DW is a charmer, a charismatic personality type who knows how to gather a following; which is how he took over leadership of the church he attended, and made himself a pastor; and afterward, successfully brought in other churches to join his "federation," in which he continues as the top-dog. DW is not accountable the way pastors in an actual P&R denomination are--not to the elders of his congregation, not to a wider church. All the constituents of his federation are essentially independent churches, most of whom baptize babies and practice paedo-communion. So, the setup is functionally little different from a Baptist convention, plus sacraments. Except...
Most RBs won't sanction one of their own who is self-ordained. And yet, because they can identify a degree of separation from DW--"He isn't one of us, but more of a presbyterian"--they think to themselves, "His ordination issues are a problem for his own kind to deal with. We like his cultural polemics, his salty dialog." DWs own congregants consider him to be their pastor, so in the eyes of that all-important group he occupies the office. Then, he has all those sister-churches who recognize him, so they functionally regard this self-made pastor as a legitimate minister.
If you see it in a certain light: isn't that what denominations are about? Fellow churches and churchmen who regard one another as legitimate churches and ministers? That may be what it looks like from the perspective of Independency, but not from inside a properly constituted, organized P&R denomination. Men are called to the ministry by the church, not by themselves. The church recognizes and ordains a man to the office. They tell the rest of the church, "We're putting our stamp of approval on this man, and if you regard our judgment as anything you should feel safe regarding him as we do." Yet, we see ministers and congregations even within the P&R world granting DW the place of teacher; not just a dispenser of knowledge, but a spiritual guide for the immature and ignorant.
This is, frankly, madness. But when you ADD to that massive red-flag waving right out of the gate: all the rest of the aberrant theology, the pastoral misconduct, the coarseness of his tongue, his appalling reputation among outsiders (1Tim.3:7), etc.--it is clear that what attracts people to him is not theological care and precision, or the gentleness and pure spiritual greatness and mediatorial authority of Jesus whom he claims to represent. To have and project that is not a matter of charisma, but of calling. When RBs and P&Rs simply grant DW a platform, formally or informally, they are crediting him with authority he only has from them, whether they think he has his from Christ or not. Thus they validate him in the eyes of their brethren.
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