Bloomington goes to bat for IRPC: Part 5

 Hopefully this is the final post on the complaint:

9. Passing judgment without knowledge

On one hand, this seems very straightforward. Synod members should diligently investigate each matter and rule only on what they know from primary sources. The difficulty here is twofold: First, the matter itself had over 10,000 man-hours invested, so then is each Synod member accountable to review all the material and ask any questions about those 10,000 man-hours? Synod would grind to a halt. Second, when contentious issues come before Synod, many of the parties write complaints arguing various perspectives about what was done well and what wasn't. This is not unlike our court system where appeal after appeal is filed when a decision doesn't match what was desired.

The solution that our secular courts have chosen is to choose whether to accept or reject appeals. This is done by the court or a subset of a court. This process is not part of the RPCNA Constitution, and currently, the expectation is that each complain, no matter how ill-conceived or trivial gets the full attention of Synod. This means, since humans are human and don't have infinite capacity to deal with all aspects of each complaint, that they are going to rely on their existing biases whether a complaint is worthy of their attention or not.

Whether this is good or not, it's what happens. In fact, the Bloomington Session does it in their paper:

Ultimately, however, Synod rendered judgment on these complaints without first satisfying the request to be apprised of the charges upon which it was ruling. In conversation with various presbyters after Synod, a recurring theme was trust: Men voted on the basis of whether they had greater faith in the complainant or the men of the SJC or simply the process itself.

Let's dissect this. The authors came to the conclusion that "Synod rendered judgment" based on "conversation with various presbyters". In other words, the authors talked with some subset of the presbyters of Synod and were confirmed in their theory. Did they determine a proper sample size? Did they come up with a scientifically valid survey that would not skew results? If they did, I'm sure the results and statistical analysis would be in the complaint. They almost certainly didn't, but yet, based on their own opinions and confirmation bias, they came to a conclusion without sufficient evidence. They "pass[ed] judgment without knowledge", in the very part of their paper claiming that presbyters have an obligation to fully vet any accusation, they chose to state their subjective opinion as objective truth.

Synod's typical approach of appointing a commission doesn't work, since that's exactly what they did, and I would guess that this is quite similar to the case with Bruce Hemphill. Synod was convinced that overall, justice was done, and that the various complaints about whether policies and procedures were followed didn't really matter to them. Synod gets to do that. They have the rubber band clause that “Under extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary things may be done.”(DCG 8:1) The IRPC matter certainly falls into the category of being extraordinary!

Final Thoughts:

As I said in the beginning, this seems more like re-litigating decisions that went against what Bloomington felt should happen. It borders on insubordination because much of this is an attempt to question decisions that were made. For example, GLG appointed a committee to investigate "Ninth Commandment violations". The committee found no reason to bring charges against people for going to the media. Bloomington doesn't want to accept the counsel of Presbytery, nor does it complain against Presbytery's decision. Instead they want to side-step it and try to get Synod to make ultimatums. If a member did this, it would be considered out-of-order.

My initial thought was that this should be returned to sender, but someone had a good point. This paper represents and abusive and domineering approach, and Synod should appoint a study committee to respond to this paper, and especially, to determine if the writers are within the bounds of their ordination oaths (emphasis mine):

7. So far as you can know in your own heart, is it the call of Christ, the glory of God and the welfare of the church, and not any selfish object, that moves you to undertake this sacred office?

8. That you may perform faithfully all the duties of the office to which you have been called, do you engage to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Do you promise, in His strength, to live a holy and exemplary life, to study and promote the purity, peace, unity and progress of the church

9. Do you promise subjection in the Lord to the courts of this church, and engage to follow no divisive courses from the doctrine and order which the church has solemnly recognized and adopted; and do you promise to submit to all the brotherly counsel which your brethren may tender you in the Lord? 

And their membership vows:

3. Do you repent of your sin; confess your guilt and helplessness as a sinner against God; profess Jesus Christ, Son of God, as your Savior and Lord; and dedicate yourself to His service: Do you promise that you will endeavor to forsake all sin, and to conform your life to His teaching and example?