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Originally Posted by SemperFideles  I'm sorry but that wasn't clear to me. The way I read the issue of Church discipline was in reference to the original decision to give Wilkins a pass after his examination. I assumed the "budgets and families" reference was to that as you admit above you speculated love toward their brother pla[ye]d into this. ...
I've been a Marine Officer for 18 years. I've certainly softened in my sense of how Church leadership works but I've never quite softened in how accountability of leaders ought to take place. Leadership is a privilege and not a right. I realize it is hard and that men are not perfect. I'm not implying that but I am implying that when men in leadership err there are sometimes very grave consequences. ...
Why am I bringing this up? Because it's my estimation that the initial "pass" on Wilkins was a grave error. I am glad that there is acknowledgement of error now but I think that some are not reckoning that it is appropriate the leadership take responsibility for their role in this. If they passed Wilkins initially out of friendship and love then that still doesn't remove the responsibility they must face for their error.
I guess what I'm saying is that I agree that the SJC ought to continue contra the shock of some who might be wondering why. There are certain decisions that leaders made (even in good faith at times) that the consequences are so severe that the right thing to do by those in authority over them is to remove them from leadership. But this is just my opinion and that will be up to others to decide. |
Aye, aye, captain! i don't have any quarrel with your points about Exxon Valdeez or Haditha.
The thing is -- the FV ringleaders are no longer there, for the most part. They have removed themselves -- excommunicated themselves, if you will. The ultimate censure of church discipline has already been imposed.
What you are dealing with is a shifting majority. I too have asked -- how could anyone read what he wrote and not see it's out of line? The most credible answer I've gotten -- and I can't give you a link -- is that out of friendship, probably, certain commissioners just couldn't believe he meant just exactly what he said. I don't think any who previously gave him "a pass," as you aptly call it, did so conciously thinking they were letting him continue in his comfortable lifestyle at the expense of truth and sacrificing the sheep.
But the point is -- the thinking of a bare majority has crystalized to believe that his views were out of line.
So you, or more precisely, the SJC, is faced with deciding an appropriate punishment for a corporate body whose majority has shifted. The current majority agrees LaP was wrong all along to give him a pass.
Should you kick a presbytery out of the PCA when the current leadership agrees something is wrong, was wrong all along, and has already substantially purged itself of the error?
That is the sanction the SJC threatened in the indictment.
If you do, then you have the issue of men and families who've devoted their lives to advancing the Reformed Faith, opposing error, and will need somewhere else to go if they remain in the PCA. You have their churches that are structured very much around being presbyterian, which all of a sudden, by a stroke of the SJC pen, would no longer be presbyterian, and they would be in limbo for a year or more until some other presbytery took them in.
Some of these churches have building programs, where they are deciding to place a substantial portion of their life savings in a presbyterian church, which all of a sudden may become an independent church.
I know people, myself included, who have already wasted a lot of time and energy on independent churches, where a PCA church was not available to them.
These are some of the considerations the SJC has before it.
Hope this helps.