I get the boot (UPDATED) & miss Church for the first time

I have been forbidden, to enter my church or come to it's grounds:

"Dear Hugh,

We, the elders of Covenant OPC, are agreed that we must ask you not to attend any worship services, classes, or any other church events, or go onto the church property, effective immediately, and until further notice.

These are our reasons: 1. Your words posted on your blog on 12/23/09, 'It won't be long until my passion spills out into the aisles of my own church, and I can't tell you what will happen then,' have been understood as extremely threatening to some in the church, and they have caused real fear in their hearts. In reading your words in context, the session does not understand them as an intent of physical violence; however, they are so incredibly inflammatory that it has raised even more serious concerns about you. You sound like a very angry man. We have a responsibility to protect the well-being of the flock, and we will take whatever actions are necessary to do that. 2. Our boundary with you has been that you do not talk with church people about your views about polygamy. By sending your email to the church list, in violation of presbyterian government, you effectively (if perhaps unintentionally) violated that boundary by virtually insuring that more church people would search and find your blog. 3. Our reason for having welcomed you to attend services was that you might grow under the preaching of the Word under the oversight of church leadership. Your words and actions indicate that you have rejected that oversight. That being the case, we have even greater concern about your stated agenda to spread your false teaching, and we must do whatever we can to protect our brothers and sisters from it.

Hugh, we hope and pray that this will not be a permanent requirement, but that you will repent of your errors and publicly repudiate them. As a first step we would like to have from you in writing immediately an explanation of the words from your blog quoted above. Second, if that explanation is satisfactory to us, we would be willing to meet with you at our regularly scheduled session meeting on January 11, 2010, to discuss our decision with you, to pray for you, and review your status. Please let us know if you would like to meet with us then. Again, though, we insist that you do not attend any COPC functions before that time.

Sincerely,

Pastor Carl Durham, Mike Breen, Chris Liff, and Andy Selle

The Session of Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church"

Let me explain the excerpt then:

"Your words posted on your blog on 12/23/09, 'It won't be long until my passion spills out into the aisles of my own church, and I can't tell you what will happen then,' have been understood as extremely threatening to some in the church, and they have caused real fear in their hearts."

"Spill(ing) into the aisles of my church," means only that the discussion, would move to that physical location. I can't control others, I don't know what will happen when the discussion is public and at church. Only in my wildest imaginations would I ever think that it would become threatening to anyone. I am not, a violent man. I would not come to church armed in any way. I am not skilled in the martial arts, nothing would happen at my initiation. Any encounter would have to be initiated by another person. All responses on my part would be verbal.

The session ignores the rest of the post in which I condemn John Brown, who took matters moral into his own hands, violently. The session ignores my condemnation of the "Freemen." The session is in fact ignoring my absence from the Thursday Night Christmas Eve service. I thought I would give a chance to cooler heads, to prevail. While saying that in context they didn't see it as implying violence, but turning around and saying that I am an angry man, I don't think the session is being truthful.

In addition, the visits to my blog, which have now started by the congregation, did not start until A.) The session ignored me, again. B.) The session emailed everyone and told them essentially, where to look. In fact NO one in Vermont, from the church, visited my blogs until AFTER the session told them the INTERNET was the best place to look to discover the source of the controversy. (Elder Michael Breen acknowledged this to be a fact.) Additionally, the session through Andrew Selle, fully knowing my intent to send the letter out TWO DAYS in advance of sending that letter, only plead that it was "Christmas Time" in an effort to stop me, and offered more delays. Had this been against Church Law so to speak, then it was really an appropriate time to tell me that, but it was not said:

Dr. Andrew Selle - "It is a time when we invite those outside the Kingdom to taste the joys of knowing Christ. Do you not see that such a communication at this time would bring discouragement to the Body? and in so doing would undermine our evangelistic efforts? In the end, I'm not afraid for the church, yet I care for these concerns mentioned above, and I hope you will, too. At the least, I hope you will see reason and let this sit until the new year."

I have reviewed all communications with the session prior to my sending out the letter via email. No one warned me that it was a grave violation, only the pleading that I be nice at Christmas time. Not once has my inquiry about the topic coming up in session as Pastor Durham seemed to promise been answered. The session is covering up their neglect, and by doing so, making it worse.

UPDATE - One of the elders sent the following:

"I am writing on behalf of the Session of COPC.

While we find your answers to our email somewhat reassuring, we must repeat our request that you not attend any activity at Covenant Church until this matter can be satisfactorily resolved. We have several members who have indicated that they don't want to come if you are there. We believe our request of you is necessary for the peace of the church, and that worship may not be hindered.

Would you please confirm, at the earliest possible time, your intention to comply with our request not to attend Covenant Chruch [SIC] tomorrow. Thank you."

I then got a call from another elder whose talent seems to be experience with "Exit Interviews."

I've no sympathy with either in the current narrow context. I have heard from neither prior to this evening and it seems as if they are rotating from "unsuccessful" people in the interpersonal arena, to other ones in the hope that they'll match up better.

I've no respect for the request of nameless brothers or sister in Christ that won't come to church for fear that this post represents a threat of violence of some sort. I suggest if they are still reading at this late an hour, that they call the elders and withdraw their complaint. No such threat of violence exists.

In my conversation on the phone I was not kind. I would have to characterize my dealing with that elder as angry, something at this point, that I do not regret. I was lied to. It has been held up to me that continued exposure to the teaching and preaching at COPC would cause me to see the error of my ways. The elder calling me expressed that they thought there was "no hope" of changing my mind and thus no reason to meet with me and discuss it.

"Which is it" I wanted to know? Was I being placated with language of the faint hope of discussion or was I intractable and unable to change? Either view made the other offering a lie.

I asked WHAT argument was offered to me that was in the view of this elder, convincing. He could give me none.

I offered the two arguments extended by seminarian Stewart Lauer, and pointed to the fact that the word on which "Woody" (Stewart) hung his argument in fact meant quite a different thing, offered to prove it by examination, and this elder refused to look. He also would not discuss what it meant for a reformed seminarian to declare that Christ quoted scripture from the Old Testament, and then chose to change those words meanings and appealed to a sort of progressive revelation where God "Finds" meanings that didn't exist before.

His conclusion was that we weren't going to debate it. (From a how to fire advice article)

US News - "Don't enter into a debate. Your decision is final, and while you hope the employee understands it, the time for back-and-forth is over. Let the employee know your decision and then cover logistics, like returning keys and other property, the final paycheck, COBRA, etc.

Sound familiar?

How do you convince someone when you refuse to debate? How do you hold them responsible for correct teaching if you won't explain it? He also did not want to know that Luther or Augustine agreed with me. It seemed to make no difference that the father of the Reformation would not be welcomed as a member.

POST SCRIPT (December 27th) Not that faithfulness is measured by church attendance, or even that I would suggest genuine belief is signified by it either, but I had not missed church all year. That occurs to me as I am sitting here at home this morning, and not in church on the very last Sunday of 2009.

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New Year Revolution

The focus of this blog, will be shifting slightly. Really, what more is there to say on the FLDS/YFZ matter? Nothing I can predict. The CSPD connection to the FBI and the call and the caller awaits press interest. To them, it is "timely" or "topical" and as every delay occurs in what might be the oldest misdemeanor case (still being actively pursued) in El Paso County Colorado, they do get MORE interested. It would seem to our "news hounds" (who like sleeping on the porch) that this degree of delay is, interesting. Once more a reporter has feigned some interest in why a woman who is charged with one of the most minor misdemeanors has an attorney who has successfully delayed the charges against her from 2008 to 2010. How do you plea bargain nearly nothing to anything but nothing? But they're going to wait until it happens.

The shift will be towards legalization, and to that end, I may fold up and throw away the "Vermont Polygamy" blog, and merge it into this one. Two major story lines were a bit much to ask of one blog, but now it seems I have only one major story line, and it isn't our friends in the American Southwest. Does this mean I am abandoning them? No. But there's not much to tell really.

The FLDS trial story goes like this: They did it. DNA proves it. Americans are afraid of/hate polygamists as it strikes at the core of their egalitarian ideal. They want it to be about abuse, sexual deviancy, repression and perversion. They want it mostly to be "icky." So the state of Texas proves paternity with DNA, ogles mutually with the jury the age difference, the inequity and the excess they perceive in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint practice of polygamy, they leer at young bodies pawed over by older men, and the larger the age difference, the longer the sentence. The trial and the sentencing are supposed to be about legal pedophilia which is really statutory rape, but they turn into disaffected former member rants about religion and female/male roles and polygamy. The horrified voyeuristic jury goes out to deliberate, and wishes only they had the option to kill the defendants. It's not going to change, it isn't going to get any better.

For their part, the FLDS seem to be running up trial balloons of potential defenses and lining the court record with book marks to be used later in appeal. I feel bad for every FLDS male caught up in this mess. A failure to reverse the verdicts on appeal will result in Allan Keate dying in jail. Your Modern Pharisee loathes prisons, and has a Biblical reason for that loathing. In my experience, prison is an ungodly punishment (never being ordered by the scriptures), it is dehumanizing to guard and guarded alike, and The Bible recoils in horror from the concept of prisons, equating them to hell itself.

The biggest stories coming down the pike are whether or not Rozita will be delayed again, what will happen with Allen Steed, what will the new wrinkle be in the Michael Emack trial, how will the evidence challenge go in February for Warren Jeffs? Judge Conn is a real Judge, perhaps a tad too liberal for my tastes, but he's not a cartoon judge like Barbara Walther. He writes well, he is honest, almost admitting the court lost something or lost track of it in his last ruling. He is disdainful of tricks such as Arizona acting as a proxy for Texas, and claiming that they "don't foresee using YFZ evidence."

So I'm on to legalization. Oddly, it is fellow polygynists who are some of my worst enemies in this regard. A conversation recently with an unnamed member of the FLDS yielded a rather startling insight, provided I understood that member correctly. They don't WANT it to be legal, they want an exception for religious reasons, which may ultimately explain some of the legal maneuvering, or lack thereof. If I understood it correctly, they'd just as soon it stayed against the law, but that the law recognize that those who practice it for religious reasons be given a pass.

It makes a sort of odd sense. Honestly, I don't see how you can BE a Latter Day Saint of any stripe, and not embrace the "principle." The most disturbing fact about the FLDS to the LDS is, that the FLDS are more faithful to the teachings of Joseph Smith than the LDS are, and the LDS are very uncomfortable with them for that reason. For the FLDS, if I am hearing it correctly, they don't see any reason to defend the practice among those who are not FLDS. It should be for religious reasons ONLY, and as with all credible religions, the FLDS see themselves as the "true" religion. I don't see why that should surprise us. They're not going away. Attempts to make the FLDS conform to standards that society sees as "good and moral and righteous" won't work. It's wrong in the first place (unconstitutional) and fundamentalists don't change. This is something theological liberals, agnostics and atheists don't get.

On my side of the street, among Christians (sorry Saints), there is a militant desire to not only practice polygamy, but to have it be a private contract. There's more hope here than with the above mentioned FLDS/LDS offshoot point of view. Most non Mormon Christian polygynists want to run the clock back about 100 years, and simply have marriages be an agreement between private parties with the state playing no role at all in who thinks who is married to whom. That's a pipe dream.

As we watch the most massive expansion of Federal Government in our history, we have to be honest. Obama Care is going to want to know everything about you. Register you as married, not married, living together, match DNA on everyone, parent and child, license who can have children and so on. Oh yes, that is coming. So if anything there will be more and more demanding interest in your family situation than before. When there was no national health care, maybe you could have gone for private civil contract as marriage. It was dicey because of the income tax system. After the Obamanation of Nationalized Health Care, you can forget that noise.

A national health care system will want to "save money" by tracking genetic diseases. They will establish paternity at some point regardless of what you want them to do. Just like at YFZ that will be used to prosecute some "crime," which if nothing else right now, is polygyny itself. Those of you who want to keep marriage off the books, you've lost that battle. I'm sorry. I sympathize and would have preferred that myself.

Here's why you should LEGALIZE polygyny. For the near future, you don't have to actually take advantage of the legal registration of your marriage, but the fact that it is legal, will take the heat off you. There is a creepy FBI connection that keeps getting larger in the YFZ case, particularly if some connections are solidified with the prank caller. The FBI seems to be in love with sex crimes these days, looking for creepy stalkers, old men and pedophiles. Whether right or wrong, they're looking to score in that regard. There are only two degrees of separation between FBI task forces on sex stings, and Rozita Swinton. They seem to be looking in on every high profile case of sexual abuse they can find:

ABC News - "Government documents released today show that the FBI assisted Santa Barbara, Calif., officials in their attempt to get cooperation from a person who could have been a key witness in the 2005 case child molestation case against Michael Jackson: the boy who accused the pop star of molesting him in 1993."

Freedom of information act requests were filed apparently, before Michael was cold, and now we know the FBI was up to their necks chasing down Mr. Jackson. It seems they are looking through every peephole.

Don't take it the wrong way, I'm hardly defending the Gloved One. It's just interesting to see what the FBI is, um, interested in. The only way to make them disinterested is to legalize polygamy, then they have no reason to peer through the keyhole of a man living in a house with five women. Right now, they have. Tony Alamo and Michael Jackson and the FLDS tell us they're going to keep right on doing it.

If you are a "private practitioner" of polygyny, let me warn you about what happened in Texas and how it affects you. When you are investigated for whatever crime you are investigated, bigamy and polygamy will be on the menu. You may try the strategy that FLDS men did. It won't work. What happened in Texas was Child Protective Services simply threatened to terminate parental rights. "Ok," you say, "My wife is a GOOD woman, and it won't matter if the state sees me as a father or not, my wife will stay loyal." Then she will be charged with something. Contempt of court for not testifying, bigamy herself, and so on. Now we have a mom in jail, a non Dad, and an abandoned child. It worked it Texas, and it will work with you, and it's now in the FBI playbook. They'll pass it along to each local jurisdiction and repeat as often as necessary.

Don't forget Project Megiddo. I'm sure the FBI hasn't. I see them acting on that template even today. They see religious polygynists as essentially breeding grounds for right wing terrorism, and frankly, the rhetoric I have been treated to by some of my brethren makes me wonder if they're not right about that. I can see some of my acquaintances holed up like Freemen in Jordan quite easily. I KNEW Randy Weaver, and liked the guy, he's not what you think he is, but he is just a tad too militant. He made himself a target, so did "Freeman" leader LeRoy Schweitzer, who is in maximum security prison until 2018. Fighting the "man" may be a romantic notion, but you usually fight the law, and the law wins. If you want to be a modern day John Brown, knock yourself out. A married man is to be concerned with pleasing his wife. Getting thrown in jail for idealistic reasons, isn't attending to that duty.

So it must be legalized. To that end I have ramped up rather unexpectedly my quarrel with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and I'm making an appeal. FIND SOMEBODY to champion the cause. I've offered myself several times. I'm going to be living in a home with four legislators in it, and I'm in walking distance of the Capitol in Vermont. I'm a registered lobbyist FOR the cause in the state of Vermont. I could register in New Hampshire, and very soon, Washington DC will be a tempting target for legalization, having merely to clear the hurdle of congressional review for their own "Gay Marriage" law. I could devote full time to this pursuit and could easily spend $100,000.00 just running around between legislatures in various states and pigeon holing various legislators. I've collected less than $100.00 and am only registered in the State of Vermont to lobby. You can look here at what attending only one "event" entails.

Make up your minds out there, because I have no need of self styled John Browns and unlike the FLDS who I will continue to champion, I'm not just doing this, for them. Unless they can manufacture some ecumenical love for legalization, ultimately, they're just today's "cause célèbre" and there will be others. The moving finger will write and move on past them.

I have the distinct feeling that a long "fish or cut bait" moment is rapidly approaching in my life. It won't be long until my passion spills out into the aisles of my own church, and I can't tell you what will happen then. I can guess that I will go underground, debating it for the record within the church, or I will be cast out of that church altogether. Frankly, I will be content to go underground and leave the battle to others. For the near future though, it's legalization, to some degree the internal church debate, and regular seasoning of FLDS information, as it hits the fan.

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