Pastor Mac Brunson of FBC Jacksonville, Fla., preached on Nov. 1 a sermon expressing decidedly limited remorse, apparently for statements he made in April about Thomas A. Rich, the formerly anonymous blogger who blogs at FBC Jax Watchdog.
FBC Jax Watchdog is more confident than we that the sermon is something more than a pass at damage control in the face of a lawsuit Brunson precipitated may see lost.
Review the sermon [Itunes podcast] and read FBC Jax Watchdog's view here.
Wade Burleson is asking important, hard questions about the collapse of FBC Jax Watchdog's anonymity. The legal circumstances do seem disturbing. The questions raised about the potential misapplication of power do require answers.
For those who say it's none of Burleson's business (or perhaps ours), on the World Wide Web, Enid, Ok., is right next door to Jacksonville, Fla.
Church blogging ain't beanbag there and could easily take similar twists on your computer desktop, in your sanctuary and perhaps in a courthouse nearby.
Watch and question. If you need anonymity in this country you have it, if you can keep it.
Anonymous blogs are one answer the relatively powerless have when speaking what they believe is truth, to power.
Power is typically governmental. So it was when the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was required to help an anonymous New Jersey blogger, "datruthsquad," face down the township of Manalapan when it sought to unmask him in 2007.
Sometimes power is corporate. The corporation may be, as we see in the confrontation between First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla. and FBC Jax Watchdog, a church. In every case, some risk attends attempting to say to power things it would prefer not to hear.
As gwfrink3 documents, not all serious, careful bloggers who come under direct fire from the powerful emerge from it in good condition. That's why it is important for anonymous bloggers to attend to the technical details of their anonymity.
With or without the cloak of anonymity, some fear of retribution, not always legal retribution or even retribution for a real offense, is legitimate.
The nature of the modern blogging landscape suggests that FBC Jax Watchdog is exercising due caution, as explained by Wade Burleson in a blog which relates an interview with Watchdog:
The Watchdog has not gone public with his name, receiving a great deal of criticism for blogging anonymously, but explained to me he remained anonymous out of fear of retribution from powerful civic leaders who are members of the church and could intentional[ly] seek to ruin his name and business. He told me his compelling story, details of which are startling, because he said he trusted me.
Matters may not go that far, but thinking ahead and guarding against any number of possible unfortunate possibilities is simply due caution.
Before taking a single step down that path, read the legal guide[s]. Read and apply the technical guide. Make sure it's worth the risk.
Aggressively blog a church's policies and governance, and the deacons may adopt a resolution directed at you and see it approved in a vote by the congregation [video].
Some approve of the action at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla.
Some do not and defend the anonymously penned FBC Jax Watchdog blog, which is the target of the resolution.
FBC Jacksonville attracted considerable attention by sponsoring blog posts calling Catholicism a cult [eventually removed from the site]. Although the grievances of Watchdog certainly neither began nor ended there.
The bylaws governing resolution of grievances within that church appear to be heavily loaded against dissent.
Whatever the merits of any particular issue there, that repressive approach tends to drive debate underground -- often into anonymous blogs -- not eliminate it.
William Thornton notes that FBC Jacksonville conducted a "public flogging of a former member" without, of course, "naming names." He goes on to say the disciplinary process sounds "less Biblical than it does medieval." [Amen to that.]
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