The following is a letter from a member of Genevan Commons, an OPC minister who serves on session with one of the admins of the discussion group, Shane Anderson. It is not an official statement for his session, or members of the discussion group (who have a wide range of perspectives on many matters.) Addition: we want to clarify that the admins of Genevan Commons agree with this response and are thankful for it.
Rev. Michael Spangler
Teacher, Providence Church (OPC)
Greensboro, NC
June 23, 2020
An Open Reply to “An Open Letter from Concerned Ministers and Elders in the OPC,”
Published on Aimeebyrd.com, here, June 22, 2020.
Dear Brothers and Fathers,
Your open letter calls for a response, for the sake of the good name of Christ, his elders, and his people.
I am a minister of the gospel, have been for years a member of Genevan Commons, and participate often in its discussions. I know many of the men now subject to your criticism, have had many exchanges with them, and have personally witnessed, in their whole context, many of the discussions excerpted on Genevan Commons Screenshots. I tell you plainly and sincerely, despite your best intentions and desires to promote righteousness, you have been deceived as to the nature of the group.
I wish to publicly state a few neglected facts, then directly address your four written concerns.
First, three important facts about our group have been ignored:
Genevan Commons exists to promote edifying dialogue among the Reformed. It has had good success in meeting this goal. Many of its long-term members will testify to true growth in knowledge of God’s word, in biblical doctrine, and in piety as a direct result of conversation in the Commons. I openly and thankfully attest to this myself: I am a better man and a better minister because of the interactions with my brethren in this group. One specific way it helps me is by giving me a broader vision of the faithful Reformed Christianity that exists beyond the bounds of my local church, presbytery, and denomination.
Every person in Genevan Commons is a sinner (1 John 1:8). That some things said in the group should not have been said, ought to surprise no one. It is a different thing entirely, however, to condemn the whole group as unedifying and ungodly based on a very small slice of the hundreds of thousands of posts and comments made throughout its lifetime. It would violate charity to call a Christian brother an ungodly man for a few sinful slips of the tongue. How much more so a group of hundreds of Christian brothers, of varying levels of maturity, and among whom no doubt, as in all Christian communities, there are at least some tares among the wheat?
That said, in my daily observation of the group I find that our words are in most every case reasonable and respectful. And moreover, when sinful exceptions do appear, the Commons actively polices them, and though imperfectly, it does so to my knowledge more carefully than any other similar group on Facebook. I have vivid memories of members in the group, and ministers especially, calling out violations of the second, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth commandments. Many posts and comments have been edited or deleted as a result, often by the original author himself, before admins could step in. Naturally, such changes could not be demonstrated in a screenshot. This is not to mention the times admins have quickly deleted ungodly speech, given firm reminders of our clear group rules, and even when necessary expelled participants, out of zeal for peace, truth, and righteousness. Neither this fact nor the other two were even mentioned in the screenshot site, on the blog of Aimee Byrd who promoted it, or in your letter.
Second, as to your four concerns:
That Byrd and Miller are “members of our church” is immaterial. Church members sin (James 3:2). Church members may fall from Christ (Heb. 3:12). Church members may even become false teachers (Acts 20:30). Insofar as they do this, they deserve rebuke: privately if they sin in private (Matt. 18:15), publicly if they sin in public (Gal. 2:14). Even when not speaking directly to them, we have a similar duty to warn each other about those who cause divisions and offenses (Rom. 16:17). Moreover, that such rebuke and warning is made with sharpness (Titus 1:13), and even with a solemn mockery, is no proof of “corrupt,” “foolish talking,” and “coarse jesting” (Eph. 4:29; 5:5). God himself mocks sinners (Ps 2:4; Prov. 1:26), as do his faithful servants (1 Kings 18:27). A minister is sometimes called to set his face like flint (Isa. 50:7; Ezek. 3:8–9), and spare not against the church’s sins (Isa. 58:1). You say elsewhere you are not endorsing the books we have attacked. Putting aside the contradiction that your letter was published on the personal blog of an author of such books, insofar as in it you seek to disarm us of the verbal weapons with which we make our attack, or at least imply that the books’ errors are not so serious as to warrant our sharp speech, you are indeed protecting those books, and their harmful teaching. We beg you therefore for less carping about our style and method, and more engagement with the substance of our critiques.
The appeal to ordination vows is a red herring. The vows say nothing against appropriate use of privacy in Christian conversation. The equivalent response to you would be, please send us transcripts of your private phone calls, emails, and messages that went into the preparation of your letter: if God will reveal all secrets on the last day, why keep secrets now? Furthermore, by your standard we ought never talk behind closed doors with our wives, our elders, or our members; or at least we ought to be willing to reveal everything that was said, to anyone, and any time. That this would not be keeping our ministerial vows, but in fact breaking them terribly, by betraying the trust of all God’s people, should be obvious to you. The propriety of private conversation is proven by this whole debacle: words which in private context are appropriate and godly, out of context are likely to appear otherwise to the uninitiated observer. So privacy actually helps us keep our reputation, which is a duty of the ninth commandment, and the man or men who broke privacy by publicizing close conversation among friends (Prov. 17:9), boldly broke that commandment. Even some who oppose the Commons have condemned the screenshot site as shameful libel (here and here). Moreover, God forbid that what you insinuate would ever be true, that we forget that God will judge our private words. I for one conduct even my most secret conversations with godly fear, and without a doubt that I will give an account for every idle word (Matt. 12:36). I remain accountable, and gladly so, to my own presbytery and session. And as far as I know my close friends in the Commons, they all think exactly the same.
Calling our speech “misogynistic” begs the question. It might be fair to call some of screenshotted comments off-color, some immature, some silly, some just unnecessary. But in context most of them I read were actually unobjectionable, even if I would not have said them all myself. We openly affirm in Genevan Commons all the Bible texts you cited about women. You can be sure that if anyone in our group denied that women bore God’s image (Gen. 1:27), were fellow heirs in Christ (1 Peter 3:7), and gifted members of his body (Eph. 4:7), he would be reproved, and if recalcitrant, expelled. We are not women-haters: that is slander. We believe, from the Bible, that the heart of godly patriarchy is a loving, sacrificial use of manly strength for the care and protection of the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7; Eph. 5:25). This is as far from misogyny as possible. Moreover, though “thoughtful critique” was not as obvious in the screenshots, in most cases it is the very substance of our group discussion. The captured comments, for example, were often subjoined to extended articles, which of course would not fit in a screenshot, or in the screen-shotter’s narrative. And what of my articles I recently wrote, published on the blog associated with the Commons? In them I labored to be as careful as possible, citing years of evidence and many passages of Scripture, with all the persuasive logic I could muster. Take them as the substantial bulk of our critique, and you will find the Commons is much more thoughtful than you let on.
Yes, we agree “undue silence in a just cause” is a sin. That is why we have not been silent against Byrd, Miller, and others who support them. It is why we will not be pressured into silence by your letter. And furthermore, it is why I am compelled to write this reply to you: despite your good intentions, your rebuke is unjust and ill-considered, and ought to be retracted.
I remain your brother in Christ and fellow servant in his gospel, and I am happy to be contacted by anyone at any time about these matters.
Sincerely Yours,
Michael Spangler