Doug Wilson Church Splitter

Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches member Church Of The King in Santa Cruz, California has bailed out of the CREC.

COTK posted a revised version of an earlier announcement, apparently out of diplomatic concerns for it’s relations with other CREC member churches and ministers. But one of the problems with the internet is that once you post something it can sometimes be hard to take it back.

An original copy of the COTK Elders’ letter can be found here: For The Record: Our Withdrawal From The CREC

Doug Wilson’s popish behavior is entirely responsible for the departure of Pastor Andrew Sandlin’s church from the CREC. Wilson meddled and interfered in the internal affairs of Sandlin’s church. Wilson’s duplicitous and divisive behavior is reprehensible. Could it get any more despicable than for a Moderator to interpose himself in local church matters and actively encourage a church split?

Doug Wilson’s motives, as articulated in the COTK Elders’ letter, are clear — his theological disagreements with Andrew Sandlin. To think that Doug Wilson would meddle and effectively sabotage Andrew Sandlin’s church over their differences of opinion on Federal Vision and other doctrines only proves what Doug Wilson is made of:

“At one point Rev. Wilson communicated to us that the main issue of this entire dispute was his personal differences with one of our elders, P. Andrew Sandlin. Though Revs. Sandlin and Wilson do maintain certain theological disagreements, these disagreements were tangent to the actual church issues under consideration. Nevertheless, when Rev. Sandlin offered to meet Rev. Wilson privately to address any differences these highly visible men might have, Rev. Wilson declined to take him up on the offer.”

The CREC Constitution gives Wilson, as the Moderator of Anselm Presbytery (why they call it a “Presbytery” when it’s obvious that the CREC isn’t Presbyterian at all is unclear) no authority to interpose himself in a local church dispute. Yet he did so anyway, uninvited and unwelcomed. As the COTK elders state:

“By these actions it has now become apparent that the CREC, in conflict with its constitution, has become functionally Episcopal, coalescing around Rev. Wilson as the sole denominational bishop vested with sweeping judicial and prelatical authority.”

Not that I’m in any way surprised that Doug Wilson has broken his vows to obey the CREC’s Constitution. In fact vow breaking is entirely consistent with how Wilson operates, and he’s very comfortable welcoming into the ranks of the CREC fellow vow breaking ministers who play fast and loose with the rules, including even the defrocked. Witness RC Sproul Jr.

Men of Doug Wilson’s ilk when given any authority at all will always attempt to seize more authority, whether their constitution that they have sworn to obey grants them that authority or not. The inevitable result is a church split:

“As it stands now, Rev. Wilson has determined to start a congregation from a church split, a split that his actions repeatedly encouraged. The Anselm presbytery has at this late date retroactively sanctioned his injurious actions. This is the same split-group congregation that Rev. Wilson has all along insisted we agree with him in recognizing, and he has finally gotten his way in starting it as a CREC church. The end was visible from the beginning.”

Doug Wilson is an autonomist who plays by his own set of rules. He was instrumental in forming the CREC and drafting its constitution, a constitution which he feels no sense of obligation to obey himself. This is the very definition of a tyrant — a man who seeks to hold everyone else accountable but who for all practical purposes is accountable to no one but himself.

Doug Wilson is first and foremost a very crafty politician and so he sets up a church infrastructure which, to the untrained eye, gives the appearance of officialdom and accountability. In reality however the accountability infrastructure is a sham that a crafty guy like Doug Wilson can easily avoid at every turn. Sadly for Rev. Sandlin and Church Of The King they found that out too late that they’d been hoodwinked:

“We cannot remain in an organization that acts so radically at variance with its own constituting documents. Ironically, the CREC constitution provides for expulsion of a member church on the grounds of dishonest theological subscription, but there seems to be no constitutional recourse when the CREC leadership is guilty of dishonest subscription to its own constitution.”

I want to personally wish all the members of Church Of The King a joyous Thanksgiving. It’s no doubt been a difficult year for you. But you now have much to be grateful for. You’ve separated yourselves from a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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