Dear Doug,
I've been an admirer of your writings (at least some of them) for some time. I've read a number of your books and found some merit in them, including:
Sadly, I can no longer recommend your books. It's not that some of your books aren't good and useful. The big problem is one of "guilt by association." Recommending your books is too easily misconstrued as a recommendation of Doug Wilson himself, not just Doug Wilson the author, but also Doug Wilson the Pastor. From what I've been learning about you, you're one of the last men that I should be recommending as an example of godly Christian character. I'm even less able to recommend you as an example of a godly pastor. It's the same problem I now have in being able to recommend RC Sproul Jr's books. It's not that his books aren't good, it's that the man who wrote them isn't good. Like you he doesn't practice what he preaches.
I used to regularly read Credenda Agenda, until the "serrated edge" started slicing the wrong way. Furthermore, your "enemy theology" is the last kind of influence I need in my life when I sometimes already struggle with forgiveness. It's the same problem all over again with my not being able to continue recommending RC Sproul Jr's Highlands Study Center periodical, Every Thought Captive. RC Jr has tried to imitate you in his writing. He long ago acknowledged that he wanted ETC to emulate Credenda Agenda. Bad choice. Reading ETC is every bit as tedious and annoying as reading Credenda Agenda.
In some ways, Doug, you remind me of a man who enjoys petting a cat's fur in the wrong direction -- the cat know's she's being petted, and she knows she should enjoy being petted. But this isn't nice petting, it's malicious petting, so she doesn't enjoy it one bit. It's annoying.
It's come to the point, Doug, where you've become far less of a blessing and far more an annoyance. I can no longer read Credenda Agenda, and I haven't for at least two years. I've got the same problem with reading RC Jr's ETC and RC Jr's blog. I can't read your blog either, Doug. Your books I can understand because they're written in such a way that the brains of normal human beings can readily understand them. You must have a good book editor because all your other writing, especially your blog, causes me to wonder if you were smoking pot. My neurons just aren't wired in that Wilsonian alternate universe sort of way, so trying to comprehend your blog is just a further annoyance. Life is already so full of so much annoyance and noise pollution. You shouldn't be just further contributing to the insanity.
What little blessing that might come from reading your books is more than offset by the curse of your self-righteous, obnoxious, sarcastic, puerile Blog and MaBlog and Credenda Agenda articles masquerading as intellectual mysticism.
On the other hand, reading Blog and MaBlog (or as some call it "Blah and MoreBlah") has provided some folks (who must have better perception than me) with some valuable insight into Dougsworld. For example, Hammerman predicted an imminent sex scandal based on reading between the lines of one of your recent blog articles. Hammer's annoyance-tolerance must be a whole lot higher than mine if he can stomach regularly perusing your blog. Then Hammer's predictions were confirmed. Your eight month cover-up of the Christ Church/New Saint Andrews pedophilia tragedy quickly exploded into a scandal of legendary proportions. Your circle the wagons and play the victim strategy has ensured that this is a scandal that the community of Moscow, ID can't soon forget. You are a stumbling stone to the unsaved and an embarrassment to many in your local community who name the name of Jesus Christ.
That's not just one pedophile scandal, but two, two pedophiles molesting the children of your church members under your pastoral care over virtually the same period of time, and out of a tiny college with barely over 100 students. So what is it about your infrastructure, what is it about what you and your college teaches that serves as a magnet for perverts?
Has it happened in secular colleges? Probably, but we expect secular Christ-denying institutions to attract those sorts. Has it happened in other churches? Occasionally, but I can't say as I've ever heard of it happening twice at virtually the same time in the same Christian college and the same church. One has to wonder if you're actually teaching a biblical worldview at all, or just Dougview. Parents would have to be just plain ignorant or out of their minds to now entrust their kids to you and send them to New Saint Andrews College.
What kind of a shepherd are you, Doug? Shepherds protect sheep, and if a predator, like a wolf, attacks the sheep, the shepherd goes after the wolf and kills it. This point bears repeating, so I'll come back to it again later.
When I first heard about your pedophile scandal, Doug, I felt sorry for you. What an awful terrible thing for a pastor to have to deal with -- ministering to families whose lives have been shattered and forever changed by a pervert who preyed right in their church upon their most vulnerable -- their dear little ones. I'm not exactly sure what you've done to minister to those families. Few will probably ever know that. No one wants to know who those families are. They're entitled to their privacy and no one should encroach on that, and I seriously doubt anyone will.
But what we do know of is your "ministry" to NSA student and child molester Steven Sitler, a predatory pervert who molested multiple children over several years in several states, including in your own church. Your "ministry" to Steven Sitler included writing Judge John Stegner and asking the judge for a light sentence:
Oh, and let's not forget that you've equated Sitler's crimes to a mere violation of the 7th Commandment! Molesting 2-12 year old children is adultery? Are you really that stupid Doug, or are you obstructing justice by your perverse interpretation of Scripture? Molesting children isn't adultery, it's rape, and as you well know serial rapists warrant something a whole lot more onerous than a one year slap on the wrist in the Latah County Jail (commonly referred to as the "Latah Hilton"), say like the death penalty. You have in no way aided in the process of obtaining justice -- particularly biblical justice. All you've done is derail and pervert justice.
As if pleading to the judge for a light sentence on behalf of a confessed serial child molester weren't bad enough, you obtained for Steven Sitler's legal defense your NSA college's own attorney! What are you thinking, Doug? What possible personal interest could you have in defending Sitler and protecting him from what he biblically deserves? Why are you using Freudian psychobabble to get him off the hook?
What kind of a shepherd are you, Doug? Shepherds protect sheep, and if a predator, like a wolf, attacks the sheep, the shepherd goes after the wolf and kills it. At the very least a real shepherd doesn't plead for light jail sentences. Shepherds don't protect wolves. That's what hirelings do:
I realize Doug, everyone realizes, that you'd much prefer it if everyone were to just stop talking about the fact that you had two child molesters preying on little children in your little college and church at the same time. Ordinarily you'd enjoy being the center of attention, but being under this kind of spotlight isn't pleasant, and you don't like being held accountable. This is a very volatile subject in Moscow Idaho. It doesn't get any more volative than child molestation. The only thing that could make it more volatile is if there were some appearance of a cover up (which there is). Whether you like it or not it will be talked about, and all your sanctimonious pontificating about how any talk will hurt the victims lacks credibility.
What's even more absurd is how you and your followers have claimed that any talk risks exposing the identities of the victims. Please Doug! Can't you do any better than that? Most of the court record is sealed specifically to protect the identities of the victims, and if anyone besides you were to know the identities of the victims why would they be so foolish as to disclose them? Tragically, if victim identities are known they were disclosed by Steven Sitler himself when he posted all those pictures of so many kids on his family's web site. Thankfully now that site has been password protected, but I have to wonder how many people were able to see it, or maybe even download all the pictures, before public access was blocked.
Doug, did you know that Sitler was operating a "trophy site" of his victims? Did you know that he had uploaded hundreds of photos of little children, many of which were uploaded after he had been arrested, after he had confessed to his crimes, and right before he had been sentenced? You've vouched for Sitler's character, Doug. You told the judge and you've told all of us that Sitler "repented." Yet, he was still uploading kiddie pictures to his trophy site after he'd "repented." Still standing by your story, Doug? Do you still "have a good hope that Steven has genuinely repented"? Are you still willing to go on the record that Silter will "become a productive and contributing member of society"?
If you were genuinely concerned for your sheep you wouldn't have concealed Sitler's actions for eight months. You wouldn't have just expelled Sitler from NSA for some unspecified "criminal" conduct. You would have exposed Sitler publicly as a serial pedophile and admonished parents to speak to their children. You would have been forthright in taking steps to determine if any other children had been molested, and the fact is that it's a very real possibility that others were molested. Instead, in true hireling fashion, you kept it all a secret, no doubt hoping the Sitler affair would never see the light of day.
Now your neighbors in the Moscow community in which you reside are outraged, and justifiably so. They're taking you to task, including on the community listserve Vision 2020, and what has been your response? You mock them as "Intoleristas" with you "serrated edge" sarcasm. You ridicule their just concerns over your negligence at best, or your cover up at worst. They make reasonable inquiries about what you knew and when you knew it and who you told when. Rather than being forthright your smart aleck responses only tend to confirm what appears to be a cover up. I have never witnessed a pastor who is so inept at community relations as you are Doug.
Your latest response is to justify your actions under the guise of "I am a pastor. And I cover up sins for a living." Unbelievable! And all the while you continue justifying your actions with your self-righteous Scripture-twisting subterfuge. You've just become too predictable, Doug.
You're a liar, Doug Wilson, a very big liar. You lie to your church members. You lie to the greater Moscow community. You're a dishonest, contentious, lying annoyance, and you're an embarrassment to those who name the name of Jesus Christ.
It's all starting to make sense now why you'd be so interested in "clearing the name" of a dishonest tyrannical defrocked tax cheat like RC Sproul Jr. You two are peas in a pod. Birds of a feather. You deserve each other, and now I'm actually quite pleased that RC Sproul Jr has found a home with you in your fly-by-night CREC "confederation." Since RC Jr refuses to take the hint of being defrocked and leave the pastoral profession for which he so obviously lacks any qualifications, let him be "considered ordained" in the one and only phony denomination where being defrocked means nothing. Let him carry the title "pastor" in an organization that has no pastoral standards and "considers" men to be "ordained" to the ministry who shouldn't be in the ministry -- men such as yourself, for example.
In spite of the few good and non-annoying books that you've written, I've recently come to much more deeply appreciate how a man's personal honesty and integrity, or a lack thereof, has a profound impact on his theology and doctrinal innovations, and thus, on what he espouses and writes. It's caused me to take a second and more critical look at your "Federal Vison." Though you claim to be "Reformed," though you claim to be a "Presbyterian," it's become all too apparent what a hoax your claims really are. A dishonest man is unlikely to expound honest theology.
For this I can thank you. Your dubious character has compelled me to return to the Bible and to the faith of my Reformed fathers. It's caused me to return to the Westminster Confession and the five solas -- pure and unadulterated by the perverse innovations of dishonest men like yourself.
Doug Wilson, repent of your sins and beg forgiveness of your congregation for having conducted yourself as a self-serving hireling, rather than a sacrificial shepherd.
I've been an admirer of your writings (at least some of them) for some time. I've read a number of your books and found some merit in them, including:
- Future Men
- Federal Husband
- Reforming Marriage
- My Life For Yours: A Walk Through The Christian Home
- Standing On The Promises : A Handbook Of Biblical Childrearing
Sadly, I can no longer recommend your books. It's not that some of your books aren't good and useful. The big problem is one of "guilt by association." Recommending your books is too easily misconstrued as a recommendation of Doug Wilson himself, not just Doug Wilson the author, but also Doug Wilson the Pastor. From what I've been learning about you, you're one of the last men that I should be recommending as an example of godly Christian character. I'm even less able to recommend you as an example of a godly pastor. It's the same problem I now have in being able to recommend RC Sproul Jr's books. It's not that his books aren't good, it's that the man who wrote them isn't good. Like you he doesn't practice what he preaches.
I used to regularly read Credenda Agenda, until the "serrated edge" started slicing the wrong way. Furthermore, your "enemy theology" is the last kind of influence I need in my life when I sometimes already struggle with forgiveness. It's the same problem all over again with my not being able to continue recommending RC Sproul Jr's Highlands Study Center periodical, Every Thought Captive. RC Jr has tried to imitate you in his writing. He long ago acknowledged that he wanted ETC to emulate Credenda Agenda. Bad choice. Reading ETC is every bit as tedious and annoying as reading Credenda Agenda.
In some ways, Doug, you remind me of a man who enjoys petting a cat's fur in the wrong direction -- the cat know's she's being petted, and she knows she should enjoy being petted. But this isn't nice petting, it's malicious petting, so she doesn't enjoy it one bit. It's annoying.
It's come to the point, Doug, where you've become far less of a blessing and far more an annoyance. I can no longer read Credenda Agenda, and I haven't for at least two years. I've got the same problem with reading RC Jr's ETC and RC Jr's blog. I can't read your blog either, Doug. Your books I can understand because they're written in such a way that the brains of normal human beings can readily understand them. You must have a good book editor because all your other writing, especially your blog, causes me to wonder if you were smoking pot. My neurons just aren't wired in that Wilsonian alternate universe sort of way, so trying to comprehend your blog is just a further annoyance. Life is already so full of so much annoyance and noise pollution. You shouldn't be just further contributing to the insanity.
What little blessing that might come from reading your books is more than offset by the curse of your self-righteous, obnoxious, sarcastic, puerile Blog and MaBlog and Credenda Agenda articles masquerading as intellectual mysticism.
On the other hand, reading Blog and MaBlog (or as some call it "Blah and MoreBlah") has provided some folks (who must have better perception than me) with some valuable insight into Dougsworld. For example, Hammerman predicted an imminent sex scandal based on reading between the lines of one of your recent blog articles. Hammer's annoyance-tolerance must be a whole lot higher than mine if he can stomach regularly perusing your blog. Then Hammer's predictions were confirmed. Your eight month cover-up of the Christ Church/New Saint Andrews pedophilia tragedy quickly exploded into a scandal of legendary proportions. Your circle the wagons and play the victim strategy has ensured that this is a scandal that the community of Moscow, ID can't soon forget. You are a stumbling stone to the unsaved and an embarrassment to many in your local community who name the name of Jesus Christ.
That's not just one pedophile scandal, but two, two pedophiles molesting the children of your church members under your pastoral care over virtually the same period of time, and out of a tiny college with barely over 100 students. So what is it about your infrastructure, what is it about what you and your college teaches that serves as a magnet for perverts?
Has it happened in secular colleges? Probably, but we expect secular Christ-denying institutions to attract those sorts. Has it happened in other churches? Occasionally, but I can't say as I've ever heard of it happening twice at virtually the same time in the same Christian college and the same church. One has to wonder if you're actually teaching a biblical worldview at all, or just Dougview. Parents would have to be just plain ignorant or out of their minds to now entrust their kids to you and send them to New Saint Andrews College.
What kind of a shepherd are you, Doug? Shepherds protect sheep, and if a predator, like a wolf, attacks the sheep, the shepherd goes after the wolf and kills it. This point bears repeating, so I'll come back to it again later.
When I first heard about your pedophile scandal, Doug, I felt sorry for you. What an awful terrible thing for a pastor to have to deal with -- ministering to families whose lives have been shattered and forever changed by a pervert who preyed right in their church upon their most vulnerable -- their dear little ones. I'm not exactly sure what you've done to minister to those families. Few will probably ever know that. No one wants to know who those families are. They're entitled to their privacy and no one should encroach on that, and I seriously doubt anyone will.
But what we do know of is your "ministry" to NSA student and child molester Steven Sitler, a predatory pervert who molested multiple children over several years in several states, including in your own church. Your "ministry" to Steven Sitler included writing Judge John Stegner and asking the judge for a light sentence:
What kind of humanistic claptrap is this, Doug? Who really cares if Sitler ever does "become a productive and contributing member of society" through what you have termed "secular therapy"? Show us where you got that vernacular from. Is it biblical? Freudianism? Skinnerism?"I would urge that the civil penalties applied would be measured and limited. I have a good hope that Steven has genuinely repented, and that he will continue to deal with this to become a productive and contributing member of society."
Oh, and let's not forget that you've equated Sitler's crimes to a mere violation of the 7th Commandment! Molesting 2-12 year old children is adultery? Are you really that stupid Doug, or are you obstructing justice by your perverse interpretation of Scripture? Molesting children isn't adultery, it's rape, and as you well know serial rapists warrant something a whole lot more onerous than a one year slap on the wrist in the Latah County Jail (commonly referred to as the "Latah Hilton"), say like the death penalty. You have in no way aided in the process of obtaining justice -- particularly biblical justice. All you've done is derail and pervert justice.
As if pleading to the judge for a light sentence on behalf of a confessed serial child molester weren't bad enough, you obtained for Steven Sitler's legal defense your NSA college's own attorney! What are you thinking, Doug? What possible personal interest could you have in defending Sitler and protecting him from what he biblically deserves? Why are you using Freudian psychobabble to get him off the hook?
What kind of a shepherd are you, Doug? Shepherds protect sheep, and if a predator, like a wolf, attacks the sheep, the shepherd goes after the wolf and kills it. At the very least a real shepherd doesn't plead for light jail sentences. Shepherds don't protect wolves. That's what hirelings do:
But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. John 10:12-13You claim to be concerned for your sheep, Doug, concerned for the victims. But all you're doing is hiding behind them, using them as human shields, in a vain effort to dissuade your critics from a thorough examination of your dubious actions. Over and over again you and your toadies have cried, "Stop talking about it. Stop. Talking about it hurts the victims. It's just dragging up the past. They don't want anyone talking about it." I wish I could believe you, Doug, but I've seen more than enough evidence of your life to know how much you just use people for your own agenda.
I realize Doug, everyone realizes, that you'd much prefer it if everyone were to just stop talking about the fact that you had two child molesters preying on little children in your little college and church at the same time. Ordinarily you'd enjoy being the center of attention, but being under this kind of spotlight isn't pleasant, and you don't like being held accountable. This is a very volatile subject in Moscow Idaho. It doesn't get any more volative than child molestation. The only thing that could make it more volatile is if there were some appearance of a cover up (which there is). Whether you like it or not it will be talked about, and all your sanctimonious pontificating about how any talk will hurt the victims lacks credibility.
What's even more absurd is how you and your followers have claimed that any talk risks exposing the identities of the victims. Please Doug! Can't you do any better than that? Most of the court record is sealed specifically to protect the identities of the victims, and if anyone besides you were to know the identities of the victims why would they be so foolish as to disclose them? Tragically, if victim identities are known they were disclosed by Steven Sitler himself when he posted all those pictures of so many kids on his family's web site. Thankfully now that site has been password protected, but I have to wonder how many people were able to see it, or maybe even download all the pictures, before public access was blocked.
Doug, did you know that Sitler was operating a "trophy site" of his victims? Did you know that he had uploaded hundreds of photos of little children, many of which were uploaded after he had been arrested, after he had confessed to his crimes, and right before he had been sentenced? You've vouched for Sitler's character, Doug. You told the judge and you've told all of us that Sitler "repented." Yet, he was still uploading kiddie pictures to his trophy site after he'd "repented." Still standing by your story, Doug? Do you still "have a good hope that Steven has genuinely repented"? Are you still willing to go on the record that Silter will "become a productive and contributing member of society"?
If you were genuinely concerned for your sheep you wouldn't have concealed Sitler's actions for eight months. You wouldn't have just expelled Sitler from NSA for some unspecified "criminal" conduct. You would have exposed Sitler publicly as a serial pedophile and admonished parents to speak to their children. You would have been forthright in taking steps to determine if any other children had been molested, and the fact is that it's a very real possibility that others were molested. Instead, in true hireling fashion, you kept it all a secret, no doubt hoping the Sitler affair would never see the light of day.
Now your neighbors in the Moscow community in which you reside are outraged, and justifiably so. They're taking you to task, including on the community listserve Vision 2020, and what has been your response? You mock them as "Intoleristas" with you "serrated edge" sarcasm. You ridicule their just concerns over your negligence at best, or your cover up at worst. They make reasonable inquiries about what you knew and when you knew it and who you told when. Rather than being forthright your smart aleck responses only tend to confirm what appears to be a cover up. I have never witnessed a pastor who is so inept at community relations as you are Doug.
Your latest response is to justify your actions under the guise of "I am a pastor. And I cover up sins for a living." Unbelievable! And all the while you continue justifying your actions with your self-righteous Scripture-twisting subterfuge. You've just become too predictable, Doug.
You're a liar, Doug Wilson, a very big liar. You lie to your church members. You lie to the greater Moscow community. You're a dishonest, contentious, lying annoyance, and you're an embarrassment to those who name the name of Jesus Christ.
It's all starting to make sense now why you'd be so interested in "clearing the name" of a dishonest tyrannical defrocked tax cheat like RC Sproul Jr. You two are peas in a pod. Birds of a feather. You deserve each other, and now I'm actually quite pleased that RC Sproul Jr has found a home with you in your fly-by-night CREC "confederation." Since RC Jr refuses to take the hint of being defrocked and leave the pastoral profession for which he so obviously lacks any qualifications, let him be "considered ordained" in the one and only phony denomination where being defrocked means nothing. Let him carry the title "pastor" in an organization that has no pastoral standards and "considers" men to be "ordained" to the ministry who shouldn't be in the ministry -- men such as yourself, for example.
In spite of the few good and non-annoying books that you've written, I've recently come to much more deeply appreciate how a man's personal honesty and integrity, or a lack thereof, has a profound impact on his theology and doctrinal innovations, and thus, on what he espouses and writes. It's caused me to take a second and more critical look at your "Federal Vison." Though you claim to be "Reformed," though you claim to be a "Presbyterian," it's become all too apparent what a hoax your claims really are. A dishonest man is unlikely to expound honest theology.
For this I can thank you. Your dubious character has compelled me to return to the Bible and to the faith of my Reformed fathers. It's caused me to return to the Westminster Confession and the five solas -- pure and unadulterated by the perverse innovations of dishonest men like yourself.
Doug Wilson, repent of your sins and beg forgiveness of your congregation for having conducted yourself as a self-serving hireling, rather than a sacrificial shepherd.
This post first appeared on Spinderella Sproul: Lessons In Spin With Spinmeist, please read the originial post: here
