PRESBYTERION: COVENANT SEMINARY REVIEW 33/2 BOOK REVIEWS [119] The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis, by GUY PRENTISS WATERS. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006. Pp. xvi+397 (including endnotes, annotated bibliography, and indexes). ISBN 1-59638-033-0

It applies to many things

Just heard on the radio that Ozzy Osbourne turne 59 today.  How did I make it through High School without learning we had the same birthday?

I heard him quoted in something that was supposed to be British and was pretty had to decipher that he used to say he would be dead by forty.  He was fine with that until he got to about 39.5.

 I’m glad he hung in there.

“Now the big problem with this is that Calvin is only employed by Calvinists when he says what they like.”

I should add one thing to this post. Why should any confrontations from friends count more than many encouragements from friends? I went to the 2002 Auburn Avenue Conference because Pastor John Butler invited me to come along with him. Otherwise, I would have stayed in Minco that week. As far as I was concerned, the conference laid out the parts of Reformed theology that had motivated me to enter the ministry in the PCA, and I thanked all the speakers for their encouragement.

And I am not the only one. Many pastors and even seminary professors in the PCA have appreciated Steve Wilkins recognizing him as a valuable member of the denomination. Think of all the people, including pastors and professors, who attended and thoroughly enjoyed N. T. Wright speaking at the 2005 Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference.

Besides all that, what about the encouragement that even the critics have given? I listened to the 2003 Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference, and I distinctly heard Morton Smith state that the FV attenders were very much in line with the Dutch Reformed tradition. That’s a far cry from an accusation of heresy, unless presbyterians are now all supposed to believe that the Dutch have compromised the Gospel.

And we have all seen proof that Steve Wilkins is widely acceptable in the membership of the so-called “study committee”.  If he was so deviant, it would not have required such a stacked committee to condemn him.  (And here again the verdict precedes the “trial.”  Not only does Steve not get invited to participate, but he is not even contacted even though the committee report straightforwardly condemns him.  And when anyone questions this, R. C. Sproul declares that the desire for someone like Steve on the committee is in effect asking the accused to be on the jury.  So again, Steve is on trial without any personal confrontation or cross examination allowed).
So how can any informal personal confrontations substitute for a real trial? This reasoning only works if you have already discounted vast numbers of Presbyters as worthless (even though they too are members in good standing) and believe it is self-evident that the Steve’s critics have all the authority.

Things are pretty bad when I have to resort to yiddish.

The Seagoon writes:

This was in addition to a letter sent by former friends of Wilkins in the PCA explaining their concerns with his current theology at length and asking that he withdraw from the PCA for the sake of the purity and peace of the church. This is in addition to the times when Wilkins was publicly confronted by men like Joey Pipa in 2003 and told he was in error. The idea circulated by men like Mark Horne, that Wilkins has never been “told to his face” that he was teaching erroneous doctrines is not true, I was at the Auburn Avenue conference in 2003 when that was done. It’s been done both personally and in print many, many, times at this point.

Oh, well now it’s all so clear.  My facetious question about the Knox Colloquium is answered, “No, Steve entered into binding extra-ecclesiastical arbitration at the 2003 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference.”
And then, “I’ts been done both personally and in print many, many, times at this point.”  Oh yes, publishing an assault accusing a fellow minister a Galatian heresy in a micro-theonomic-denominational journal is exactly the kind of personal confrontation required in due process when pressing charges against a minister.  Yes, all my concerns have all been completely answered.  Thanks.

Now as to why no charges were pressed from within the Presbytery by the men who later complained or dissented against Wilkins exoneration, I cannot answer for them, but I can well understand their decision. The ordinary means of bringing charges against someone for serious doctrinal error is not to draw up specifications and submit charges oneself but per 31-1 and 31-2 for the presbytery, upon receiving a report or a request, to begin an investigation. The majority in the presbytery had already shown its hostility to such requests, and indicated its substantial agreement with TE Wilkins. For someone in the minority to move forward to make a case as a voluntary prosecutor themselves, when their almost assured failure to win the case would have caused them to be censured (note not charged – but censured) as a slanderer of the brethren (per BCO 31-9) would have been extremely foolish. What would have been the point of such a trial in LA Presbytery, when the majority there had already repeatedly indicated they approved of Steve Wilkins theology? This is why I titled the post The Case of the Missing Kamikaze Presbyters; while theoretically possible, any attempt to personally bring charges in would have been irregular and doomed from the start to crash and burn.

This paragraph is an admission that I am right, with an attempt to use the word kamikaze in the place of courageous.  We would at least have a list of charges to consider that could then be used in an appeal to the SJC.  Yeah, it is supposed to be tough to accuse a minister of heresy.  That’s why the BCO says:

31-9. Every voluntary prosecutor shall be previously warned, that if he fail to show probable cause of the charges, he may himself be censured as a slanderer of the brethren.

That’s the risk you’re supposed to be willing to take.

SJC has invented no-fault accusations, allowing Presbyters to simply jump over due process, escape even the psychological discomfort of arguing a case and actually pressing charges face-to-face with the accused, in favor of another process that is designed to destroy from a distance rather than to uphold truth.

More could be said but I will stop there.

At Best, Ignorance of the Facts

When do words become terms

AT&T And The 3G iPhone: Did Stephenson Just Screw Up Apple’s Near-Term Handset Sales?

Doug Wilson on the Auburn Avenue thing.

Older white women join Kenya’s [word deleted to slow down the wrong search traffic] tourists.