More on Accountability

Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure. — 1 Timothy 5:22

Yesterday I addressed the constitutional safeguards that Douglas Wilson implemented at Christ Church to thoroughly insulate himself from true biblical accountability to the Kirk’s “gelders” (cross between “gelding” and “elder”). Today I want to contemplate a subject related to this, namely, the legitimacy of Wilson’s so-called “ministry,” which is a point that deserves more consideration by everyone involved in this controversy.

A couple of weeks ago, on November 18, 2007, Douglas Wilson included the following narrative in a post on his blog:

But secondly, just to show how reliable “the facts” are when obtained by this method, let’s do a little review. Now I know that some of what I am about to recite may not clear the high PCA threshhold [sic] of anonymous attack blogs, but you do what you can, you know? Our church was planted by an Evangelical Free Church in Pullman, Washington. The early leadership of our congregation, which included me, formed under their oversight. So no, not self-ordained and not self-installed. . . . As Paul would say, I am out of my mind to talk like this, but your have forced me to it. But if any of you want to double check this with the critics, go ahead and give Mark T a call — if you can find his number in the phone book. Br’er Mark, he lay low. (“Standing Google Commission”)

Make careful note here, because sandwiched in between the two sets of insults Wilson gives us his qualification for Christian ministry, i.e., his ordinal credentials. And you have to be careful for another reason as well, because Wilson implies and denies more than he affirms, which is classic dougspeak. Here is the sum total of his credentials:

Our church was planted by an Evangelical Free Church in Pullman, Washington. The early leadership of our congregation, which included me, formed under their oversight. So no, not self-ordained and not self-installed.

Accordingly, from Wilson’s account we may conclude:

1. Christ Church was planted by an Evangelical Free Church in Pullman, Washington.


2. E Free, Pullman, “formed” the leadership of Christ Church and provided “oversight.”


3. Wilson is not “self-ordained” or “self-installed.”

That’s it. And that’s the best spin he could put on it. Please note, because this is critical to understanding dougspeak, Wilson gives us two affirmative statements and two denials but he never tells us that anyone ever “ordained” him or that anyone ever “installed” him, because he knows these events never took place.

Last year someone raised the question of Wilson’s ordination on the comments section of a now-defunct blog. A former officer of CEF (now called Christ Church) answered that in the late ’70s or perhaps 1980, Wilson’s father, Jim Wilson (who I do not believe has any ministerial orders apart from self-will), and a legitimately ordained officer in the Evangelical Free Church of America “commissioned” Douglas Wilson, his brother Evan, and a few other men to the work of Faith Fellowship (the precursor of CEF), a church plant, in the backroom of a Christian bookstore. Evan Wilson confirmed this historical fact on the same blog in the same comments thread. In other words, NO ONE EVER ORDAINED DOUGLAS WILSON FOR THE MINISTRY AND NO ONE EVER INSTALLED HIM AS PASTOR. He was “commissioned” to the work of a church plant with a few other men and that’s it. He can’t even claim a back-alley ordination.

And in this context Wilson the rogue would still have us believe that he is accountable to a lawful church authority. But as Paul would have it, no one laid hands on him, no one partook of his sins: the Christian church has kept itself pure from the iniquity of Douglas Wilson — which explains why to this day he accounts to no man.

Post Script: It’s worth noting that in the summer of 2003, when Douglas Wilson conducted daily imprecatory prayer meetings to maledict evangelical Christians, he and his disciples named the elders of the Evangelical Free Church of Pullman, including the man who participated in his “commissioning,” in their imprecations.

Thank you.