Christ Church was not involved in the sentencing of a pastor-in-training about 10 years ago for felony injury to a child, Doug Wilson, senior pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, wrote Monday in an email to the Daily News.
He was responding to a story, "Survivors: 'Listen to me,' " on Page One of the April 15 edition.
The victim in the case, Natalie Greenfield, who spoke April 14 at the University of Idaho, detailed her seduction as a 13-year-old by the man who was 10 years older. She was quoted as saying that "Christ Church fought for him tooth and nail."
"The Greenfields could have insisted on going to trial, and they were the ones who decided not to," Wilson wrote. "My understanding is that the reason they decided not to is because Jamin (Wight) had journals in his possession, written by Natalie, that he could have used in his defense in open court."
She alleges the church told her parents not to go to trial, and church members wrote to the court on her abuser's behalf and brought her own character into question.
"A plea deal was settled, which Christ Church had nothing to do with," Wilson wrote. "The reason Jamin 'got off light' was entirely due to the arrangement the Greenfields made with the state of Idaho."
Wilson wrote, "Jamin deserved the punishment he received, and I happen to believe that he could have received a stricter punishment without any injustice.
"So if you want to blame someone for the sentence, then you need to limit your candidates to the state of Idaho and the Greenfields," he wrote.
He wrote that Natalie's father might object to that account of things.
Wilson went on: "He is (literally, not just figuratively) a flat-earther. And the reason for bringing this up is NOT because flat-earthers deserve to have their daughters abused, but rather because flat-earthers ought not to be trusted when it comes to what constitutes reasonable evidence."
The Greenfields were members of Christ Church. Wight, of Potlatch, stayed at their house in Moscow's Fort Russell neighborhood, but he attended Trinity Reformed Church, headed at the time by Peter J. Leithart, a faculty member at New Saint Andrews College.
Leithart wrote of that time in a Facebook posting in September.
Of Jamin Wight, he wrote, "I allowed him to manipulate me. A number of the things I said about Jamin to the congregation and court at the time his abuse was uncovered were spun in Jamin's favor.
"I trusted his account of the circumstances more readily and longer than I should have, and conversely I disbelieved the victim's parents," Leithart wrote. "I didn't appreciate how much damage Jamin did, and I was naive about the effect that the abuse had on the victim's family."
