Christ Church’s Acceptance of Shade, Part 2

Pooh,

Last week we all received yet another dictate from Doug Wilson on his understanding of “biblical” justice. I noted this passage:

So the rule of thumb ought to be this. If someone comes to you from another Christian church, and they are under some kind of cloud, admonition, rebuke, suspension from the Table, or excommunication, what this should mean is that the burden of proof has shifted. An individual in your own church is innocent until it is proven that that they are guilty. Guilt has to be established, and it has to be established beyond any reasonable doubt. But if another church has taken disciplinary action of some sort against one of their members, and then that member comes to you, the burden should be on him to demonstrate and prove that an injustice was done to him. . . (“Jurisdictional Justice: A Justice Primer,” 3/8/06, emphasis added)

But then Pooh dropped this bombshell in the Wood a few days later:

Doug Wilson reminded the elders that we have already agreed this situation is not a barrier to Burke Shade and his church being accepted into the CRE, and that he has communicated this to Burke. The elders agreed that, further review of the material, the burden of proof is on the committee to overturn our previous decisions [to vindicate Burke — P], which would only happen if new, clear information against Burke appears. The elders would like a report from the committee by July 27. This recommendation considered as a motion passed. (Christ Church Elder Meeting Minutes, July 13, 2000, emphasis added)

When it came to defrocked PCA minister Burke Shade, the burden wasn’t on the convicted; from the word of his mouth alone, Doug Wilson shifted the burden to the court that had lawfully convicted him. (So let it be written! So let it be done!) Thus, Wilson subverted even his own version of “biblical” justice.

But I can already hear Wilsonista’s court eunuchs pulling up their keyboards to accuse me of failing to quote the following line of the Great Leader’s dictate, which will allegedly clear him:

If he can do so, and all the principles of justice outlined in this series are remembered (with the former body is given full opportunity to present its reasons), then there is no problem (in principle) with a receiving body overturning a judicial decision by another church.

They will try to obfuscate the matter by saying that Burke Shade’s receiving body (the CREC) did overturn a judicial decision (the propriety of which I will leave for another time), so there’s no hypocrisy involved on Wilson’s part. The fact is, however, when you read the cited Christ Church Elder Meeting Minutes, we discover in the sentence preceding the one quoted above that the Session members charged to look into the matter had not even finished reading the trial materials, let alone arrived at a final recommendation, and urged caution about acting on what they had at that time:

Doug Jones reported that the ad hoc committee concerning Burke Shade recommends that we should not send out the current letter, and that we should wait while Chris Schlect and Doug Jones continue to work through the trial materials, before they make a further recommendation. (Christ Church Elder Meeting Minutes, July 13, 2000, emphasis added)

There is a problem (in principle) with a receiving body overturning a judicial decision by another church without first having examined all of the evidence and having agreed in advance to clear the convicted. It seems that Wilson’s court jesters had a better sense of true biblical justice than Wilson himself. Yes, those are not the bells of justice we hear ringing over Anslem House, but the clanging cymbals of hypocritical autonomy:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. (Matthew 23:27)

Patrick

Christ Church’s Acceptance of Shade, Part 1

Pooh,

You discover two alarming contradictions when you compare the Kirk elders’ private statements about Burke Shade with their public statements. First, they contradicted themselves regarding who had the “burden of proof.” Second, they contradicted themselves regarding the precise nature of that burden. The Christ Church Elder Meeting Minutes dated July 13, 2000, state:

Doug Jones reported that the ad hoc committee concerning Burke Shade recommends . . . that we should wait while Chris Schlect and Doug Jones continue to work through the trial materials. . . Doug Wilson reminded the elders that we have already agreed this situation is not a barrier to Burke Shade and his church being accepted into the CRE, and that he has communicated this to Burke. The elders agreed that . . . the burden of proof is on the committee to overturn our previous decisions. . . (Emphasis added)

Read it this way:

Doug Wilson reminded the elders that we have already agreed this situation is not a barrier to Burke Shade and his church being accepted into the CRE, and that he has communicated this to Burke. The elders agreed that . . . the burden of proof is on the committee to overturn our previous decisions [that on September 16, 1999, they agreed to recieve Shade and his church into the CRE, and they agreed this situation — the PCA’s discipline — is not a barrier to Shade and his church being accepted by the CRE].

However, one month later, on August 17, 2000, the Christ Church elders adopted their “Report on the PCA vs. Burke Shade Trial for CRE Evaluation,” which they sent to the PCA’s Illiana Presbytery and to the CRE. You will note that, in addition to misrepresenting who carried the burden of proof, they neglected to declare their pre-existing agreement to receive Shade:

Illiana Presbytery delivered these materials [PCA vs. Shade trial documents] to us in good faith, understanding that we would use them “only for the purpose of adjudicating Cornerstone’s entry into the CRE Denomination.” It was for this very purpose that we studied these documents. . . And since the PCA is a faithful presbyterian church, we began evaluating the case by assuming the correctness of the Illiana decision, with Shade having the burden of proof. (“Report on the PCA vs. Burke Shade Trial for CRE Evaluation,” emphasis added)

The contradictions are apparent. In the first document they admit cutting a deal with Shade to ignore the PCA’s discipline, so that he could join the CRE. In the second they conceal their agreement with Shade, so they could dissemble by stating that they assumed “the correctness” of the PCA’s discipline and that Shade had the “burden of proof.” In other words, the Kirk elders tailored their message to fit the expectations of their audience; they were Shade’s legal defense team, but they represented themselves as judges who agreed with the PCA.

Now, given Wilson’s & Jones’ penchant for sophistry, they may equivocate, arguing, “What’s the difference? We still proved Shade’s innocence.” But that’s not the point. The point is that the Kirk elders tainted their conclusion by agreeing to receive Shade before examining the evidence against him. The point is that they stained their conclusion with duplicity.

And according to the CRE minutes, on October 19, 2001, the Kirk elders induced the CRE to unanimously adopt the “Report on the PCA vs. Burke Shade Trial for CRE Evaluation,” falsehoods et al. They did this in capacity of their office as ministers of the gospel.

The Kirk Kult Playbook

Pooh. . . .

I should also note that this is not the first time that the Great Leader, Christ Church, and the CREC have lawlessly overruled the lawful verdict of another denomination in order to admit a defrocked minister and his renegade congregation into the CREC. In 2000, the session of Christ Church “vindicated” a defrocked PCA minister, Burke Shade, and sponsored a splinter group he lead out from his previous church, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Carbondale, Illinois, for admittance into the CREC. As the correspondence between Christ Church and the Illiana Presbytery (PCA) shows, the session of Christ Church “vindicated” Burke without ever contacting the presbytery that had defrocked him or the session of the church he had previously served (see the respective letter exchanges in this issue of P&R News, pp. 18–20, 22). Furthermore, who appointed the Christ Church session to review this case? From whence did they derive their jurisdiction?

Most telling is this statement from Illiana Presbytery’s response to the Christ Church session:

Please understand our own concern about your objectivity when we have discovered that at least two elders from Christ Church were in communication with Mr. Shade about his reception into the CRE as early as Febrary 22, 1999, halfway through the trial. If the CRE was already interested in talking with Mr. Shade about his reception into the CRE then, how are we to conclude that you were able to objectively evaluate our records since then? (p. 20)

According to the CREC’s own website, it shows that it admitted Shade and his renegade Cornerstone Reformed Church in 2000, even before Christ Church received a response from Illiana Presbytery (which was dated January 7, 2001). In Shade’s case, he plead guilty and never complained about any unfairness in the trial until AFTER the presbytery had issued its censure, which in this case went beyond defrocking and also included a suspension from the Lord’s Supper. Mr. Shade jumped ship from the PCA and was admitted to the CREC, abandoning any appeals he might have had to the PCA General Assembly. Today Shade is a minister in good standing with the CREC, as is Cornerstone Reformed Church.

Is any of this sounding familiar to anyone? Does the Kirk Kult ever revise its playbook? How low can the CREC go? Apparently, they are sinking rapidly and aren’t anywhere close to reaching bottom yet, though this is familiar territory for them. They have been here before. Will the members of Christ Church ever put a stop to the Mullah’s madness and mendacity? I’m not holding my breath.

Patrick