MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Giving Your Church’s Dissenters a Voice

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Mon, May 01, 2006
Viewed 54
(6) comments so far

Bloggers well versed in Scripture and church rules are challenging official policies and winning followers of their own. Traditional authorities, meanwhile, are seeing problems and opportunities alike in the new milieu. How they respond depends to a large degree on what their respective theologies say about the value of voices from the proverbial peanut gallery.

"It’s clear that religions that are more kind of ‘open source’—less authoritarian, less hierarchical, less preoccupied with controlling the codified material—are doing better on the Internet," said Lorne L. Dawson, a sociologist who studies religion and the Internet at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario.

Elsewhere, he says, it’s a heyday for naysayers.

"The critics, the ex-members . . . they are thriving online because this is giving them a voice so much more powerful than they would have ever had before. They would have had to publish books with small vanity presses or obscure presses, or seek a little newspaper attention."

Religious bloggers run the gamut of topics, but challenging their own authorities is shaping up to be a favorite:

? From his post at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Summerville, S.C., the Rev. Kendall Harmon uses his blog to show how the Episcopal Church U.S.A. strays, in his opinion, from scriptural mandates.

? Dozens of Mormon bloggers, who often publish anonymously, sound off on church policies as well as the right-leaning politics of many members.

? In the Diocese of Arlington, the Rev. Jim Tucker speculates in his blog about why Catholic bishops do not welcome disgruntled clerics from other denominations, a practice he describes as "an opportunity being terribly missed."

Denominational authorities do not always respond kindly to public airings of the religious family’s conflicts.

Trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board initially sought to remove one of its members, Wade Burleson of Enid, Okla., after he discussed board deliberations on his blog. But other bloggers were outraged and would not let the controversy die.

In March, the board backed down, rescinding the request to remove Burleson. But the board approved a rule barring trustees from publicly criticizing actions of the missions agency.

"It is a controversy about the kind of practices and procedures that will characterize Southern Baptist denominational actions in the future," states a blog entry from Tom Ascol, executive director of the Founders Ministries, a Southern Baptist reform movement. "Will selected doctrinal concerns . . . be elevated to points of importance such that those who disagree with denominational powerbrokers are not allowed opportunities of service in the SBC?"

Bloggers are stirring the pot in other denominations as well.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, pledged last year to open the diocese’s financial books for public inspection after a Web-based campaign among disgruntled laity raised the specter of the Massachusetts legislature making such disclosure a legal requirement.

Dissidents are finding the Internet enables them to bypass religious authorities altogether in a way that was virtually impossible just 15 years ago.

Followers of Bahai pioneered such circumvention in the mid-1990s, when spirited discussions about official policies and projects occurred in an arena that authorities could not regulate what was said—the independent Web-based project called Talisman.

Similarly, Irshad Manji, a Muslim, is now bypassing her faith’s leaders. She is offering her book, "The Trouble With Islam," as a download from her Web site available in Urdu, Persian or Arabic. More than 30,000 readers have downloaded it, she says.

The Web has at times not encouraged dialogue among believers, particularly at the official sites of religious organizations, said Brenda E. Brasher, a scholar at Aberdeen University in Scotland who studies how religion is experienced online.

She said several sites originally allowed visitors to meet and mix with one another, but they have since clamped down.

Example: "Ship of Fools," a Web-based worship simulation launched in 2004 with help from the United Methodist Church. For dialogue and group dissent, believers apparently need to log off and take their bodies to a place where religious authority is confined to a mere human being.

"Digital religion is a religion of yes and no," Brasher said in an e-mail. ". . . In real life, religion is more nuanced, more messy."

Your thoughts?

[Washington Post] For as long as preachers have been engaging listeners, critics have been muttering nearby about the need for more enlightened leadership. Now, thanks to blogs and other Internet postings, critics of every faith are getting a hearing far beyond the synagogue, church or mosque parking lot. Forced to listen, because others are, religious leaders are responding in ways that show how religious authority is shifting in the 21st century.

Comments

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Pastor B on Mon, May 01, 2006

I have yet to find a religious based blog, including this one, that doesn’t offer some criticism. There are some blogs that present themselves as “creative” not critical but stick around and read, the criticism will come. Some bash small traditional churches for being irrelevant others bash the megachurch for being ineffective, and so on and so forth. I don’t care what is said, I look for what is true and if I gained some knowledge or truth I win, the other stuff I filter and put in the trash can.
DanielR on Mon, May 01, 2006

Amen, Pastor B,

There is criticism on every blog I’ve read. Some of it from me. http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/grin.gif Don’t take it too seriously. Take the creative, embrace others challenging you to think support your position and assertions, learn from everything you can, but don’t take the criticism too seriously. I will support anyone’s right to disagree with me or anyone else. I embrace the discussion, disagreement and debate, but I take the criticism with a grain of salt.

I have posted questions on blogs and been accused of heretical thinking, heresy for posing a question, not even making an assertion. About the only thing I really get upset with is intolerance for another’s thought process or learning process. Disagreeing with someone’s theology or scriptural interpretation is fine, but I don’t like to see someone disagreeing with another’s right to believe what they believe, whether their belief is scripturally correct or incorrect. If you think someone is wrong, engage them, don’t try to shout them down or dismiss them, engage them and challenge them to support their position, and challenge to listen to your (in your belief correct) position. You never know, you might help them learn something new.

I think church leadership should embrace the dissent, engage the dissenter and view it as a ministry opportunity. Of course, it’s harder to do that when the dissenter is anonymous, so make your dissent public and responsible. Better to embrace the dissent and engage the dissenter than to have them stay silent and disgruntled and leave the church altogether.

And, on the other hand, there are a lot of crackpots who have found a voice on the internet they never would have had before.
Randy Ehle on Mon, May 01, 2006

Speech may be a freedom (at least in the US), but I think it is never free; there is usually a cost involved. Unfortunately, some of the most ardent supporters of “free speech” are also the ones least willing to pay the cost of exercising their freedom.

Putting aside obvious extremes like outright lies, we are still faced with a world full of people who all too often speak irresponsibly and thereby drive up the cost of “free speech”. We see that here at MMI every week - people passing judgment where they don’t have all the information; condemning those who don’t believe the same as me; tearing down leaders and churches with little thought for the impact of their words. (And yes, I have at times been just as guilty of these charges as anyone else reading.) Quite frankly, MMI is a microcosm of the world - and a quite tame microcosm, at that. This community is generally comprised of people of grace, which cannot be said for the world at large.

So let’s get practical. Most of us here aren’t archbishops or denominational presidents; we are church pastors, board members, elders, other leaders. How can we invite meaningful, productive dialog with the “dissenters”? How can we “manage” that dialog to help keep participants from sinning, to avoid having Jesus’ name being dragged through the mud (by church people or “the world”), to minimize the needless cost of torn lives and destroyed families?

What are you doing to help your churches in this area? Do you respond to anonymous e-mails? What about letters to the editors (like the one in Rockford, IL, we saw today on MMI)?
Jay Gainer on Mon, May 01, 2006

In Viet Nam we had a saying about the enemy (not saying that dissenters are the enemy). “Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out.”

This is one way of getting rid of the problem that some one is dealing with. Another is just, don’t give them the press they so gladly want. A soft answer turneth away wrath (Pro 15:1).

People have always wanted to express their views, especially since their views contradict the Word of God.
bishopdave on Tue, May 02, 2006

Someone once told me, “Don’t take dissent personally. Sometimes a negative vote is God’s way of saying, ‘Slow down and make sure you’re on the right path.’” If we find opposition, use it as an opportunity for self-examination (are their complaints/arguments valid?).
BeHim on Tue, May 02, 2006

Great point bishopdave and if I may add, use Scripture to discern and learn.

[How they respond depends to a large degree on what their respective theologies say about the value of voices from the proverbial peanut gallery.]

Most “theologies” preach/teach tolerance, sacrifice, and love. All good and noble causes but become humanistic (fleshly) when applied to listening to dissenters.

MMIBlog has some of the same issues with the “value of voices” as many churches will and do.

So what do you do?

All arguements/discussions and answers should be done with Truth in Scripture.

Any other way is simply - another authority.

[“The critics, the ex-members . . . they are thriving online because this is giving them a voice so much more powerful than they would have ever had before. They would have had to publish books with small vanity presses or obscure presses, or seek a little newspaper attention.”]

Or pin a 95 Thesis on a wooden door of the “elite” - It’s “my” ministry/church/mission/etc and I can do what I want with it (fleshly).

[“Digital religion is a religion of yes and no,” Brasher said in an e-mail. “. . . In real life, religion is more nuanced, more messy.”]

I thought “religion” was a dirty word???

Jesus/God is VERY MUCH “yes” and “no” and NOT changing (nuanced)

It is we (mankind) in our flesh that make it change and nuanced and messy.