Point / Counter-Point: “The larger problem of sexual abuse in evangelical circles"

I can’t say that I’ve seen a single situation like those reflected in this article, and I’ve been in IFB circles all my life. Yes, I’ve read some of the same stories reported in this piece, and I do not doubt either their existence or their accuracy. But I have never personally heard an IFB leader encouraging marriage of young teen girls to older men. Never.

My experience leads me to believe this problem is rare, not common. There’s plenty enough to criticize in IFB churches without turning an aberration into a practice. You can find extremes in every group. I hope this report is not a true reflection of normal IFB culture.

We need to talk about how mainstream-media has so damaged their credibility with ludicrous, wild-eyed attacks on conservative public figures that many on the Right feel justified in simply dismissing their findings as conspiracies with a wave of their hand.

https://natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/2015/12/when-doug-wils…

https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/nubile-young-women-la-time…

I think the phenomenon of older men marrying younger women (even teenagers) is a part of a sub-culture, particularly in the rural south, much more than a part of anything religious. I could name 10 couples slightly older than me (I’m 60) in or associated with my small church that married some 10 years apart in age when she was 15, 16, 17, legally, with parent and church blessings and who have led very stable, godly lives in church, community, and respective families—families that were generally well educated and as comfortably middle class as was any family in that early post-war period. It was, at that time, not at all surprising or uncommon for this particular area of the south. Whether that was a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing is up for discussion, but it would be ridiculously unfair to label all these guys as pervs preying on helpless girls. The history of long, stable marriages, marital fidelity, faithfulness in church and business, and any number of other positive characteristics strongly bely any such notion.

Look, I don’t want to start a huge flame war about this, but I’d encourage anyone interested in condemning / exonerating Douglas Wilson to read three articles from The American Conservative; I haven’t read the links that Steve Newman put up but these may help to supplement the story somewhat.

Here’s the first post in the series, which Rod Dreher wrote on his own initiative:

This morning, though, a reader brings to my attention a situation in the Moscow circle that is far worse than any culture-war sniping and snarking.

Earlier this month, a convicted sex offender named Stephen Sitler was prohibited by a judge from having contact with his infant son without a chaperone other than his wife present — this, after he was discovered being sexually stimulated by such contact. Sitler was convicted in 2005 of child molestation; he molested several children in a family

Sitler eventually pled guilty to only one count of lewd conduct with a child under 16. Despite allegations that Sitler had molested other children, none of the other families would cooperate with investigators.

Doug Wilson wrote to the judge asking for leniency, and expressing his hope that Sitler could one day be rehabilitated and become a productive member of society. Sitler was sentenced to life in prison, but released on probabation in 2007 after 20 months behind bars. Six weeks later, he was caught in an act of voyeurism, and confessed to masturbating while peering into a neighbor’s window. In 2010, an elder at Doug Wilson’s church and his family set up a meeting between Katie Travis, a young woman at New St. Andrews college in Moscow, and Sitler; Sitler describes it all on the website announcing his and Katie’s 2011 wedding.

Doug Wilson married them in his church in 2011 — this, knowing that Sitler was a pedophile.

Then Dreher allowed Wilson the chance at a rebuttal, which is posted here:

Was All This Necessary?

The first thing I would like to do is provide a link to what I said on my blog about the hasty and precipitous nature of this attack. While Rod mentioned in his response that he linked to a number of sources, he did not have access to the information below, and didn’t check with us to find out if such information even existed or was available. It did exist, and it is available.

A Sitler Timeline

The second thing is to fit a Sitler timeline into one extended paragraph. This is not scintillating prose, but the actual record matters. Every point in this paragraph is taken from a transcript of every reference to Steven Sitler in our elder minutes from 2005 to the present.

And then there was one last post on American Conservative by Rod Dreher:

This is extraordinary. Yes, he should have refused to perform the wedding. I don’t even see that this is a close call. About excommunication, who knows? I don’t know how his church handles such matters, and anyway, it’s a secondary issue. It is clear to me that a morally responsible pastor cannot give the church’s blessing to such a union. He knew that the Sitlers were going to try to have children, and knew that the courts would likely force them to live apart if the couple succeeded in that goal. How would this disordered marital union be one that any church can bless? No, you don’t need “a verse or something;” you just need common sense.

For the record, this whole exchange is so embarrassing and so shameful and so distasteful that I don’t really want to post these links, but if the members of SI are going to discuss Doug Wilson’s ministry and allude to those situations as a result of the original post, then they need to be informed of the details so that they can make appropriate judgments on what happened. In my opinion, Wilson has no business anywhere near a pulpit if half of this is true, but some people feel differently.

It’s also incredibly embarrassing to me that Desiring God and other Christians continue to link to and support him and his ‘ministry’ with all of this on the public record. There’s a certain amount of willful ignorance that I can understand if DG wanted to retain him as a writer, but I do not understand this degree. This is the kind of thing that a responsible Board member or staff member needs to flag and shoot up the chain for careful assessment and management, and I would argue that Desiring God’s reputation has been damaged by their association with Wilson.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, temperance, and self-control, and I see very, very little of that in Wilson’s exchange with Dreher, and that’s before I really dig into the seventeen story failcake of the Sitler / Wright disasters that Wilson presided over as Lead Elder of his church. It’s also worth noting that one of the first qualifications that an elder is supposed to have is that he is “blameless”. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown have this to say about that qualification: “blameless—“unexceptionable”; giving no just handle for blame.” I believe, after reading all of these articles, that Wilson fails that test.

That’s what I think, and others may disagree. But we need to know what we are talking about if we are going to talk about this.

Regarding Phelps and Wilson, that’s up to their respective local churches to decide, not us. Perhaps they looked into the matter, and believe they are qualified. Perhaps they didn’t, and neglected their responsibilities. Either way, it’s their respective church’s business. We don’t know the full story on Wilson or Phelps. I’ve been in law enforcement and investigations my entire life, and I promise you this - we don’t know the full story. The Lord left it to their local churches to express their approval (or disapproval) of their under-shepherd. We’d better leave it there, too.

If you’re a Baptist, you have to leave it there. You ought to leave it there.

[Joeb]

…

Additionally, I totally agree with that the marriage of teenage girls by older men is a Southern thing. Some times the marriages are to cover up the sexual abuse of children.

…

Pardon me if I judge your judgmentalism. The bolded statement, however, absolutely smacks of an opinion brought into the discussion based on some pre-conceived notion far more than a conclusion drawn from the evidence of the discussion. Your credibility is taking a beating here.

The first article really simply confuses anecdotal data with the notion of a group—which she does not define well at all—having a systemic problem. She also seems to be accepting the testimony of activists at face value, which is (to put it mildly) rather odd for a person with a law degree.

No debate that there are problems out there that need to be solved, but they simply are not solved by uncritically accepting the anecdotal stories of activists (which the first author is, really) and not subjecting the data to statistical tests.

[TylerR]

Regarding Phelps and Wilson, that’s up to their respective local churches to decide, not us. Perhaps they looked into the matter, and believe they are qualified. Perhaps they didn’t, and neglected their responsibilities. Either way, it’s their respective church’s business. We don’t know the full story on Wilson or Phelps. I’ve been in law enforcement and investigations my entire life, and I promise you this - we don’t know the full story. The Lord left it to their local churches to express their approval (or disapproval) of their under-shepherd. We’d better leave it there, too.

If you’re a Baptist, you have to leave it there. You ought to leave it there.

I think this is an important perspective. It seems to me that social media has given people the impression that the internet mob can and should sit in judgment of pastors and churches. However, Christ has given the tools to his church to govern itself. What are we to do when we feel that a church has called a pastor who is not qualified? I’m of a mind to believe that Christ can govern his own church and doesn’t need my help. So I might voice my opinion, but I recognize that I have neither the authority nor the right to sit in judgment of another congregation.

Wilson is not going anywhere. He is the pope of his own denomination/religion. I mostly agree with Tyler here just because of the sheer remoteness of Wilson’s theology although many do not recognize that and see him as part of their “tribe.” That being said, I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out his flaws. As Jim said, the reaction against Phelps was (justifiably IMO) pretty vehement.

A lot of this probably has to do with our church context. If you are in a FBFI type church you are likely to view Phelps with more scrutiny. In my church there are young people planning to attend New Saint Andrews. Therefore I look at Wilson more closely than some others might.