Doug Phillips Torpedoes Reconciliation With Epsteins

With Frank Vance’s recent departure things have been a little slow lately.

I just checked on our comments and noticed that there had been about twenty pingbacks that came in this morning, all from Mark and Jennifer Epstein’s blogs! Here I thought things have been quiet for them too, and then blammo! Obviously they’ve actually had a lot going on behind the scenes, and they just couldn’t talk about it.

The latest word from the Epsteins is that Doug Phillips torpedoed the Peacemaker Ministries reconciliation that they were trying to get him to participate in with them. Phillips apparently told the Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA) elders, “This is not about reconciliation; this is only about the Epsteins repenting” and “There is only one way for the Epsteins to be reconciled with me; they must come to me and repent fully without any equivocation of everything that we excommunicated them for, and they also have to repent for blogging about me.”

I don’t thnk that anyone should now have any doubts about the true nature of Doug Phillips. I remember that in one of Jen Epstein’s early stories that she said that Doug Phillips told her, “You’ll pay for this!” Phillips was true to his word. He made the Epsteins pay, and three years later he’s still making them pay.

It must have taken a lot of effort for the Epsteins to arrange for that peacemaking, and it must be a huge disappointment to have Phillips arrogantly rebuff the offer. But one good thing about it is that the Epsteins have just further confirmed what Doug Phillips is really all about. Doug Phillips is a vengeful, self-righteous, unforgiving man.

Here’s a copy of an email I just received from Mark Epstein:

Dear Ministry Watchman,

We appreciate your cooperation with us in honoring our request to take your articles about Doug Phillips down while we sought to enter into Peacemaker Ministries reconciliation with Doug. We know that you were all very concerned for us, and that you believed that the prospects for reconciliation were remote. Your scepticism was well justified. In spite of your scepticism you still agreed to cooperate with us by taking the articles down, and we appreciate it.

Last week we were informed that Doug Phillips refused the efforts of Faith Presbyterian Church to facilitate reconciliation on our behalf. We’ve posted articles on our blogs describing what happened at:

Doug Phillips Refuses Reconciliation With The Epsteins, and

Doug Phillips Refuses Reconciliation.

Doug told the FPC session, “This is not about reconciliation; this is only about the Epsteins repenting.” He also told them that there was only one way that we could ever be reconciled to him. We’d have to come to him and repent of everything that he’s accused us of. That’s simply not possible for us to do. Doing that would mean that we’d have to lie and bear false witness against ourselves. We’d have to lie because what Doug demands is that we confess sins and beg forgiveness of things:

1. That we’re not guilty of and that no one can provide any evidence that we’re guilty of.

2. That we committed years before we even became a Christian, and that we confessed and repented of years ago.

3. That are so vague and ambiguous that we can’t possibly comprehend what they even are.

4. That in the case of the few charges that we were guilty of, we confessed and repented of those things, but Doug excommunicated us any way.

We’re disappointed but not surprised. We’re also disappointed with the FPC session. Doug did everything that we expected he would. We didn’t however expect that the FPC session would cave in the way they did. Three of their elders are “Certified Christian Conciliators” with Peacemaker Ministries. In our estimation they could have done much more than they did. Nevertheless, the FPC session isn’t the issue and we’re unlikely to discuss them or respond to comments about that issue, unless we’re forced to. Our focus will remain on Doug Phillips.

We won’t be making any more attempts at reconciliation. We’ve done everything that we possibly can.We request that you put the articles back up that we previously asked you to take down.

Thank you for everything that you’ve done for us.

Mark and Jennifer Epstein

I never much liked the idea of taking down all our Doug Phillips articles, but I also didn’t want to get the blame, or give Phillips any excuses for not meeting with the Epsteins for their reconciliation meetings. In the end it didn’t make any difference.

So Mark and Jennifer, as soon as I post this I’ll start reposting all our Phillips articles (look for pingbacks comin’ back at ya!).