August 26, 2002 Dear Earl, am writing to respond to your letter of April 12, 2002. There are twelve paragraphs in your letter; I have numbered those paragraphs and will reference the paragraph to which 1 am responding in each comment. I am not distributing this to Walter Chantry or Dale Smith, only to my elders and the other members of the informal council, Paragraph 2. It is not fair to state that the informal council did not allow Tom Chantry to speak fully and address all issues that were of concer to him. We did allow him that right both in writing and during the informal council. You may not know that he sent us written statements outlining his interpretation of the actions of the elders’ in response to him. Where we thought the elders of the church in Prescott were wrong, we addressed the elders in our report. The claim, that we were unfair to Tom Chantry is an essential part of his “smoke and mirrors” strategy to avoid acceptance responsibilty for his actions. Sadly, you, Don and Welt have fallen for it and thus fallen into Tom Chantry's clever attempt to make himself the aggrieved party. Accordingly he has turned himself into a vietim and we, the informal couneil, who acted in good faith, and with much merey, into bad guys. ‘Walter Chantry could not know whether the council had acted fairly since he was not present and has responded only on the basis of the “smoke and mirrors” strategy Tom Chantry so cleverly employed. Walter Chantry should not have spoken to you about these matters but with the informal council members. You should not have listened to his slander of your brothers, nor sought to judge matters concerning which you had neither authority nor access to the fll report. ‘When Tom Chantry arrived at your home after the informal council and told you he was not treated fairly, you should have demanded a formal council. That would have served all people well. The informal council acted in good faith, accepting Tom Chantry's signing of the document and Don Lindblad’s counsel to Tom Chantry to sign it as meaning that we had an agreement. Since you, Don Lindblad and Tom Chantry all thought that matters lad not been properly handled, you should have called for a formal council. It is my belief that had that been done, Tom Chantry would have been found guilty and formal legal charges would have been filed by the parents of some of the abused children. ‘There is no doubt in my mind that Tom Chantry would have been found guilty ina legal proceeding and may even be in jail today. You should have demanded a formal council rather than discussing the informal council with Walter Chantry for the next several months. ‘What you have done, dear brother, is hold an “informal council” of your own on our informal council. You have heard one witness and have judged the informal council to bewrong and have published your findings to others. I cannot judge the motivation for this. T hope it has not been to placate Walter Chantry who should be filled with gratitude for What we did for his son. Paragraph 4 The bottom line in this paragraph is that you believe Don Lindblad and do not believe the members of the informal council, Surely you understand how this undermines the Association, How can we go on ftom here? If you believe that three elders who serve in churches in the Association are not men of truthfulness, then the Association is undermined. Paragraph 5 To complete the idea the first sentence should read, “Apart from Don’s veracity, there is, further evidence to support my belief that you men of the informal council are not truthful and reliable.” Tf what 1 have written in italics is a fair way of completing the sentence it is a very serious charge to make against two pastors and an elder in Association churches. Paragraph 6 Tom was given opportunity to express his concerns. We knew all of Tom Chantry’s issues with the elders and everything that Tom Chantry had suggested about the unraveling of his relationship with the elders of the Prescott church, Tom Chantry had sent several typed pages very clearly laying it all out. We had all seen it and came to Prescott with this knowledge through Tom Chantry’s written testimony. There was no need for fact finding about it; he had written it out for us. None of Tom Chantry’s counter-charges against the elders in Prescott mitigated the matter we addressed, namely Tom Chantry’s abuse of the children in the church, Tt had no bearing on the things Tom Chantry had done, but was just part of the “smoke and mirrors” strategy. It was a brilliant strategy; it worked with you. As a result the guilty man is a vietim and the informal council members are called to repent. Paragraph 7 When Tom Chantry came to your home after the informal council and after agreeing in ‘writing to all we had concluded, and you realized that Tom Chantry was not satisfied and thought he had been unfairly treated, that was the time for you to act. You should have insisted on a formal council. If you had I do not believe that Tom Chantry would be teaching children today or teaching an Adult Sunday School in an Association church. Ironically, Tom Chantry had managed to be out of legal jeopardy through the process we established and is in a position to rehabilitate himself and the informal council members are being charged by the Chairman of the Association’s Administrative Council with not being truthful and called to repentance in order to restore their integrity. We are victims ofa clever strategy. Paragraph 8 Walter Chantry is bothered by something that is not true. His son did receive a full and fair hearing. If there have been prolonged problems in the Carlisle eldership, they havebeen caused by Walter Chantry’s unbiblical response to something which bothered him. His concerns should have been directed to the members of the informal council, not a pastor in California who has not even seen the confidential report issued by the informal council and signed by Tom Chantry. I am curious about the number of ARBCA pastors who have heard and are concerned. From whom have they heard? Have they heard from you, from Don Lindblad, from Tom Chantry, from Walter Chantry? Not one has spoken to me and I have not spoken to anyone except you and the elders who watch over my soul, I have been baited by a couple of pastors who have obviously heard the rumors, but believe that it would be wrong for me to breach the confidentiality of the report. I had assumed that everyone concerned kept all things confidential. Evidently this has not been the case since a number of men have heard and are concerned. How do you know they have heard and are concerned? Have you been discussing private matters with other men? Paragraph 9 Your statement that we were not fair and merciful in dealing with Tom Chantry’s concerns is simply not true. Tom Chantry’s strategy was to throw enough dust in the air by charging the elders in Prescott with their failings so that the matter would be an issue of disagreement between elders. Tom Chantry, a trusted pastor, abused children in the Prescott church. It would have been ludicrous for us to investigate whether the elders had followed every point of the church’s constitution in dealing with their pastor when the real issue was the pastor’s abuse of children. We did not cooperate with Tom Chantry’s attempt to divert the focus away from his actions and the fall out of those actions, to matters of procedure and process with the elders. There were some process and procedure things in which we disagreed with the elders. They are addressed in our report that you have not seen. Paragraph 10 T am very sad that you have undertaken to hold a private, “informal council” on our informal council. I do not believe that you had the authority to do this or that it has served our Association. You have not made private judgments and come to me personally, but you have made private judgments and also published them to Don Lindblad, Walter Chantry and Dale Smith, You have called on me to repent for things concerning which I have not been wrong and you have done that before other brethren. You have even said that my integrity needs to be restored. The question before us is how do we go on in relationship and work within the Association if I do not agree with your private opinion that you have shared concerning, me with other men? Not only musi I live with the fact that you believe my integrity must. be restored, but you also have spread that opinion to other brethren. You have judged me. can either repent of wrong I have not done, or be a bad guy and fail to repent. There is no way but Earl's way. To you and unnamed pastors waiting for me to repent, T am not a ‘man of integrity. I do believe that the couneil made a serious mistake. When we met with Tom Chantry, after he had verbally agreed to everything in the report of the informal couneil, he said