“Moreover, if everything is on the table, we do not believe the church has the authority to prohibit or ‘not allow’ a lawful marriage.” Douglas Wilson
We have considered the various facts that Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, may or may not have put on the table when he encouraged Miss Katie Travis to marry serial pedophile Steven Sitler. No one knows exactly what he said, though we can be sure he didn’t communicate the strong likelihood of the nightmare we currently see unfolding. Nevertheless, he claims that “if everything is on the table, we do not believe the church has the authority to prohibit or ‘not allow’ a lawful marriage.” And yesterday Mr. Wilson doubled-down on this position, asking, “Don’t I need a verse or something?”
“Got that?”
But as oftentimes happens with Mr. Wilson, things he says one day may contradict things he says the next. For example on September 2, 2015, he wrote:
“Let me spell it out further. Back in the thirties, if a county clerk had refused a marriage license to a couple because they attended a church where the pastor baptized people with heads upstream, instead of her preferred way, with heads downstream, we would all agree that said clerk had gotten above himself. And if a county clerk expedited and stamped all the processing papers for trains full of Jews headed to Auschwitz, we would all have no problem with said clerk being prosecuted after the war. And when he was prosecuted, ‘it was entirely legal’ would not be an adequate defense. Got that? Two positions, marked clearly on the map, and there is a line somewhere between them.” (“In Which I Paint With Some Bright Yellows”)
In this excerpt Mr. Wilson draws an analogy between a Nazi county clerk rubberstamping transport papers for Jews being shipped to Auschwitz and a Tennessean county clerk granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Mr. Wilson also spells it out further that on September 2, 2015, he believed that public officials who step across this “line somewhere” should be prosecuted. He believed that it would not be an adequate defense if they claim their actions were “entirely legal.” Further, he didn’t believe he “needed a verse or something” to hold this position.
Note again that Mr. Wilson wrote this 3 days before he posted An Open Letter from Christ Church on Steven Sitler, on September 5, 2015, wherein he claimed, “we do not believe the church has the authority to prohibit or ‘not allow’ a lawful marriage.” So when it’s convenient to argue the legality of something, he argues the law. And when it’s convenient to argue the ethics of something apart from its legality, he argues morality. One day he believes a line marks two distinct positions. Three days later he needs a verse or something.
And no one should forget the point of this argument: Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, presided over the marriage of a serial pedophile to a 23-year-old graduate of New Saint Andrews College. But now that the marriage totters from failed polygraph to failed polygraph, with the pedophile admitting he had “contact resulting in actual sexual stimulation,” Mr. Wilson blithely insists the marriage was “lawful” and he demands a verse that prohibits this heinous union. Suddenly he fails to see “Two positions, marked clearly on the map, and there is a line somewhere between them.”
Got that?
I have been following this site for a week or so and am very thankful for your willingness to put yourself on the line for the church. The wolves are multiplying at an incredibly fast rate and I am afraid it is because the sheep have become fat and too lazy to even take notice anymore. I just read Wilsons letter offering an olive branch and to his statement”Right. But the judgments of what is reliable are being made by someone who himself confesses that he only knows a fraction of what has gone on here. How reliable are an utter outsider’s judgments of reliability? And how reliable are his determinations when on the basis of them he published the same day he heard about it? How many minutes of due diligence were spent on this? Quagmires are not something you do on the side.” I must say, for such a man who is held in such high esteem by many I find him to be rather thoughtless. If he indeed believes what he has said here he just disqualified every and any JUDGE as they themselves never know the inner workings behind the scenes yet God has put them in just that place to make a judgment on the presented facts and evidence. Simple truth, but somehow he misses even that.
Doug Wilson and his elders should have just pled incompetence – because it’s true In My Opinion – and handed the matter of finding Katie a husband over to unbelievers. Unbelievers have more smarts and more savvy than Wilson & Company to find a suitable husband for a young woman and reject unsuitable candidates.
Closing one’s eyes and picking up the phone book, opening a page, and plopping a finger down on a man’s name would have resulted in a better choice in a husband for Katie than what Wilson & Company did.