August 29, 2007

Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc.
Attn: Don Veinot

P.O. Box 446
Wonder Lake, IL 60097-0446

Dear Mr. Veinot:

Thank you for your certified letter, dated August 20. The purpose of this note is to offer some important corrections to notable and misleading omissions within that letter.

First, Mr. Veinot, I want to reemphasize that our purpose in approaching you with the concerns raised in our documented fifteen page letter was to promote peace within the Body of Christ and to prevent a serious situation from becoming even more serious.

It was our heartfelt prayer that you would respond to the loving confrontation from multiple Christians whom you have wronged by ceasing from misrepresenting your brothers in violation of the Ninth Commandment. At this point, it seems clear that you have not only rebuffed these appeals, but that you remain committed to a pattern of misrepresentation. Examples of this are evident: (1) in your recent blog entry; (2) your voice message and subsequent lengthy conversation with us; (3) and now in your certified letter.

As noted above, the primary purpose of this note is to address your certified letter which was misleading because you obfuscated key (and obvious) facts pertaining to our recent dialogue.

Your certified letter involved an obvious and glaring omission that is misleading as you neglected to give any account of a critical communication we had with you, even as you openly detailed other facts that directly surrounded it. Specifically, while in your certified letter you made note of the message you left on my cell phone on the afternoon of August 20, meticulously chronicling the exact time it transpired — at 13:15 — you made no mention whatsoever of the subsequent phone conversation that Michael Gobart and I had with you later that very afternoon, a conversation that lasted for the better part of an hour and dealt directly with our outstanding grievances with you.

In your voice mail of 1:15 CDT, you stated, “I would like to talk.” We obliged your request left on my voicemail by returning your phone call within two hours of receiving it and engaged in a lengthy dialogue with you concerning critical issues at stake in the litany of attacks you have launched against Doug Phillips and Vision Forum Ministries.

Yet this conversation is nowhere mentioned in your letter. What you do state in your letter is this: “It is important for me to be as accurate as possible in writing, research, and correspondence.”[i]

Mr. Veinot, this is precisely what you have not done. By self-consciously omitting a key conversation we had with you where fundamental issues were plainly addressed, you have given an inaccurate representation of what has transpired between us. Your certified letter is thus disturbing in that it appears to be an attempt to create an impression to third parties of your own civility and reasonability, where your actual conduct for many months now has been anything but that.

The fact of the matter is this: Your lack of civility and reasonability was evidenced many times over during this key conversation you neglected to mention, as the following examples demonstrate:

  1. You Were Unwilling to Provide Contact Information for Your Board in a Timely Manner: During our phone call, we formally requested the names and addresses of your entire elder board and of your board of directors. You were uncooperative. While you did give us the name and address of your pastor, you expressly refused to give us the names and addresses of the board of directors at the time, indicating that you would send those to us in later correspondence. Yet in your certified letter, you declined to honor our request by including this information.

  1. You Were Unwilling to Acknowledge That We Are Your Christian Brothers: During our phone call, we asked you direct questions concerning whether you believed we were Christians. Since you have not treated us as Christians, but as enemies, this question was appropriate. Your answer was telling. In response to our questions, you were evasive and reticent to acknowledge that we were your brothers in Christ.
  1. In the Face of Documented Evidence and Verbal Confrontation for Wrong-doing, You Were Unwilling to Acknowledge Any Wrongs on Your Part, or to Take Any Actions to Mitigate the Harms Caused by Your Ninth Commandment Violations: During our phone call, you made it quite clear that it is your belief that you have done nothing wrong whatsoever; that you have no present intention to address sins for which you have been confronted by multiple witnesses; and that you have no intention (absent direction from your board or pastor) of removing material we believe to be defamatory while you spend days or weeks coming up with a response first to Mr. Abshire’s letter and later to ours.
  1. You Denied That You Had Any Duty to Contact us Prior to Publicly Launching Attacks Against our President, Doug Phillips and our Organization, Vision Forum: When we confronted you over the phone for publishing your articles without even speaking to us, you refused to acknowledge any duty to meaningfully contact us, your brothers in Christ, prior to launching your calumnious attacks. When we pressed you on this point, you noted that you had given us opportunity to respond to your article by having Jennifer Epstein present us with a “pre-publication” copy of it at the Arlington Book Fair (where dozens, if not hundreds, of your printed articles were distributed), even as you denied that you were openly collaborating with her.
  1. You Left a Message on My Voice Mail in Which You Falsely Accused us of Holding the View that Others Must Agree With Our View of Scripture or Be in Sin (a Position We Had Expressly Refuted in Our Letter to You);and When We Clearly Demonstrated to You Over the Phone that this was False, You Continued to Affirm your Prejudice that This was Our Position. As part of the message you left on my voicemail on August 20 at 1:15 CDT (which we transcribed), you stated: “It is possible that we could disagree with you and not be in sin. It is interesting you seem to only give two options. One is to repent and to agree with your position, or two, to be judges as in wrongdoing. I am not sure that those are the only two options.” During our phone conversation, Michael Gobart squarely refuted this misrepresentation, reading directly from our previous letter to you which states (on page 2, paragraph 5): “Let me be clear that we believe that Christians can disagree on a vast array of theological and practical issues and remain brothers, friends, and yoke-fellows before the Lord. On the other hand, we do not believe that this spirit of equanimity is possible if Christians resort to libel and internet assassinations against other Christians, or if they continue to do so, once having been confronted for such behavior.” Yet even after we repudiated your false claim against us during our phone call, you sought to “prove” to us over the phone that we in fact believe what we do not by reading another part of our letter to us that you took out of context. This is yet another example of attempting to ascribe to us a position (that one must agree with our view of Scripture or be in sin) that you have associated with “cults” and the like,[ii] even though we have categorically denied holding to such a position, both verbally and in writing — yet another illustration which contradicts your statement: “It is important for me to be as accurate as possible in writing, research, and correspondence.”
  1. You Failed to Take Serious the Implications of or to Take Responsibility for Your Open Association with a Scandalous Excommunicant: While you did not deny the incontrovertible evidence we presented of your active workings with Jennifer Epstein — including giving her permission to distribute a pre-publication copy of your article; actively dialoguing with her on her blogsite; permitting Jennifer to post a letter you wrote to one of her supporters where you appealed for funds and remarked that Vision Forum was “getting heat” thanks to your efforts — you refused to take responsibility for this association. Your comments to us on this subject were evasive and had the constant air of litigiousness. Your position was essentially this: Because you did not formally footnote Jennifer Epstein in your main article, you cannot be held accountable for enabling her in her misconduct for which she was criminally cited, for allowing her to post self-serving commentary critical of Vision Forum which was then posted on her website, and for working behind the scenes with her to gather information and build your case, etc.

Mr. Veinot, while you may try to minimize your responsibility, you are accountable for joining hands with a notorious rebel who was criminally cited for trespass after she received your blessing to distribute pre-publication copies of your dishonest article. Your own testimony to us confirms your extensive dealings with her. Your strategic omission of footnotes does not exempt you from responsibility where there is a lengthy public record of your behavior with her.

You are modeling a pattern of self-justification and self-preservation rather than transparency and humility before the Lord. Through your published articles, communications on the phone with us, and now in this certified letter, your ongoing behavior indicates — both in tone and substance — that while you appear very concerned that you are not misrepresented, you nonetheless have callous disregard for your own duties to represent the actions of others — as well as the full extent of your own behavior — honestly and fully.

Moreover, you have completely disregarded the appeals of multiple brothers in Christ who have confronted you for ongoing sin of breaking the Ninth Commandment and who demonstrated that you have been inaccurate, unbrotherly, lacking in journalistic integrity, and disreputable in your approach. Your track record is that of a man who lightly brings a false witness and who actively joins hands with scandalous individuals to discredit the character of Christian men and church leaders.

Mr. Veinot, you have been confronted by three witnesses — Dr. Brian Abshire, Michael Gobart, and me. Your response has been: (a) to further entrench yourself in your position and misbehavior on the blog; (b) to bring further false and absurd accusations; (c) to treat us in a sarcastic and condescending manner on the phone; (d) to continue to engage in tale-bearing, misrepresentations, and Ninth Commandment violations on the Internet, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence presented to you of your wrong behavior; and (e) to send us a letter (and presumably others) which misrepresents our communications with each other.

In closing, we continue to pray that God will burden your conscience to show you where you have erred, even as we encourage you to consider the admonition given to you by Dr. Abshire:

So sir, I ask you this; which are you? Will you repent of your false accusations, or maintain them? Please remember-this is not an attack against you....you have publicly accused us of being cultic and teachers of false doctrine. If we do not believe it, then you have born false witness against us, breaking the Ninth Commandment and slandering the brethren. Therefore, you need to recant here, publicly and confess your sin to your readers.

Sincerely in Christ,
Wesley Strackbein
Managing Editor, Vision Forum Ministries


[i] Your letter also omits the fact that you specifically told us during our phone call with you that you were in the process of preparing a letter to us, but that it had not yet been mailed. So while your letter is dated August 20 (postmarked August 21), the completion and mailing of it occurred after our conversation, which means you had ample opportunity to acknowledge our phone conversation as part of the letter itself.

[ii] For example, in your article “Who Will Be First in the Kingdom” (Spring 2007, Vol. 13, No. 2) in which you warn against the danger of Vision Forum’s views, you state: “Cults and New Religious movements, such as Jehovah Witnesses (JWS) and Mormons (Latter-Day Saints, LDS), handle Scripture differently. Although they claim to hold a high view of Scripture, the final authority is the organization to which they belong.”