It really sounds as if the action taken was appropriate, and the trial - such as it was - carried out fairly and with charity (the latter being of no small importance, considering Paul's words).

Perhaps now the Louisiana presbytery can enjoy a lovely stretch of peace.  I hope so, at any rate! 

(Thanks, dear sir, for visiting my blog.  You're too kind!)

LaP's stated clerk has received the official notice of the SJC's action yesterday by email and copied it to all of us who are commissioners to the LaP.  The core admonishment is as follows:

"The Presbyterian Church in America, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of the peace, purity and unity of His Church, does hereby publicly admonish Louisiana Presbytery for its failure adequately to protect the peace, purity and unity of the Church in its investigation of and proceedings pertaining to TE Stephen Wilkins that should have raised a strong presumption of guilt that the views held and taught by TE Wilkins differed from the “standard exposition of Scripture contained in our Constitution.”  (BCO 29-1)"

@Patrick Rooney - Thanks, Patrick.  Sometimes I struggle here between absolute precision vs. being clear to readers outside the PCA for whom absolute precision would have no meaning because they have no idea what these documents are, and no idea what some of our terminology means. 

My intent in that paragraph you corrected was mainly to say that the Bible is our primary authority.  An original draft had said the Bible was our first constitutional document, but a pastor friend corrected me on that, pointing out that our constitutional documents are amendable, whereas the Bible is not. 

Thanks again.  Where are you from?

-Grampa D

@TheClingingVine2 - 

@Patrick Rooney - 

This may be more explanation than anyone cares to hear about, but the rest of the story is that the SJC prosecutor, Rev. Dewey Roberts, has gone on Greenbaggins blog and complained that somebody was erroneously implying that LaP won the case because Count 1 got dismissed, and said that the admonition given by SJC upon LaP on its guilty plea to Count 2 applied equally to Count 1.

I tried to explain a couple times that this was not the case, and he argued with me both times, so I decided to let him have the last word and leave it alone.

But because a lot of this was confusing to a lot of readers, especially my non-Calvinistic in-laws, I will offer a further explanation.  This is simplified, so hopefully someone not familiar with our governing documents can understand it. 

Count 1 had to do with following procedures, whereas Count 2 had to do with reaching the right conclusion, on whether the "Federal Vision" views of Rev. Wilkins were out of accord with the PCA's Calvinistic Constitution.

What procedures?  Well, if you look up the various paragraphs cited, you will find two curious things: 

1. The indictment said LaP should have characterized the seriousness of Rev. Wilkins exceptions to the PCA's Calvinistic standards.  Whenever an elder is ordained, he is asked whether he takes exceptions to any of the statements in our creedal documents.  An example would be -- the creedal documents provide that we baptize our children as infants but we wait until they make a credible profession of faith to admit them to the Lord's Supper.  A typical Federal Vision follower might say -- I take exception to waiting with the Lord's Supper, and instead feel we should be consistent with the two sacraments and give both of them to our infants. 

Then it is up to the ordaining board to decide whether those exceptions to the standards are major or minor.  If major, the ordination is not allowed.  If minor, ordination goes forward.

The SJC said the LaP failed to categorize Rev. Wilkins' exceptions as to major or minor.  The problem was -- Rev. Wilkins insisted he had no exceptions, so there was nothing to categorize.  He always insisted that his Federal Vision views were consistent with our creedal statements.  Now, he may have been wrong in saying that, but that's what he said. 

2. The second curious thing is -- there's a long list of questions that a presbytery is supposed to ask an intern when he comes to apply for ordination in a presbytery.  That list of questions is specifically only required when a candidate first applies for ordination.  No-where in our Book of Church Order does it say that someone whose views have come into question after ordination should have these intern questions re-asked. 

The rub occurred when the SJC (the PCA's highest court) accused the LaP (a lower court) of failing to follow those two procedures summarized above.  It was not that the LaP had refused to follow them.  They never had been asked to follow them, and there was nothing showing us intuitively that we should have known on our own to follow them.

So we decided at the Jan. 19 meeting to plead not guilty to that procedural part, Count 1. 

The bottom line of whether Rev. Wilkins' Federal Vision views were out of accord with our creedal statements, or at least that there had been probable cause to believe they were out of accord, and that we had previously failed to so find in a timely manner, was Count 2 and we pled guilty to that.

By the time we met on Feb. 9, a possible trial of Rev. Wilkins was moot, because he had pulled out of the PCA, and we had to review our pleas and decide whether to defend ourselves at the March 6 trial in Atlanta.  A motion to change our plea to guilty on Count 1 and avoid a trial failed by a tie vote.  The argument was -- hey, all they will do is admonish us anyway, so why go to the trouble? 

A substitute motion was offered to keep the not-guilty plea to Count 1 and defend, and that passed by one vote.  The majority view was, as I've summarized above, we should not plead guilty to something we felt in good conscience, we were not guilty of.  The things the SJC was saying we should have done, procedurally, in examining Rev. Wilkins, were 20-20 hindsight, and made no sense to have known to do them at the time. 

This placed the SJC on the horns of a dilemma.  They had 300 pages or more of documents backing up what I've summarized simply above.  The most that could have been proved on the procedural count was -- you in the LaP should have understood him better at the time, you should have realized that his protests of not having any exceptions to the creedal documents were not true, so you should have gone the extra mile and found his non-exceptions to be real exceptions and categorized them as major or minor, and treated him like an intern and asked him all those intern questions all over again. 

The former prosecutor had tried to get Count 1 dismissed weeks ahead of the trial, because of the horns of a dilemma I've explained above.  They refused.  Their own minutes and official report admit this.  After the trial, they were inclined to find LaP guilty on Count 1 anyway, so they could be seen as taking a harder line against Federal Vision.  But they realized this would look silly to anyone who waded through all the paragraphs cited and summarized it as simply as I have done.  So instead they decided to dismiss Count 1.

All this head of steam may be helpful to understand why Prosecutor Roberts is now taking the position that, even though Count 1 was dismissed, the admonition applies to Count 1 anyway. 

I understand these guys are frustrated.  It took 5 or 6 years to wade through all this, and when Rev. Wilkins left, a lot of people understandably felt all dressed up and no-where to go.

But the truth is the truth.  Think of a simple analogy.  You get a speeding ticket based on a videotape, and the tape proves it was the car beside you passing you up, that was speeding, and not you.  You send the tape to the judge and ask him to dismiss the case, to avoid the trouble of coming to trial.  He agrees, and dismisses the case.  Then he realizes you have a second ticket in his court that you're guilty of, and you plead guilty.  He decides to fine you on both cases, and you say, no, you'll pay the fine you're gulty on, but not the one on the dismissed case. 

@RevJATB - Hey, Rev, thx for replying:

"Now I'm no attorney and I'm no judge, but ..."

Well, I happen to be both, but ...

Not guilty is what happens when the prosecution goes forward with a weak case and loses.

Dismissal is when the prosecution knows he's gonna lose and decides not to risk it.

Either that, or the prosecutor has a weak case and offers the defendant a very slight punishment, to plead guilty and get it over with, without risking a possibly-more-serious punishment from a trial.

My favorite story about a guilty plea that should never have happened was a dad who was charged with assault for spanking his underage son for having sex.  The son called welfare.  The dad was arrested and spent a night or two in jail, and was at risk for losing his job if he had to take more time off for the court proceedings.  I was appointed to represent him.  I said -- you're not guilty, so you should not plead guilty.

He said -- you're a white man, you don't understand how poor people live. 

The prosecutor offered a punishment of time already served in return for a guilty plea, which was very light for assault of a child.  The judge smelled a fish, and demanded to know why such a sweet deal had been offered.

It was my last chance for justice in the case, so I blurted out -- Judge, I'll tell you why, the state has no case, this man caught his son having sex, and whupped him good, like any good dad should have.

The judge said -- I reject the guilty plea, set it for trial.

The state caved and dismissed.  Like I said -- dismissal is what a prosecutor does when he doesn't have a case. 

Now lemme tell you another story, since you like stories about sex.  I read your blog.  :)

There was a powerful national leader who was a Godly man for the most part, but he rested on his laurels and took too much leisure time, and noticed a pretty lady bathing on a roof top.  So he fooled around with her, and she got in a family way.  The king urged all able-bodied men to support the troops, including the lady's husband, and the husband was sent where there was no hum-vee and no body armor, and he got killed.  The king thought he was a master at cover-up, but there was a faithful preacher around who knew the score.  The preacher showed up and told a story about two shepherds, one rich and one poor.  The rich shepherd stole the poor shepherd's only lamb.  The king was irate and ordered the rich shepherd killed.  The preacher said, "Thou art the man!" 

If I could, I'd tell my father-assaults-son story to the prosecutor and then say -- thou art the man.

But he probably does not read my blog.

@HaigLaw - I thought it was a very handsome apology, BTW.

I fear I'm short on insight regarding the exchange at Greenbaggins, but do agree that a "dismissal" is generally understood to mean "oh, never mind".  Once a charge has been dismissed, it's supposed to be a non-issue.  It's not appropriate, ISTM, to both dismiss a charge to which someone or something had pleaded "not guilty" and say the charge merited an admonishment.  That's what the trial would have intended to establish, surely?  Whether or not an admonishment - or stronger penalty - was warranted?

One outcome that should arise from the whole fracas ought to be a fine-tuning of the BCO with regard to this stuff.  The current wording virtually guaranteed such a contretemps would eventually occur, since it's left up to the individual's private judgment as to whether or not his doctrinal standards align correctly with the PCA's doctrinal standards.  Currently there appears to be a default assumption that if someone believes he's okay, he must be okay, and it'd be rude and unchristian to disagree with him.

It's astounding, how capable we are of convincing ourselves our views are fine and dandy, even when others can easily see where we've gone off the rails. The ECUSA is in the pickle it's in today because of those who serenely insisted over the past three or four decades that their doctrinal standards weren't in conflict with their denomination's, and too many others let them get away with it.  Now, of course, they're right....their views aren't in conflict any longer, are they?

It'd be a real pity if the sole result of the recent altercation in the LAP is the scooting of some of its members to the CREC.   ISTM it highlighted significant weakness in the PCA's BCO as to What To Do about elders who depart from the traditional, orthodox doctrinal standards, but who are unaware they've done so. 

My tuppence and worth every dime. 

Thanks, Mr Haig for explaining this.

One of my questions early on was whether our Book of Church Order provisions about interviewing candidates for ordination (21-4) applied beyond the time of initial ordination.  Also, how the relatively new recording of exceptions process RAO 16(3) (5) would be applied.

It seems that the interview process should apply whenever an ordained teacher is challenged for having non-conforming views, but it's not completely clear when one reads 21-4.

It also would seem that each "exception" to our standards should be individually recorded and classified as "merely semantic", "not out of accord," or "out of accord," but that is not completely clear from RAO 16(3) (5).  A reasonable interpretation there might be there only needs to be a "summary" - e.g.  "the one exception taken was found to be merely semantic."

It is my understanding that Reverend Wilkins took two exceptions and had about three "quibbles."  The standard to investigate, it would seem, is an objective one- requiring investigation of "quibbles" to determine whether they are exceptions, not whether the candidate thinks they are or are not exceptions.

Procedurally, I realize our system is not exactly like our court system.   I was expecting a precedent to be established here that might say:

1) BCO 21-4 applies to any doctrinal examination

2) RAO 16 (3)-(5) requires that in any doctrinal examination, each exception needs to be individually recorded and categorized

3) Both sections require that other differences, qualifications of views are to be reviewed to determine if they are exceptions, such a determination needs to be recorded, and then if they are found to be exceptions, they need to individually recorded and classified.

What it seems like happened here was, the sections were not clear in requiring the above and the Presbytery was not specifically directed to do the above, so it was reasonable the way they responded, objectively.  From your account and others, it seems that came to be generally understood as to what had happened.

Procedure here might have been the Judicial Commission saying on Count 1 the sections were not clear on their face, directions did not seem to require it, but to establish a case precedent detailing the above. 

Short of establishing precedent on count 1, these sections perhaps can be amended for clarity in the future.

While I think we have to have a process for exceptions, they need to be very carefully reviewed and seldom granted.  This is what protects us in a confessional system.  It is not a perfect system, but a very good one based on biblical polity.

Thanks again for putting up with all this on our behalf.  Remember, Scripture says those who are faithful in these duties are worth of double honor.

-Scott

@RevJATB - 

@TheClingingVine2 - 

@scott - My thanks again to Scott for going through all this and sharing a few more examples of procedures to be followed when there are allegations that a TE has exceptions to the standards.

And my thanks to RBerman for his insightful comment on Greenbaggins today that we can all learn from the experience of LaP's trial before the SJC and do a better job next time.

I had another thought on the issue of procedural irregularities today, and I categorize this initially under the head of not seeing the forest for the trees -- or let's get the big picture here, while wading through the morass of detail.

This is based on my 40 years learning and practicing law.  I do not invoke my position or titles, but merely mention my experience at the outset as an excuse if you think my points below are unduly theoretical.

There are reasons for procedures, and the most important are these two:

1. Due process fairness for the parties, and especially the accused in a criminal or quasi-criminal trial.

2. So the appellate court can accurately review what the trial court did, and figure out whether there was error.

If those two reasons are not at stake, procedural accuracy is not that important.  You are never going to get a perfect trial, and if an appellate court reversed every imperfect trial, they'd be constantly reversing them and nothing would ever be settled. 

Let's apply those 2 to the LaP trial before the SJC:

1. No one questions whether it was fair.  My story above quotes the associate counsel for the defendant LaP profusely thanking the SJC for bending over backward and being fair.

2. Were the proceedings at the LaP level involving Rev. Wilkins clear enough for the SJC to see whether LaP committed error?  Again, no question about it -- yes.  So sure were they that there was probable cause to believe that Rev. Wilkins' FV views were out of accord with the PCA's Constitutional documents that they said -- either try him for these views, or refer the case to the SJC for trial, or failing one of those two choices, we are going to dissociate the PCA from LaP and you guys are going to be out of the PCA.  They were totally definite about it.  There was no question in their reasoning about it.  There was never any question from the SJC's viewpoint about how to categorize Rev. Wilkins' views.  95% of the GA last time approved the ad-interim report saying the FV was out of accord.  A trial of Rev. Wilkins at the SJC was not going to be iffy as to whether FV was consistent with the Constitution or not.  The only possible outcomes were -- either Rev. Wilkins could recant his FV views, or he would be out of the PCA.  From this, we can see that the procedures LaP employed in examining Rev. Wilkins, albeit not perfect, as none could be, were adequate. 

Wouldn't a third reason for properly defined and carried out procedures be a desire for doctrinal consistency from presbytery to presbytery?   Surely the PCA would want the outcome of a trial to be the same no matter in which presbytery it was held. Few things are more destructive to justice - whether civil, criminal, or ecclesiastical - than for a decision as to whether something is right or wrong to be dependent upon who is rendering judgment.

While I'm in a "Ms. Fixit" mode, another area that needs tweaking in the PCA is to get settled once and for all whether "pink poodle" theology is acceptable in it.  Years ago I'd be arguing with RC's regarding that organization's lamentable tendency to adopt peculiar, unscriptural doctrines such as the sinlessness of Mary, her bodily assumption into heaven, purgatory, and so on.  Having spent a dozen adult years as a convert to the RCC I was very familiar with the defense, which is that none of those actually contradict Scripture.

I'd point out that using that rationale, the RCC would have no viable means of defense against some visionary nun who claims to have seen Christ, and that He had a pink poodle with Him during His tenure on the planet.

After all, the bible doesn't say He didn't have a pink poodle, does it?  Therefore, a teaching that Christ had a pet, and that pet was a pink poodle, is not contrary to Scripture.

One of the foundational defenses of the FV'ers has been that the FV's doctrinal distinctives are not actually contrary to the WCF, and so long as they are not contrary to it, they should be permitted.

The PCA is going to find itself hip deep in pink poodles before too long if that's the way it's going to treat the WCF, and is why it's so ludicrous to think that the FV would act as some sort of bulwark against encroaching feminism, as has been frequently asserted.  Pink poodle theology couldn't act as a bulwark against a class of preschoolers, for pity's sake, never mind a bunch of determined egalitarians. 

Whether the Scriptures or the WCF, it's not enough for a doctrine to not contradict the standard, it should actually square with it.

As I have said it, so let it be. 

Yes, that makes sense.  I see what you mean.

Okay, I withdraw the first point.