Just a couple of brief comments. The last week has been revelatory on the Louisiana Presbytery front, to put it mildly. Now I can ask for clarifications all I want, and am unlikely to get them from any official source. Why should I? I am not a player in this, but I am a commentator. And I hope to continue to comment in such a way that those who are players will be in a better position to see justice done.
Earlier today I was wondering how many law school graduates are also serving on sessions in PCA churches. These would probably be men who have not heard much about FV, but who have picked up some of the negative buzz about it, but who are continuing to go about their business serving the kingdom. At the same time, these are men whose business it is to deal with issues like the “presumption of innocence” all day every day. When we come down the point, and if we are successful in getting all eyes on the trial when it happens, if the confusions that have been evident up to this point are not straightened out, their collective reaction will probably be in the line of yikes!
To recap:
1. If Louisiana comes to trial, a charge not inherently unjust would be “failure to indict Wilkins.” An unjust charge would be “failure to convict Wilkins.” The SJC could not charge Louisiana with the latter without trying Wilkins themselves, which has not been done.
2. Lousiana should go into such a trial with the full presumption of innocence, and the burden of proof needs to rest entirely with the prosecution.
3. If Louisiana is found guilty of a failure to indict Wilkins, then that means that Wilkins should be indicted and brought to trial — with a full presumption of innocence, and with the burden of proof resting entirely on the prosecution.
As I said at the beginning, I am not in the least expecting anyone to give me the answers to these questions. No one owes me anything. But Louisiana Presbytery is a concerned party in this, obviously, and these are questions they need to present to the SJC asap (and of course, I am not assuming that they haven’t). They have a pointed interest in the answers, right? Louisiana needs to ask, respectfully, “will the charge be failure to indict Wilkins, or failure to convict Wilkins? And will we have the full presumption of innocence in the trial?”