It is not unusual for someone to have a problem with the leadership of their local church. Leaders - including pastors and elders/overseers/trustees/deacons/etc. - make mistakes or often are doing the right thing and simply not explaining themselves. My own church has been moving from a pure Congregational model to a more closed model in a way which has been disturbing to me. Scripture has fairly clear guidelines for dealing with such concerns, which generally goes, "talk to the problem person singly, then with one other person, then with the elders, and then before the Congregation." (Yes, Seminarians, I am aware there are many more verses and a whole history here. Feel free to expound in the comments.)
But what happens when a church dispute comes up against anonymous blogging? Should church leaders honor the unspoken agreement of the internet and let the blogger remain unknown? Isn't such a move in line with First Amendment rights of free speech? Or should church leaders seek out the blogger and discipline him/her for not following scripture.
In the case linked above, church leadership erred on the side of control and had a police officer (who also worked church security) seek out and expose the blogger. The blogger was then expelled from the church, as per 1 Corinthians 5:4-5.
To me, this seems like a hard case. On the one hand, the blogger clearly was not following scripture. On the other hand, it appears the pastor himself - in his zeal to discipline - clearly crossed the line to find the offender. Either way, Christ's name is being dragged through the mud, and the gospel becomes a laughing-stock among the world.
What would you do, as either the pastor or the congregant?
Monday, April 13, 2009
Hard Cases: Church "outs" an anonymous blogger
Posted by Nomad at 11:12 AM
Labels: anonymity, blogs, church, churchandstate, discipline, scripture
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5 comments:
Sounds like a pastor whose leadership skills are *severely* lacking.
This is a very disturbing story. Still digesting the madness. As a PK I've seen some nastiness in church but this certainly takes the cake.
Both sides were clearly in the wrong here. It seems to me that if the blogger had such an issue with the church they should have just left or manned-up and brought it out in public. The pastor on the other hand overstepped the bounds and needed to be a greater symbol of grace for this blogger and the general public.
Wow, I just spend 20 minutes reading into the issues... what a mess. I appears that there are no winners in this situation and that indeed, the church community has been badly hurt.
I was listening to a sermon on the way into work today where the pastor made the point that our society has made confidentiality and anonymity into almost a religion of its own. Confidentiality is a means and not an end in itself. Confidentiality in the confessional, for example, is to encourage Catholics to freely confess. It is not intended to protect rapists and murderers. That may be a consequence, but it is not the intent.
We may need to start realizing Blogging is the same way. Confidentiality in blogging is useful to allow whistleblowers to flourish, but can not be seen as an end in itself. We need to understand that ultimately we do right because it is right, and not because it is convenient.
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