Written by James E. Bruce |
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
If God is a father, then preferential, faithful, and self-sacrificial love becomes appropriate, and even expected. Justice will then be God’s faithful commitment to his children — if God relates to the world as a father.

To say God must be the father of all people, you’ll need something stronger than the idea of fatherhood to get there. After all, we are mothers and brothers, teachers and preachers, customers and consumers — but we aren’t everything to everyone.
We have different kinds of relationships, and these relationships vary in scope. When we talk about God’s relationship to the world, we have to keep kind and scope in mind. It’s important to think about these things because what we think about God’s relationship to the world helps explain what we expect from God himself.
Let’s consider two questions about God’s relationship to the world.

First, what kind of relationship does God have with people? Is it judicial? Familial? Economic? Communal? If that sounds complicated, it gets worse: These four categories are not mutually exclusive, so God can relate to the world (or parts of the world) in more than one way.
Second, what’s the scope of God’s relationship to the world? God may have one kind of relationship with all people or only with some people. Or perhaps God has one kind of relationship with all people, but another kind of relationship with only some.

Relationships and Justice
First, what kind of relationship does God have with the world? This question is important! You tell me what kind of relationship you think God has with the world, and I’ll tell you what you think about the justice of God.
If God relates to humanity as a judge, God must punish wrongdoing. Desert, impartiality, and the rule of law will be appropriate categories for thinking about God’s activities and intentions. Justice will mean punishing and rewarding people appropriately — if God relates to the world as a judge.
If God is a father, then preferential, faithful, and self-sacrificial love becomes appropriate, and even expected. Justice will then be God’s faithful commitment to his children — if God relates to the world as a father.
If you think of God as a purveyor of opportunities — for salvation, for example— then an economic model may explain God’s relationship to the world. Justice will focus on whether or not people have the same opportunities, and what opportunity really means — if God is the one who brings opportunity.
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The promises made in marriage matter not just for the bride and groom. The promises matter for the sake of the children that they hope to produce and for the sake of the wider community that benefits when children are born in wedlock and raised by their two biological parents. Sex before marriage undermines all this. Fornication only “works” if sex can be divorced from the promises that constitute a marriage, divorced from the public dimension of marriage, and divorced from the children that normally come from marriage and flourish most in the context of marriage. The Bible teaches that premarital sex is personally selfish and publicly subversive of the goods that marriage is meant to promote and protect.

Not long ago, an American politician found herself in an awkward situation when she mentioned at a prayer breakfast that she was running late for the event because her fiancé wanted to have sex that morning. From her public admission, it was clear that the woman and her fiancé were living together and were in a sexual relationship. What was also clear is that the woman—a professing Christian at an evangelical church (with her pastor in the audience)—didn’t realize she had said or done anything wrong. She mentioned her reason for being late with a smile and with a chuckling assurance to her fiancé that she would see him in the evening and that he wouldn’t have to wait long for his desires to be fulfilled. Later, after getting flack for her risqué remarks, the congresswoman explained that she goes to church because she is a sinner, not because she is a saint.
I mention this story not to draw attention to this particular event or to pick on this particular politician, but to illustrate the reality that sex before marriage, even for many Christians, has lost any sense of stigma. Watch almost any television show or any movie that involves dating or romance, and you will find that sexual activity between non-married persons is completely normal and utterly pervasive. Christians may still get upset when the culture pushes an LGBTQ agenda, but most of those same Christians won’t even notice when popular songs, shows, videos, or movies routinely show, describe, or assume sex before marriage. If worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange (to paraphrase David Wells), then the routine acceptance of sex before marriage is one of the clearest signs of worldliness in our age.
Is It Wrong?
The title of this piece asks, “Is it wrong to have sex before marriage?” so let me start by showing from the Bible that such behavior is clearly a sin. “Fornication” is the (now rarely used word) for sex between two persons who are not married. In traditional terms, adultery has often meant illicit sex once married, and fornication has meant illicit sex outside of marriage. The word “fornication” is used in the King James Version in 1 Corinthians 6:18, but the Greek word there is porneia which includes every kind of illicit sexual activity, from adultery to homosexuality to prostitution to sex before marriage.
The Bible doesn’t dwell on the sin of fornication because such behavior was, in the minds of the biblical authors, clearly and obviously wrong. We see this assumption in several places. According to Exodus 22:16–17, the man who has sex with a non-engaged virgin, should make her his wife, indicating that sexual intercourse is a covenant-forming activity not to be entered into apart from the covenant bonds of marriage. Likewise, according to Deuteronomy 22:13–21, if a woman has sex before marriage, she is put in the same category as a prostitute. The Torah does not allow for sex before marriage.
The New Testament carries forward the same sexual boundaries found in the Old Testament. When Joseph sought to quietly break off his betrothal to pregnant Mary, it is obvious that Joseph considers Mary to have done something wrong and that the whole community will also disapprove of Mary’s behavior (Matt. 1:19). The Bible also considers it important for us to know that Mary really was a virgin (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:34). Most clearly, the logic of 1 Corinthians 7—that it is better to marry than to burn with passion (1 Cor. 7:9)—only works on the assumption that sexual activity belongs in marriage and not outside of marriage.
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Written by John Cook and R. J. Gore |
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Editor’s Note: The document below is co-authored by Drs. John Cook and R. J. Gore and was read before the meeting of Second Presbytery by Dr. Cook on August 13 at the Due West ARP Church, Due West, SC. The document was also placed in the minutes of Second Presbytery and specified for distribution. Dr. Cook (retired) was pastor of the Ballston Center ARP Church (NY); the Thomson ARP Church (GA), the Peachtree Corners ARP Church (GA); the White Oak ARP Church (GA); and he also served an executive position on the staff of World Witness (ARP). Dr. Gore is a tenured professor at Erskine Seminary where he has served as Professor of Theology for 30 years, and was Dean for 20 years.

As members of the Minister and His Work Committee that investigated the allegations against Mr. Chuck Wilson, and as members of Second Presbytery, which has been accused, convicted, and judged, without trial or without an opportunity to answer the allegations against us, or to repent of any wrongdoing, we want to present an account, for the record, of how the Second Presbytery MHWC handled this matter. Obviously, the scope of this investigation prevents a complete coverage of every issue, but we have tried to show the overall manner in which the MHWC conducted this matter.
As we read the report of the Special Committee (Synod Index #11), we found it contained numerous untruths, falsely assigning motives to the MHWC and Presbytery, and even slander against brothers in Christ. While the Scripture tells us to, “be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), we found nothing in the report, or in the ultimate action of General Synod to dissolve Second Presbytery, that sought to be faithful to this Scripture. Contrary to Scripture, and our Book of Discipline, which states that the ultimate purpose of church discipline is the restoration of the person in sin, instead we read and witnessed a deliberate rush to judgement on the motivations of MHWC and Second Presbytery, with a goal to divide an entire 224 year-old presbytery over false and slanderous accusations.
The MHWC, and Second Presbytery, has been accused of, “covering the highest forms of child abuse,” and, “gaslighting witnesses,” and engaging in, “misguided shenanigans of men under the sway of a man who did not have the church of Christ in his heart,” and, “attacking the whistleblower,” and other charges verbally on the floor of Synod, and then in writing on a public internet news blog.
To set the stage, let us remember how this matter began in Second Presbytery. As most Presbyteries, the summer meeting of Second Presbytery was scheduled for the Tuesday morning before the opening of General Synod in June, 2022. The agenda for this meeting had been set by the Executive Committee, as per usual procedure. However, on the Friday night before Synod, literally at the 11th hour, an email was sent by Mr. Matt Miller, a minister member of the court, to 40 or so members of Second Presbytery, making allegations against Mr. Chuck Wilson, at that time also a minister member of the Presbytery. MHWC had no prior notice of this action, and therefore, no time for discussion before Presbytery would meet. Mr. Miller then presented these allegations publicly at the Presbytery meeting in open session. After lengthy discussion by the Presbytery, including how this public exposure of sin was contrary to Scripture and the BOD, the matter was referred to the MHWC, per the Presbytery Manual of Procedure. This was the setting for how the MHWC became involved. It was the directive of the court that MHWC was to investigate this matter and bring recommendations back to the Presbytery.
Soon after this meeting of Presbytery, Mr. Tony Locke, another minister member of the court, charged Mr. Miller with unbiblical actions in publicly exposing sin and making allegations while by-passing the steps of Matthew 18, and the procedures set forth in the BOD. The MHWC now had three separate but interrelated matters before us: 1) The original allegations against Mr. Wilson, 2) The unbiblical manner in which these allegations were reported to the court, and, 3) The allegations against Mr. Miller.
The MHWC decided to handle these matters one at a time. The committee believed the clearest matter to address was the public manner in which the allegations against Mr. Wilson were presented to the court without the preliminary steps of Matthew 18. (We learned later that our MHWC and the BOD had been undermined by other members of the Presbytery, who had told Mr. Miller to by-pass the preliminary steps of discipline because the MHWC was in the pocket of Mr. Wilson, that they would protect him, and they would not act in a just manner. Therefore, he should tell these things to the church.) Let it be clear, “whistleblower” is a secular term. MHWC did not, “attack the whistleblower,” neither did we in any way discount the severity of the allegations that were originally presented, only the unbiblical manner in which they were presented to the court. Many brothers left the Presbytery meeting at Synod commenting that no one would ever be safe from public attack if the manner in which these charges were brought would be allowed to stand.
Consequently, Mr. Miller was confronted by the MHWC and was called to repent for violating Scripture and the BOD in by-passing the preliminary steps of church discipline. Contrary to the Special Committee report, there was no “deal” made by the MHWC. Rather, Mr. Miller asked the MHWC what he could do to have this matter not go through a trial. The MHWC, in response to his request, gave him a list of sins and errors that we believed he had committed. If he were willing to confess and repent of these, the MHWC was willing to recommend that this matter be concluded with a censure, and to forego a trial, as is allowed by the Book of Discipline. All of this would have been subject to the decision of Presbytery, as the MHWC was not a commission. We believed this was a proper Scriptural thing to do, as any discipline ceases when an offender repents. Far from being an, “attack on the whistleblower,” this was a call for a brother to acknowledge his error of actions and repent.
Directly related to this matter is the third item with which we had to deal, the complaint against Mr. Miller by Mr. Tony Locke. Another charge against our committee is that we allowed Mr. Locke to, “withdraw his complaint,” but we didn’t allow Mr. Miller to withdraw his actions. In reality, Mr. Locke filed a number of allegations, some of which were later discovered to be incorrect. Mr. Locke acknowledged these errors and they were withdrawn by him from the MHWC investigation. These allegations were made only to the MHWC and the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery. In contrast, it was not possible for Mr. Miller to withdraw public allegations.
Now let us turn to the heart of the matter, which is the allegations against Mr. Wilson. Again, there are several facets to these allegations: the testimony of a local gym manager, the testimony of the two Wilson daughters, and the testimony of other family members who lived in the Wilson home. Again, while these are items that are interrelated, they are also separate. Each witness was interviewed on video tape. These tapes were all turned over to the Synod in their entirety.
Further, all the witnesses were treated with courtesy, and their testimony was believed as truthful by the MHWC. The witnesses were questioned by the committee only to clarify the particulars of their allegations and to get more specific details. In contrast, “Gaslighting” is a term used to describe, “an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. Gaslighting may end up with persons doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.” This charge has been made against MHWC with no supporting evidence. We reject this slanderous allegation.
The manager of a local gym in Clemson, testified to inappropriate talk and coarse jesting on the part of Mr. Wilson. Her testimony is a matter of record. Her testimony was also believed to be truthful by the committee. However, Scripture says there must be 2 or 3 witnesses against an elder. She was asked if anyone else at the gym could corroborate her testimony. She said there were several. Yet, no one ever came forward, even after repeated requests by MHWC. Therefore, while the committee believed her testimony, we did not have the Scriptural basis to act further on this matter based on only one witness. However, her testimony was taken into consideration as part of our discussion on the overall accusations against Mr. Wilson.
The core of the allegations against Mr. Wilson came from his two daughters. They appeared with advocates when they gave testimony. Again, the women were listened to respectfully and courteously by MHWC. Questions were asked to clarify some issues. Hopefully, the reader will appreciate the delicate and personal matters involved. It is safe to say the members of MHWC were appalled and grieved by the testimony that was given against their father, a teaching elder who has been a brother in the Lord, and with whom we served together in Second Presbytery. Following the testimony of the two daughters, the other family members who lived and grew up in the Wilson home requested to meet with the MHWC. Their testimony is also a matter of record. However, it should be noted that the testimony of these three did not agree with or support the testimony previously given.
Finally, MHWC met with Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. This was planned to be a meeting with only Mr. Wilson, but they requested that Mrs. Wilson be included to hear the allegations and what the MHWC had to say. At this meeting, Mr. Wilson was presented with the charges and testimony against him. Both Mr. and Mrs. Wilson categorically denied the allegations. This meeting is also a matter of record.
Therefore, because of the conflicting testimonies, and the denial of all the allegations by Mr. Wilson, MHWC believed that if this matter went to trial as things were at that time, it was doubtful in our minds that a conviction could have been reached by a court. Consequently, there were two problems the MHWC sought to address in moving forward. First, the conflicting testimony of the members of the family, along with the age of the allegations (stretching back decades) created procedural challenges. Second, the allegations had not been through the preliminary process of Matthew 18 as required by the Book of Discipline.
Therefore, MHWC proposed having the various family members meet with a professional counselor, Dr. Jim Newheiser, a highly respected professor at RTS Charlotte, author/counselor, and one who was neutral as he had no previous relationship with Mr. Wilson or any of the parties involved in this case. We believed he would be able to use his expertise to conduct the Matthew 18 meetings with the family to get deeper into the various testimonies, gain greater clarity, and recommend a course of action back to MHWC. However, this proposal was refused by some family members who took offense to our recommendation, wrongly assuming our committee did not believe their testimony, and/or the accusations against their father, Chuck Wilson, and that we were assigning some measure of guilt to them. This was not the case.
It should also be noted, that throughout this entire time, members of MHWC were receiving calls that accused us of, “covering” Mr. Wilson, and, “letting him off,” and, “passing him information.” For the record, nothing could be further from the truth. One of our committee members worked for a large corporation and part of his job was handling sexual abuse complaints. He regularly advised us on staying compliant with the law. Further, MHWC took a vow of confidentiality, and on several occasions this vow was reaffirmed. Other lies were circulated about our work, including that the Wilsons were worshipping at the Chairman’s church, and that the Chairman was blocking any action against Mr. Wilson. All these accusations against the MHWC are false and slanderous.
Therefore, because of the high feelings toward Mr. Wilson in Second Presbytery, and because of the prejudice created in the Presbytery by the original public exposure of allegations, and because of the expressions of mistrust of the MHWC, and because of all the other issues in this matter that had caused upset in the Presbytery, we recommended that Presbytery refer this entire matter to General Synod to assume original jurisdiction. This was not an attempt to cover up or absolve Mr. Wilson, but rather to send this volatile matter to a more unbiased body.
In order to bring this statement to a conclusion, let it be noted that the MHWC or Second Presbytery did not, “cover child abuse of the highest forms,” nor did we, “gaslight witnesses,” nor did we engage in, “shenanigans,” nor did we, “attack the whistleblower,” nor were we, “under the sway of a man who did not have the church of Christ in his heart.” It was made clear by remarks made on the floor of Synod, that only a minimal number of members of the Special Committee even listened to, “some of the tapes,” and that the entire Special Committee had only met once or twice to draft its conclusions and report. It was also made known that the final report was drafted by an unknown author(s).
Yet, Second Presbytery was dissolved, or as has been written, “a 224-year-old presbytery will cease to exist,” on the basis of such paltry work. It was said and written that, “Second Presbytery is irrevocably broken and needs to be dissolved.” But how can any Christian say such a thing? Do we not believe in the work of the Holy Spirit? Do we not believe the power of the Word of God to effect change in believers? Can we in the ARP church wonder why our denomination is in its current condition if we truly believe and teach Christians can be, “irrevocably broken?”
Therefore, we want to go on record that in all our investigations and recommendations, we sought to abide by the Scripture and the Standards of the ARP Church, in spite of the conflicting opinions of parliamentarians and other members of sister courts of the church. Our hope throughout the investigation was that our preliminary investigations, charged to us by the Presbytery, would have been useful in a trial to be held by a court, that victims would have found justice, and the guilty would have been brought to repentance.
Finally, it is our hope that this document will be a clarification of how the MHWC conducted itself, to present the truth of our actions, and to explain why we came to the conclusions that we did. We welcome any discussion of these matters which may help effect reconciliation.
John D. CookR. J. Gore
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