TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
So the OPC has problems with Wilson because he advised a man who resigned from the OPC to ignore their call to discipline?
From the first blog post: "Mr. Maneri’s position is that he had joined another church and therefore was not subject to OPC jurisdiction. This was also the counsel of Doug Wilson to him."
I'm not seeing the issue with counsel like that.
1) If the guy doesn't belong to the denomination then it doesn't follow for him to be under their discipline.
2) I found it ironic that you say Doug Wilson cannot receive justice in his own Presbytery. That is quite the claim and quite the accusation of ineptitude regarding the elders within. (No worries though, it doesn't look like Wilson's church is signed on to the International Presbyterian Court. They'll probably let it slide.)
Even if the church/denomination the man was a part of says "No resigning once you've been accused." I can't help but think there might be a little confusion between a jilted session (all three leaving/resigning), disagreeable members (12 who forced a vote), and an organizing pastor in a church only two years old.
How was the situation explained to Wilson? (All the details or, "I'm out, but they keep pestering.")
Why would he not tell a man who had moved on to another church to ignore the old?
To me it looks like a case of Proverbs 26:17 in the worst case and off chance.
"Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears."
Well he was a member of the denomination. He made vows to that church. If you come under discipline you cannot simply just say you were crossing your fingers when you made the vows and run off and join another church. To violate the vows you took before God and church is a very, very serious matter. Of course Wilson would approve because he ordained himself and has made his church a home for countless men running from discipline. It's become an ecclesiastical penal colony for those who cannot abide the confessional restraints of other Presbyterian and Reformed denominations.
Frankly, this shouldn't be a debate. Wilson was one of the principal authors of the FV statement. Even while he has "distanced" himself from FV as a label he has admitted there has been no substantial shift in what he believes and said less than two years ago that he would not retract anything he signed on to in that statement. He just doesn't put it to the forefront as it would damage the image he's cultivated over the years. Peter Leithart and Rich Lusk pastor churches in his denomination and Leithart has taught at his college. Wilson wrote an essay honoring James Jordan in his festschrift. He's FV to the core. Everything else aside, this should be all we need to be done with him. I'm concerned that you are so willing to defend a man who teaches that which has been roundly condemned by virtually every confessionally Reformed body. Perhaps you were unaware of how close his ties are to that heresy, but you cannot be so any longer. Even if he didn't subscribe himself (he does), a man who defends heretics is no friend to the truth, no matter how manly a beard he grows.
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