Saturday, November 9, 2024

Emails, Leverage, and the Error of Being "Moscow-friendly"

Readers of this blog may be familiar with the drama created by an email that was sent out to selected members of my Presbytery in January identifying me as “An FV Problem in the OPC.” You can read more about that 1-HERE, 2-HERE, and 3-HERE. This week, the original sender of that email contacted me to apologize, sort of. I have replied to him directly and personally, but since the narrative about this controversy has been manipulated by critics in unfortunate ways, I thought it best to publish an edited version of my reply. Names and information that would allow my correspondent to be identified have been removed. –JME


[Brother]:


Thanks for your note. I am happy to forgive you for handling things in the way you did. I do wish you had simply picked up the phone and called me first or even responded to the email I sent you when our Session was finally forwarded the packet a couple of weeks after you sent it out. The other brother who contributed to that analysis of my teaching replied when we sent it to him, but we never heard from you.


It is interesting to me that you sent your apology to the church’s email account. Maybe you forgot that you have my personal one from corresponding before, or you might have used my alias account that other OPC ministers use when they want to contact me. Or you might have called me since we know each other, or you might have mentioned these concerns to me directly when we chatted at GA six months before. I did think we had the kind of relationship that would allow you to share concerns with me. You might remember us chatting several years ago when I needed advice about a difficult pastoral issue, or going together to meet with a widow after [her husband’s] suicide. I understood that we had different views on some things, but it was disappointing that you would send a warning about me to men in my Presbytery without even bringing those concerns to my attention.


You said:

“When we first met, I had no idea that you were at all ‘Moscow-friendly’ as averred, though I’ve come to be concerned from things you’ve written (and also said at GA) that you have tendencies in this direction. This does concern me, as you would know from things I’ve published.”

I’m not exactly sure what “Moscow-friendly” means. I try to be friendly with brothers and sisters wherever I find them. For what it’s worth, almost no one in Moscow knows who I am. I’ve never been there, and while I appreciate the culture and a lot of the content that comes from there, I generally like my beer a bit darker than what is on tap at Christ Kirk. When your email was finally forwarded to me, it was interesting to read that, in the analysis of my preaching, nothing was identified as outside the standards or in contradiction to my ministerial vows. Yet I am a “Federal Vision problem in the OPC.” It seems the primary concern is that I am not willing to call Doug Wilson, Rich Lusk, Peter Leithart, et. al. heretics. If I am teaching something contrary to our Confession of Faith, I expect someone would have filed charges rather than simply circulating emails that amount to slander and gossip.


While I do not have many friends in Moscow, I used to have a lot of friends in NAPARC, and I can tell you that has changed since your email at the beginning of this year. You may have meant it for good, but others have used it as leverage for evil. Men that once were personal friends no longer answer my emails. I have been contacted by men in the OPC (from Florida to northern California), PCA, URC, RPCNA, and the Canadian Reformed Churches that have been warned I am a Federal Visionist. Members of my church have been told I am a false teacher and teach heresy. People have been pressured to leave or not to come to ROPC. We even had a ruling elder in our Presbytery visit a Reformed Baptist Church where he was warned about Joel Ellis. I never desired to be widely known, much less infamous, but the email you sent has been used to propagate a narrative that has damaged our congregation and its reputation far and wide.


Despite that, God has continued to pour out blessings on our church. Our congregation continues to grow and is remarkably unified. Recently a presbyter prayed publicly about the divisions at ROPC and the doctrinal problems that exist. That was news to me and to the ruling elder that attended Presbytery with me. We are not aware of any division or disunity. If anything, this year’s drama has brought our congregation closer and made us more united. The Lord works all things together for good.


An OPC minister in another Presbytery contacted me several months ago to defend the email you sent out. He encouraged me to leave the OPC. “We don’t believe the things you do, and you would be happier in the CREC,” he said. In two weeks, our congregation will have the first of two votes deciding whether to leave the OPC. Such a decision might have eventually happened anyway—our elders talked about the possibility before we were labeled “a Federal Vision problem”—but it would not have happened this year without the email you sent out. We would not have lost an intern and a ruling elder over the summer if the pressure campaign arising from your email had not brought the conversation to a head in our congregation. I love the OPC, and I would be happy and content to remain and continue serving as an OPC minister until I die. That is unlikely to happen now. We have spent a lot of time talking to members and trying to convince them that the pressure we have received to leave does not represent the OPC as a whole. No one man, or group of men, can speak for the denomination. But they can make it difficult for one man, or one congregation, to remain in the denomination, and I don’t have to tell you that this is not the first time something like this has happened in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.


Brother, I have no malice toward you. I love you. I respect the concerns you have for me grounded in what you perceive are important theological differences. But I would be glad to know what they are. If there are real theological differences, I would have been glad to have been asked about them, confronted about them, even brought up on charges so I could identify them. Being “Moscow-friendly” is not a chargeable offense, so far as I know, but evidently it is sufficiently egregious to warrant sending a warning to a brother’s Presbytery. You apologized for not handling things in a better way. “It would have been better to send it to the clerk if I just wanted the presbytery to look at it or, even better, to have contacted you and talked with you about it.” For what it’s worth, I would encourage you to reflect on whether your concerns are valid at all. We’ve known each other for quite a few years, but so far as I know, you’ve never visited ROPC. At the very least, when someone contacts you with concerns in the future, maybe you should seek the other side first before getting involved. 


Proverbs 18:13: He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.


Proverbs 18:17: The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him.


Your fellow-servant,


Joel Ellis