Response to CREC Commission Member Dennis Tuuri's Blog Comments

© 2006 by: Peter Kershaw

The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of Peter Kershaw and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Heal Our Land Ministries

On May 23 CREC Pastoral Commission on St. Peter Church Member Dennis Tuuri attempted to post several private emails on the internet blog "Little Geneva." As a direct result I received the following email from the blog's administrator, Harry Seabrook:

Dear Mr. Kershaw,

Pastor Dennis Tuuri of the CREC Pastoral Commission attempted to post some email exchanges between himself and RPCGA Moderator Randy Talbot on my blog, at http://littlegeneva.com/?p=431 Please see Tuuri's post below.

I moderate all comments and haven't posted Tuuri’s comments yet. I thought you should see this first since he's addressing it to you. Did Tuuri first email any of this to you? If not and if you'd like to take this up with him he's at elderdt@aol.com. I'm also forwarding this to Dr. Randy Talbot. Please note that Tuuri says that he underlined some text, but evidently he didn't know how to format his post correctly because none of his post was underlined.

Harry Seabrook

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Dennis Tuuri says:

May 23rd, 2006 at 12:59 pm

Mr. Kershaw writes: "The CREC Commission is being disingenuous by treating RC Sproul Jr as though he were still ordained, ignoring the fact entirely that his one and only ordination has been stripped from him." Furthermore, it is a brazen lie that Sproul was deposed "primarily for violations of the RPCGA BCO." This is a whitewash, as anyone knows who has read the judgment.

My response:

This "whitewash," "brazen lie," "disingenuous" stuff came from the RPCHA. Here's my reply to Mr. Kershaw.


5/23/06

Mr. Kershaw,

I thought you should read these emails that I received from Moderator Talbot, and correct your webpage accordingly. The wording from our Report that you seem most concerned over (concerning RC's ordination) was wording that was written by the RPCGA, which we ended up using. To the best of my knowledge, and contrary to your webpage, there were NO suggestions from the RPCGA that we did not incorporate in our Report.

My comments are bracketed.

Pastor Dennis Tuuri

 ===

[This correspondence was on Westminster Presbytery letterhead.]

Dear Dennis:

I formed a committee to review your documents. The committee felt, in general, that your commission's work seems to be moving in a very positive direction. I assumed that the report was given to us for our comments and review prior to publication. Our committee has made the following corrections to the reports so that it might better reflect the facts of the case and will allow us to write an official positive response letter to your commission and its work. This would also then have a significant affect on the 'History Report' that I am preparing and writing. In addition, it will greatly influence how we shall proceed and hold that information in the future. If these corrections can be made, then I would personally recommend that our 'history report' be kept confidential and not be available to the public.  Also, I will, according to the authority of our BCO, instruct all officers (Elders) of Westminster Presbytery to make this our final public comment on the entire situation with St. Peter and the CREC's involvement. Dennis, it is time for us and all who are involved in this entire matter follow the instructions of the Apostle Paul  ".forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead"  and "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

I sincerely hope you take this in the right spirit.  It is not meant to be demeaning or critical of you or your commission report.

In Christ The King,

Randy

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Dear Dennis,

In order to lessen the impact of accusations that you are on the one hand ignoring our deposition, while stating in another place that you are respecting it, this statement gives clarity as to why you are going to continue to 'consider' the ordination as acceptable in the CREC. This gives a reason for the apparent discrepancy between the two actions. It shows that it was primarily a 'practical' matter for him. I believe you can lessen your critics. In light of this, I propose that this statement makes more sense and is more meaningful.

[Underlined text was RPCGA wording - DT]

 "Although Mr. Sproul was deposed from the ministry (primarily for violations of the RPCGA BCO which would not apply in the CREC), we have determined that since he had been previously examined for ordination (by three different presbyteries of three denominations ARPC, PCA, and RPCGA), he shall not be required to fulfill the process for ordination and shall be considered ordained within the CREC accordingly."

Once again, I am not trying to be critical or offensive.  God knows my true spirit in this matter.  If this document, which is excellent, is written as clearly as possible maybe both the CREC and the RPCGA can avoid some criticism {but I know, not all!}.

In Christ The King,

Randy

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Dear Dennis,

You take any and all time necessary to make sure you're satisfied with our suggestions.  I will have to consult with the Presbytery concerning their views on whether to sign it or write a letter.  We are scheduled to have a Presbytery meeting on May 5th.  If that's too long for your time table, I will consult with each one of them by e-mail and phone to get their consent.  However, I really could see myself doing both: me signing and writting a letter {a positive one} in addition.  I'll let you know!  Let me know when you need either the letter, the signature or both so I can get to work on it!

Thanks for such a graceful, spiritual attitude!

In Christ The King,

Randy

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Dear Dennis,

Everything looks very good!  Thanks for letting me have some imput.  I only have a couple of questions before I send both the letter and the commission report out to the members of the Presbytery for confirmation vote to sign the letter and/or writing a letter of support for your ministering to SPPC. First, I saw in the letter that our suggestions were still in bold and colored violet, will that remain you the letter like that? 

 [I told him that this was a formatting error and that  the final version wouldn't look like that. DT]

Second, will this document and letter that I will sign and that we will write a letter of support for be the same one that is passed on to the other elders that you ask to sign?  {In other words will the document that we are writing support for and the letter we are signing the same as all the others going/gone out?

 [I answered in the affirmative DT]

Let me know please and in the mean time I will be e-mailing the letter and document to the elders in Westminster Presbytery of the RPCGA!

Thanks, In Christ The King,

Randy

----

From what I can ascertain, it's only necessary for me to respond to and clarify a few points. Most of Dr. Talbot's email content that Mr. Tuuri posted is self-explanatory and doesn't warrant a response. However, after conferring with Dr. Talbot on the matter, he provided me with some clarification, which I herein pass along:

"The wording from our Report that you seem most concerned over (concerning RC's ordination) was wording that was written by the RPCGA, which we ended up using. To the best of my knowledge, and contrary to your webpage, there were NO suggestions from the RPCGA that we did not incorporate in our Report."

"Although Mr. Sproul was deposed from the ministry (primarily for violations of the RPCGA BCO which would not apply in the CREC), we have determined that since he had been previously examined for ordination (by three different presbyteries of three denominations ARPC, PCA, and RPCGA), he shall not be required to fulfill the process for ordination and shall be considered ordained within the CREC accordingly."

In the course of several phone conversations, Rev. Turri solicited the "editorial input" of Westminster Presbytery (RPCGA) for the CREC's Pastoral Commission Report.  In their conversations Rev. Turri informed Dr. Talbot that the Commission Report would indicate that they were going to consider R.C. Sproul Jr. as already ordained because unlike the other three St. Peter Church Session members, he came to the RPCGA already with an ordination from the ARPC.  Rev. Tuuri asked, “Isn’t that true?”  Dr. Talbot replied in the affirmative, but he explained that Mr. Sproul Jr's ARPC ordination was no longer valid because it had been transferred to Westminster Presbytery (RPCGA) after a thorough examination.  Dr. Talbot told Rev. Tuuri that the RPCGA couldn’t agree with that part of the Commission's Report.  Rev. Tuuri told Dr. Talbot, in no uncertain terms, that the CREC Commission's view on the matter would not change.  In Dr. Talbot's words, "We agreed to disagree agreeably and move on." 

When Dr. Talbot received a copy of the Commission Report, Dr. Talbot's position was,

"There were many things I knew had to be changed before the Presbytery would be willing to sign off on it. But I knew from the very first conversation with Rev. Tuuri that there would be things that they would never agree to changing.  As Moderator of the Presbytery I created a committee of two other presbyters to help me in trying to give as much input as we could. We made several suggestions that the CREC Moderator approved of.  One of the changes that we suggested was the section quoted above. We did not write the wording. They didn't allow us to change their wording. All they allowed us to do was give them 'input'. Furthermore, it's simply untrue that there were 'NO suggestions from the RPCGA that we did not incorporate in our Report'. There were numerous changes that we asked for which were never incorporated into the Report.

"The original report said: 'Since Mr. Sproul had been previously examined for ordination, he shall not be required to fulfill the process for ordination and shall be considered ordained within the CREC accordingly.' Since we had already been told by Rev. Turri that the Commission was not going to change its view regarding this matter, the RPCGA's Committee suggested the changes which are shown in the quote above. A concern of the RPCGA was to at least make sure that all who read the CREC's Report would take cognizance of the fact that Mr. Sproul Jr. was deposed from the ministry. He was not deposed as a result of doctrinal charges (e.g. paedocommunion), but for multiple violations of breaking his vows to obey the government of the RPCGA, wherein he took vows to ‘submit himself to the doctrinal standards, government (BCO and Westminster Confession) and to his Brethren’, not to mention the abuse of several church families in matters of discipline, as well as the issue of knowingly, willingly and unlawfully stealing another denomination's (ARPC) tax ID number.

"I am saddened that Rev. Turri would publicly publish my e-mail correspondence with him.  I trusted that we would work together for the glory of our Lord and Savior and that what we did together would be confidential. We were motivated by the CREC Commission's offer to assist with 'editorial input' in their Report because of our sympathies for St. Peter Church, and we pray for our brethren there daily. We assumed our contribution would help them through some very difficult times."

I find it extremely problematic that Rev. Dennis Tuuri, a member of the clergy, doesn't seem to appreciate the serious nature of breaking confidentiality with another minister. When confidential matters are disclosed in good faith to Rev. Tuuri, and later get trundled out like so much dirty laundry, it sullies the integrity of the office of Pastor.

I would ask that for the sake of the peace and purity of the church that the CREC Commission and its members refrain from any further conduct similar to that recently evidenced by Rev. Tuuri. Should any CREC Commission member take exception with anything that I have published, they are more than welcome to email me personally and I will promptly address their concerns.

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