Presbyterian leader calls for review of post-9/11 interrogations

The chief ecclesiastical administrator of the Presbyterian Church(USA) General Assembly has called for President Obama to create a nonpartisan commission of inquiry into the Bush administration's post-9/11 use of torture.

Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons based his April 23rd letter [.pdf] on the 217th General Assembly's declaration that Congress should:

. . . convene an investigative body with the independence, stature, and broad investigative powers of the September 11th Commission to inquire into whether any official or officer of the United States government bears direct or command responsibility for having ordered or participated in violations of law in the mistreatment of persons detained by the government of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib Prison, or elsewhere or in transporting persons into detention in nations with known records of brutality and torture; to publish its findings and, if appropriate, to recommend the appointment of a special prosecutor if one has not been previously appointed.

Parsons argues the necessity of public accountability before God and man, writing:

If those responsible are not held accountable, there is nothing beyond wishful thinking and admonitions to compel future leaders to resist the temptation to torture in times of fear or threat.

His position is rooted in the fundamental Presbyterian precept that "The Church is called to be Christ's faithful evangelist . . . engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear, oppression, hunger, and injustice” (Book of Order, G-3.0300c(3)(c)).

The Stated Clerk is elected for four years and it is among his responsibilities to interpret General Assembly's actions, as he has here. More generally, he is "responsible for the Office of the General Assembly, which conducts the ecclesiastical work of the church."

In keeping with its history of support of human rights, the PC(USA) is a member of the National Religious Coalition Against Torture, whose online site offers visitors the opportunity to join in the call for a commission of inquiry.

Standards unmet in Fla. anonymous blogger case

There are available if evolving ethical and legal standards to help law enforcement officials decide whether to identify anonymous bloggers. Yet accounts suggest that none were applied when Jacksonville, Fla., Sheriff’s Detective Robert Hinson unmasked FBC Jax Watchdog to First Baptist Church of Jacksonville (FBC Jax) leadership.

Jacksonville Times-Union reporter Jeff Brumley wrote:

It was also proper for [Detective Robert] Hinson to provide First Baptist’s leadership with [Thomas A.] Rich’s identity despite finding no criminal evidence, [Undersheriff Frank] Mackesy said, so it could take whatever internal action it felt necessary for its own safety.

Mackesy's allusion to "safety" may be read as an attempt to excuse his department for an error, since nothing Detective Hinson reports finding provides reason to believe the safety of either the church or any of its members was at risk from Rich. A close reading of the FBC Jax Watchdog blog reveals no threats of violence. Nor is there anything other than restrained self-expression in the Watchdog's words we have seen quoted elsewhere.

Hinson could not have escaped knowing, however, that his minister yearned to identify the author of the anonymously penned FBC Jax Watchdog blog which regularly called him to task. Hinson, who is a member of FBC Jax Pastor Mac Brunson's security detail, surely knew Brunson would be grateful for that information.

The ties between charismatic pastor and protective parishioner, and the attendant natural desire to please the pastor, created an appearance of conflict of interest which overshadows this matter.

Concerns about that apparent conflict should in our view have led Hinson to recuse himself from any investigation involving his church and pastor.

Legal ethics, most evident in judicial standards, generally require such recusal. For even if an officer behaves with unwavering professional objectivity, the appearance of conflict still tends to undermine public confidence in the department and thus in the law.

Even so, had Detective Hinson not given up Thomas A. Rich as the anonymous author of the FBC Jax Watchdog blog, that appearance of an ethical conflict of interest would not have congealed into an argument for its reality. That appearance is unreduced by the sheriff's failure address his subordinate's role, even if unintentional, in the pillorying of Rich by FBC Jax which followed Hinson's disclosure.

In addition, emerging legal standards regarding blogger anonymity suggest that Rich should have been given notice of Hinson's intended erasure of his anonymity -- notice attended by ample time to respond. Rich's legal counsel could then have argued in court for the protection of his privacy and First Amendment rights.

Recent cases also suggest that those seeking an anonymous blogger's identity must demonstrate to a court that their claim will withstand both a motion to dismiss and a motion of summary judgment. That is, they must plead facts necessary to succeed in their claim, and show the sufficiency of those facts.

Thus far there appear to have been no facts sufficient to have persuaded a court of competent jurisdiction to strip Rich of his anonymity. Nor to have seriously considered doing so. There are instead contradictory accounts of the causes for the investigation -- with the Rev. John Blount, who filed the complaint, differing from Hinson -- and an apparent dearth of facts.

We are left with abiding concern about Hinson's possible conflict of interest, the lack of appropriate legal regard for Rich's rights and the chilling effect on free expression which can result from such a public trampling of an individual's rights.

United Church of Christ news goes full online

Rising costs and declining revenue have driven the 1.2-million-member United Church of Christ to end its newsprint publication in September, replacing it with a portfolio which includes an expanded Web news portal, email publications and a MyUCC social networking community.

The United Church News tied last year for third place in the Associated Church Press competition for best national or international religion newspaper in North America. Distributed for free to UCC members since 2001, it had a reported 2008 circulation of 206,000 and was said to be the nation's largest denominational newspaper.

In a move toward "citizen journalism," registered MyUCC users can create their own blogs and group discussions, upload images and video and otherwise "contribute their own body of unfiltered content, opinions, reflections and creative work," said the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC's director of communications.

The UCC added a weekly an email publication in October to its Web headline service, denominational news page, news blog and podcasts.

Plans are being developed to meet an expressed congregational need for a printed "identity publication" in the Spring of 2010. Guess described it as a twice-yearly, paid-subscription, "oversized, full-color, coffee-table publication of 80-to-100 pages."

Created in 1985 to succeed A.D. Magazine and the United Church Herald, the United Church News published 10 editions per year until 2005. Then, as a result of financial pressure, the number was cut to six.

Another edition is to be printed in June and the final newsprint edition is to be published in September, when it joins the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Witness and other print-on-paper publications whose archive is complete.

Let's have all the FBC Jax Watchdog facts now

FBC Jax Watchdog's anonymity was silently demolished by an unsatisfactorily explained and, from the point of view of the blogger, secret criminal investigation.

Anonymous blogs permit the relatively powerless to speak what they believe is truth, to power. Sometimes the power is a church, as we see in the confrontation between First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla. and FBC Jax Watchdog, and risk still attends attempting to say to power things it would prefer not to hear.

The unmasking of Thomas A. Rich as Watchdog, detailed in Florida Times-Union, closely resembles the July attempt by the Bronx (N.Y.) District Attorney to use a grand jury subpoena to unmask and silence critical anonymous bloggers and commenters on the NYC political blog site called Room 8. With the help of Public Citizen, Room 8 successfully resisted disclosure.

We do not know how Google responded to the subpoena it received. Not only does Google have an official policy of not commenting on subpoenas or other legal processes, but also, subpoenas associated with criminal investigations are typically attended by gag orders (Room 8 responded by threatening the Bronx DA's office with a countersuit). Nor has Watchdog thus far been able to obtain a copy of the subpoena he believes Comcast honored.

We do know that no wrongdoing was found, yet the investigating Jacksonville Sheriff's Department officer apparently chose to breach the blogger's anonymity by disclosing his identity to FBC Jax. We also know that Thomas A. Rich's life was disrupted as a result. He was denied access to his (now) former church, publicly excoriated in an official church action and this week was described as a "sociopath" by the pastor who has been the principal subject of his blogging.

We don't know in persuasive detail what criminal allegations were believed to justify that intrusion of police power into Rich's life and the lives of two other bloggers. As a result, whether those allegations can withstand the light of day is an open question. Serious issues of conflict of interest (the investigating officer is an FBC Jacksonville member and apparently among those who provide security there) and as a result abuse of power, have been raised by the association of the detective's investigation with attempts to silence the then anonymous blogger.

Such issues are typically best resolved by full disclosure, for this has become in considerable part a debate over public policy, and specifically over whether the force of law was properly applied. Given the issue's visibility, the local and state public officials involved must tell the truth and trust the people, or absent a thoroughly compelling explanation for silence, find themselves indicted by the appearance of concealment.

If the purpose of the investigation and disclosure was to end Watchdog's commentary on matters of general interest to his audience, it failed and those who applied the pressure have put themselves in the fire.

Related:

Ethical/legal standards not followed by law enforcement in FBC Jax case

Passover: 'Remember this day ...'

The Jews at Passover: A facsimile of a miniature from a 15th century missal, ornamented with paintings of the School of Van Eyck

Another ecclesiastical newspaper gone

The monthly Wyoming Catholic Register, published since 1952, is following the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Witness into oblivion.

It's a matter of economics. Again. The Register was distributed for free to members of churches in the diocese and had a budget of $233,385 last year. Income from investments fell and other sources of financing were exhausted, according to diocesan officials.

Where have all the young gamblers gone? Young math teachers took them every one?

The nation's "education lotteries" may have succeeded too well for the gaming industry, Tony Cartledge suggests:

I'm intrigued by the finding that the 18-24 year age group gambles least of all, and wondered why. Maybe they still remember enough math to understand why playing the lottery is like investing with Bernie Madoff. Maybe it's because they have less disposable income, or dispose more of it on things that lead to more immediate gratification. Maybe it's because they know they can fall back on their parents, and don't yet feel the desperation that fuels gambling by some older adults and makes the lottery such a predator on the poor.

Read the rest here.

Warren contradicting Warren (again)

Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren returned to television Monday with a blistering round of self-contradictions which moved Levellers to call him out for fabrication. Warren told Larry King:

. . . I am not an anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist. I never have been, never will be.

During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never -- never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going.

The week before the -- the vote, somebody in my church said, Pastor Rick, what -- what do you think about this?

And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is -- really should be defined, that that definition should be -- say between a man and a woman.

And then all of a sudden out of it, they made me, you know, something that I really wasn't. And I actually -- there were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends -- the leaders that I knew -- and actually apologized to them. That never got out.

There is, however, video footage of Warren issuing "a statement" and "endoresement" of Proposition 8. View below:

Warren also revisited himself again regarding his characterizations of same-sex marriage. He told King:

There were some things said that -- you know, everybody should have 10 percent grace when they say public statements. And I was asked a question that made it sound like I equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest, which I absolutely do not believe. And I actually announced that.

Again, there's video of Warren contradicting Warren:

We look forward to Warren's eventual reconciliation with himself.

Baptist newspaper closes & death stalks the rest

Which Baptist state newspaper will follow the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Witness into oblivion?

The Utah/Idaho Southern Baptist Convention announced in February that the tabloid-sized paper would end publication. There was mention of looking "at alternative ways to communicate the stories of our churches and associations and state convention," but as of this writing the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Witness has not been replaced with a Web news or other service.

It published 10 issues a year for perhaps 1,300 subscribers: not a viable market. The announcement said, "There have been numerous approaches to try to increase the number of subscriptions and make it cost-effective over the years."

All of those efforts failed, as have the circulation-building efforts of Baptist state publications as a group. The arc of Baptist state association newspaper publication circulation decline is inexorable.

Falling revenue has, as with other recession-plagued religious organizations -- whether ministries, seminaries or nondenominational enterprises -- forced staff and other cutbacks on the ecclesiastical press.

Lacking the heavy marketplace pressure which has driven mainstream publications, the ecclesiastical press has on the whole adapted even less well to the rise of the Web than its for-profit kinfolk. The Christian Science Monitor's shift from print to a Web-based strategy, with a high-quality Web product to support it, is the shining exception.

Among the less well-known, some which were once technological leaders have reversed field to give up, for example, an early adopter advantage in social-networking distribution via twitter. Similarly, the Texas Baptist Standard recently announced an online subscription strategy -- paid access to a visual analog of the print newspaper, with online bells and whistles. Yet online experiments with paid subscriptions have produced no general information winners.

Baptist state convention newspapers in general may have a very limited future. The big Texas Baptist Standard, for example, persuades the average visitor to spend barely enough time on the site (just over a minute and half per visitor) to peruse the index page or perhaps read part of an online story. Repackaging or more heavily promoting content whose Web traffic already demonstrates little marketplace appeal may not be a path to survival, no matter what kind of digital presentation is used.