judicial commission, in the hands of which a minister could fall without ever having had charges brought against him, and from which there can be no appeal. We have nothing like that, thank the Lord.
Second, before a case can appear before presbytery, according to our constitution, it must have been adjudicated first at the local level. Once that is done, appeal can be made to presbytery. The court of appeal has authority over whether to hear the case or not, and is constitutionally required not to hear frivolous appeals. Because this is a fallen world, injustices can still occur, but we have taken pains to keep those injustices from being able to occur in some grand, centralizing way.
And third, even this is obviously not absolute. It is important to note that constitutions, being paper, do not actually protect anybody — honorable and conscientious men do. If the CREC falls into great sin, and the kindness of God departs from us, our descendants will be able to twist honorable words to dishonorable ends, which is a long and trusted tradition of old boy networks everywhere. And so this is why, knowing that we are fully vulnerable to all the same temptations, and because we deny any kind of CREC “exceptionalism,” we have included a “song of Moses” in the preamble to our Constitution, which says this:
“Consequently, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we charge you, the generations who will follow us in this confederation, to submit to the Scriptures with sincere and honest hearts, and to the standards of this confederation as consistent with the teaching of Scripture. When a portion of our order and confession is found to be out of conformity to Scripture, we charge you to amend it honestly, openly, and constitutionally, as men who must give an account to the God who searches the hearts of men. We charge you in the name of the Lord to abhor all forms of ignoring our intentions in what we have set down through dissembling, reinterpretation, dishonesty, relativism, pretended explanations, presumed spiritual maturity, assumed scholarly sophistication, or outright lying, so that the living God will not strike you and your children with a curse. We charge you to serve Him in all diligence and honesty, so that the blessings of the covenant may extend to your children for a thousand generations.”
In short, we know that the way of all flesh is not an area where we have somehow been given some kind of special exemption. And so I would answer Dewey this way — it is quite possible that a hundred years hence (say), the CREC will be doing something awful to somebody. And so I pray, honestly and without guile, that if that happens, God will raise up a courageous voice to confront them on it. I don’t care if he is a member of the CREC or not, but I hope he is. Ezra, the founder of the Pharisees, heard the Lord Jesus giving them what for, and added his amen to it.
“I hope for his sake that Wilson has the wisdom to lie low because I have taken the measure of a ‘man of his talents’ and have concluded the emperor has no clothes.”
He is wrong on two counts here. I am not a naked emperor. I am a clothed peasant. And not a smelly peasant either, because ideas come to me in the shower.
“I won’t let Wilson get by with trying to wordsmith his way out of these questions. He will either have to quote chapter, paragraph and line or he will be exposed as a master of disinformation.
But as I have noted, my case does not in any way depend on chapter, paragraph and line” of the BCO. It does depend on Scripture, which I have been willing to cite, and have cited repeatedly, and which to this point remains unanswered. Show me in the Bible where a man has to prove his innocence. Show me in the Bible where conclusions can be drawn after hearing the prosecution only. Show me in the Bible where anonymous accusers are given the time of day. Show me in the Bible where expressions of pietistic concern and sentimentalist grief are an adequate substitute for basic integrity and justice. Being prosecuted by sentimentalist pietists is like drowning in a cauldron of hot butterscotch. Is this an example of me “wordsmithing my way out” of a jam? Deal with it.
“P.S. If Wilson doubts me, I would recommend that he contact James Jordan’s pastor, Mickey Schneider (who is a minister in the CREC), under whom I apprenticed in 1973.”
All I need to say here is that Mickey’s church just came into the CREC this last year. Apparently, the utopian vision of future prosecutions that Dewey envisages was not alluring enough to attract Mickey to the PCA.
In another post, Dewey Roberts says, directly to me, that:
“I have laid the gauntlet down to you (in Wilkin’s Rationale) about all the false accusations you have made about the SJC for these past several months. My basic position about you is that you are a propagandist of disinformation. You artfully weave disinformation about the PCA and SJC into comments about known facts. That is always the best and most effective way to disinform. But your gig is up.”
I think he meant that the jig is up, because the gig is up when the band is loading their gear into the van, or you have raised your arm to jab a sharp spear at a frog. But let us not digress. This is frankly beside the central point. The definition of propaganda is not “saying something that displeases the prosecution.” The definition of propaganda should not include conscientous attempts to return to biblical standards of justice.
“Now my advice to you would be to call Mickey Schneider when you get a chance and ask him about me. After you do so, I think you will probably decide that you don’t want to engage me in a battle of wits. Why?”
Because watching the two of us in a battle of wits would be like watching a nuclear war between Burkina Faso and Ghana? No?
“Because I won’t chase rabbits with you and I won’t let you get away with your nonsensical, ill-informed statements about the SJC any longer. I will force you to face the facts of the constitution of the PCA which will effectively cut your comments off at the knee.”
But all my comments have two knees, and so even if you cut me off at the knee, I would still be able to hop around in my disengenuous fashion. “It’s just a flesh wound!”
“And I will make you show how the CREC is ‘better’ by quoting from your constitution (that should be interesting!). After all, people who live in glass houses (like the CREC) don’t need to throw stones at those who have a historic Presbyterian constitution (like the PCA does).”
I have already answered this basic point, but I would be quite interested if anyone wants to write up a brief history of all the standing judicial commissions of historic Presbyterianism. Of necessity it would have to be a brief little tome, but I would be happy to read it. And when I got my copy in the mail, one of the first things I would do is look at the subject index to find all the references to Thornwell. Among the many ludicrous pictures this controversy has generated, few can compete with the image of staunch southern Presbyterians pulling on the levers of this huge crane they call a standing judicial commission, “Whatcha doin’ with the crane?” we ask. “Removing the mote from brother Thornwell’s eye.”
“Doug, it is your choice. Either go away quietly. Or, I am going to expose you to the blogging world as just a bully who is a propagandist of disinformation. It is your choice.”
Bully? Now that’s rich. Second-grader Wilkins kept getting his lunch money stolen by the fourth-graders, and so we have invited him to come have lunch with us. This is interpreted as persecution of the fourth graders. Well, okay.
And did I read him right? Did he actually offer me the choice of “going away quietly?” Suppose I don’t?