I walked into the room where the webcast for the Gospel Project would be filmed. The extremely cordial workers from LifeWay had told the bloggers that were there to find the cables that had been provided, hook up and go to town with our blogging, tweeting and facebooking. That’s when I noticed the “reserved” signs on several of the tables. I started to move away and then I realized something – they were reserved for us!
It was surreal. I am used to hearing luminaries of the SBC railing against us, using generalizations that sometimes seem unfair. We can all remember the “bloggers in housecoats in their mother’s basement” disparagement brought by one of our entity heads. Disrespect to bloggers has been much more normal.
But this was different. Ed Stetzer and Trevin Wax were rolling out the red carpet to make us feel welcome. We were introduced to LifeWay employees as honored guests for the day.
I know what some of you are saying, because some have already said it here. LifeWay was buying our support – putting us up in a nice hotel, feeding us good BBQ and treating us like royalty so we’d give their program positive reviews. I hope that my opinion cannot be bought (though the BBQ could have come close). But I will tell you that never, in any conversation with anyone from LifeWay was it suggested to me that I needed to give a positive review to TGP.
But I appreciated the fact that for once in my experience of blogging, bloggers were being treated as something other than an infectious disease.
As we were having our April Fool’s Day fun here (well, I was having fun – I hope a few others did, too) Ed Stetzer left a comment. I posted some fake research from Ed and took a shot at Trevin as well. Ed said this (I think good-naturedly):
I really wonder if I bring this on myself. Sigh.
Am I the only SBC VP who comments? And, as such, do I cause these mocking posts by interacting?
Later, in the comment, he added:
But, alas, maybe I should stop commenting here and just read– like all the other SBC denominational types.
Poor me…
Sigh,
Ed
This is one blogger’s opinion – I appreciate Ed Stetzer because he takes the time to comment on what bloggers say. He has too much going on to spend too much time on blogs, but I appreciate the respect he shows to the world of blogging.
So, what’s the point of all this?
Simple. Blogging is just not going to go away. I guess I should say that social media is not going away. Maybe something will replace blogging. But people are going to be communicating electronically and there are several things that this means.
1) We’ve got to forge a new course for handling information flow.
The entities have to realize that the days of tight control of information at the top are probably gone. If something big is happening behind the scenes, someone is going to tell a blogger and its going to be public. You can hate that, you can rail against it, but you cannot stop it.
So, our honored leaders, like it or not, social media is here to stay and is going to have an impact on the SBC. The wisest leaders will embrace it instead of lobbing bombs at it. The trends in this respect are positive. Bryant Wright wrights a blog. Lifeway has gone all-in with social media and is (I believe) doing well with it. Dr. Steve Lemke and others from NOBTS have taken over the direction of SBC Today and turned it into a high quality blog.
I see a growing openness, which contrary to some complaints, indicates a move toward transparency since the IMB/Burleson affair of 7 years ago.
We need now to forge some kind of informal agreement – based on trust – concerning information flow. We who blog need to be responsible about what information we share publicly and leaders need to only try to keep secrets when it is absolutely necessary.
That takes trust, and there has been precious little of trust between bloggers and entity leaders in years gone by.
2) We need to understand the importance of dissent.
No one who is doing a ministry likes to be criticized. I pour my heart and soul into a sermon or a post and someone comes along and levels a criticism – it can get under my skin. But every one of us needs to understand the basic principle of Body life from 1 Corinthians 12.
We are not all alike.
So, bloggers need to be careful to express our dissent respectfully and in a way that builds up instead of tearing down. Let’s be honest, there are blog posts (and comments) that are harsh and critical in such a way that it is hard to justify them according to scripture. Every word we speak is to be seasoned with grace, designed to edify and purposed for the glory of God.
On the other hand, those in leadership need to understand that a difference of opinion is not (necessarily) a personal attack. It is not a sin to disagree with the pastor (and no pastor should ever make his people think that it is). It is not a sin to think that a move by IMB, NAMB, the EC, Lifeway, or the ERLC is not good. It is not a sin to express that.
Let me be clear. I look back on some of the posts I have put out there, and I think that at times, my criticisms strayed into the sinful. As I have read other’s criticisms against denominational entities or other bloggers, I have been convinced that sin is not absent in much of blogging.
We need to remind ourselves as bloggers of the words of Proverbs 10:19, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
But leadership can help things along by intentionally showing respect to those who disagree.
3) We who blog need to remember that respect is earned.
The simple fact is that much of the criticism of blogging has been fair. We can be combative, petty, arrogant, divisive an all the things that people have said we are.
We need to change perceptions by changing our ways. Yes, we deal with tough issues and even confront that which is (in our opinion) wrong, but we need to do it in a way that is fair, respectful and edifying.
If we want to be taken seriously, we must always take what we do seriously. And that leads me to point 4…
4) Bloggers need a code of ethics.
I recently posted concerning the unfortunate arrest of one of our fellow bloggers. While I was only getting to know him, I was growing in my appreciation and respect for him. I posted what I thought was a compassionate and fair treatment of the news. In fact, I received an email from the blogger thanking me for what I wrote.
But a man I don’t know wrote me a series of very angry emails calling my ethics and biblical fidelity into question because I wrote the article.
Was I right or wrong to write it? Before God I felt it was proper and good, but another pastor excoriated me for it.
One of the most common complaints of those who are criticized is the appeal to Matthew 18:15. We should never, they say, publish something about another person until weu’ve talked it over privately with the other person involved. I think that is a faulty and untenable interpretation of Matthew 18:15, but it is a criticism asserted repeatedly. Which view is correct?
Of course, last week we had the brouhaha between Peter Lumpkins and Liberty University. Was it right for Peter to publish something that a trustee told him? Clearly, the trustee violated the trust of the university by reporting this information, but was Peter wrong (as Liberty’s counsel asserted) to publish the source’s information? Is there an ethical standard to guide us?
There are a lot of questions and a lot of varying answers to those questions.
What is right and what is wrong? It would sure be helpful if there was a set of standards for bloggers ethics. That is probably a pipe-dream, though. Unless we formed some kind of blogger’s organization (immensely impractical) it would be hard to set forth a unified code of ethics for blogging.
Still, it would be nice to have.
All in all, though, I see very hopeful signs of a thawing of the tension between reasonable bloggers and the leaders of the SBC. It is an encouraging trend and I am glad for it.
Obviously, “Bryant Wright wrights a blog.” is a typo. But I’m not going to change it because it is kinda funny the way it is.
Caught that and chuckled in light of our FB dialogue today. Have appreciated your instructional insights on blogging to one who is new to this.
Hi Dave, Lots of good stuff in your post. Just want to share a couple of thoughts.
“Let no corrupt talk (words) come out of your mouths (blogs), but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear”. Ephesians 4:29 (with parenthetical application)
And, that our words, thoughts and actions be loving in God’s eyes, so that we are not annoying nothings that gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). This means our blogging is patient, kind, modest, humble, polite, unselfish, rejoicing with the truth, faithful, and hopeful (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
When a spokesman walks in this light as their Lord expects; then individuals and organizations that walk in that same light will acknowledge them as a fellow worker.
I think you see this very clearly and that it becomes more obvious to you every day.
Social media is more that a low cost way to disseminate a tightly controlled message. Those who have been sucessful in social media have been adept at listening to what is being said and then engaging. For centuries, folks have talked around the water cooler, or what ever, but now those conversations are on social media. It’s far easier for like minded people to find each other. Its far harder to tightly control information flow. Infomation flows from person to person at the speed of light.
Authority has to listen. Personally I think this is a good thing. Authority that is all about telling is not very Christ-like.
Authority can’t depend on secrecy. Once again, this is a good thing.
Authortity can’t ignore issues hoping they will just go away.
At the same time the new participants in social media have some responsibilites.
We can’t let the power of social media make us perpetually oppositional. It’s not healthy; it’s not Christ-like. Sometimes bloggers sound like everyone in authority is acting wrongfully. Knowing leaders on a personal level balances any inclination to endless cynicism.
How we express opinion matters. Strong words flow off a keyboard pretty easily. Strong feelings slide to smear and character assasinaation almost without notice. There is an enormous difference between “this is not right” and “you are a bad person”.
Blogging (and other forms of social media) almost have to be self policing. Thankfully there are no outside forces that regulate what we say or how. Still the blogging community can call each other out and self regulate much like a physical community might establish informal mores for what is ok and what is out of bounds.
Carter,
You said much that I came here to say, so I’ll only restate and reinforce.
Before the advent of the instant communication we are seeing on the Internet, individual churches were relatively isolated. You used the information passed to you from on high and left it at that. You had some interaction with other churches in your association. You had some vague information about foreign missions from the occasional missionary coming to town. But largely every church was insular and only homogenized primarily by communication from the Conventions and ideas brought by pastors from seminary and having served in other churches.
Today, I read and hear ideas from pastors and baptist church members from around the world every day. I can Skype a missionary friend in an unmentionable place or send emails to Christians in places like Saudi Arabia, Syria, India, South America, etc. The power of such communication is staggering. Even if no one else in my church took advantage of these things, just my input is worth its weight in streets of heavenly gold. But many of my fellow church members and some of our pastoral staff also keep up with current trends on blogs and Twitter.
But with great power comes great responsibility. To use the Body of Christ illustration from the Bible, it seems many bloggers are like fingernails that scratch itches in other parts of the Body until they draw blood. A few even seem to seek amputation. If God exercises wise restraint against His people, how much more should we?
So, I like the idea of a code of ethics for Christian bloggers. It can only be on the honor system at this point, for there is no good way currently available to keep people well accountable. But the honor system is at stake. Perhaps there can be a ministry of accountability that issues recognizable certificates to display on sites that comply with the code of ethics as a sign of honorable blogging for Christians available to bloggers for their sites on request and after thorough review.
Carter says: “We can’t let the power of social media make us perpetually oppositional. It’s not healthy; it’s not Christ-like. Sometimes bloggers sound like everyone in authority is acting wrongfully. Knowing leaders on a personal level balances any inclination to endless cynicism.”
Dave says AMEN!!! Well said.
The problem is that blogging tends to reward controversialists – those who are always picking a fight, dividing us into good guys and bad guys, and disseminating distrust against our leaders.
We have to balance dissent with affirmation – finding that balance is not easy.
Dave,
I think that SBC leaders won’t engage on blogs because of a couple of bad examples– bloggers that have continued to embellish, mislead, etc.
So, some SBC leaders think all blogs are all like that. But, they will see over time…
I don’t so I am happy to engage with some bloggers that write honestly and intelligently.
Thanks for being one of those!
Ed
Ed just had to come and take a shot at me.
And I thought we were friends!
Mark
🙂
I think the “bad apples” idea distracts from a more obvious reason, IMHO. There’s just no upside to any leader – Al Mohler or Richard Land or whomever – having a public exchange with a blogger that they can’t control or don’t have strong influence over.
There’s a historical irony here. Some years ago, Baptist leaders – even current ones – enjoyed, appreciated and reaped the benefits of amateur journalists, pre-bloggers if you will, like James Hefley, Bill Powell & Roger Moran.
Now the successors to the Hefleys of the SBC of yesteryear are marginalized rather than embraced, dismissed as the opposite of a truthteller.
So, is Ed Stetzer not a leader…or does he have control and strong influence over Dave Miller?
By the way BDW, I am counting on your sense of humor here.
Every rule has to have an exception! Ed is that!
Hi Ed,
Who are the bad examples? Serious question.
I’ve seen you make this comment before, on the April fool’s blog. I responded then, but it got lost in cyberspace somehow. Who are the ones who embellish and mislead (a “nice” way of saying lying)? So who are the liars?
Jim G.
I have never criticized one of you bloggers to anyone as far as I can remember. However, I do have a question. I just finished preaching Ephesians 4:25-32. I must confess that I do sometimes wonder if you guys have read verse 29. Or maybe you have just found some clever way around it.
Gordon, I think that is one of the most fair criticisms of bloggers that there can be. It is why I have begun to shy away from what I call “battle blogging” and it is why I’ve acted to clean up and exert more control on our comment stream here.
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it many give grace to those who hear.
Glad to hear it. It was really starting to seem like an obsession.
If a blogger does not allow comments, then ‘a leader’ cannot interact publicly with the blogger.
If a blogger does allow comments, then ‘a leader’ must interact with the other comments also.
If the comments are unloving, then why should the leader bother with interaction? Surely those led by the Holy Spirit will be loving in the way they speak of others.
Dave being wined and dined by LifeWay is just the latest example of SBC entities making an effort to use the mode of communication that many Southern Baptists employ to get their news.
Such makes sense. It makes no sense to ignore bloggers. I’d speculate that a great many SBC pastors have most of their denominational interaction and form many of their judgments based on blogging information (or, disinformation, or flawed, incomplete information) and interaction rather than through pastor’s conferences and traditional media outlets like BP or the state papers.
[Note, ‘wined and dined’ is strictly a figure of speech, applicable to the bbq and tea that Dave was plied with while in Nashville.]
William,
Now, now, brother. You have done gone and got personal. You know you can’t leave those vague allusions which criticize a phantom “bogeyman.” But wait! Our brother Ed has already left a left a phantom “bogeyman” (i.e. the “bloggers that have continued to embellish, mislead, etc.”) for us to consider. Hence, I suppose your comment will stand. I will be surprised if my comment stands, however.
with that, I am…
Peter
William, your comment brings up the eternal question. How many people actually read blogs?
I know our page views, but I don’t really know anything beyond that. I’m under no delusion that we are movers and shakers, but perhaps we are at least voices in the convention workings.
Dave Miller,
You asked, “…how many people actually read blogs?”
I do not know the answer to that. Yet, I do know that during the IMB wars and the associated “outcroppings” generated thereby, at least one and probably more major administrators of SBC entities made underlings accountable to read and report blogs and comment threads to them. If something was very personal or revealing they read the blog themselves when the underling made his/her report.
I also know for sure Jimmy Carter read several of our blogs back during the IMB wars.
I know he read my comments on Wade’s blog.
I’ve heard stories to that effect, CB.
Social media are most effective when used in combination. A blog driven by a Twitter feed and connected to you tube is more powerful than one alone. Setzer seems to understand this pretty well. So does Trevin Wax. Blog storms don’t happen all the time but are powerful forces when they do.
David, your blog is excellent. We really do need to exercise restraint and respect for one another as human beings and as believers. Seems that courtesy might well have originated and and arisen and developed out of the Christian Faith. Paul says in I Cors.13:5, Agape love, “does not behave itself unseemly.” The positive spin on that is this: “Love is courteous!” Alas! There are times, when it seems inappropriate, but perhaps we await a better understanding of the word of God in order to determine that such a view is true necessity to success in the propagation of the Gospel of Christ. We really do stand in need of people who are willing to spend themselves and be spent in a research of the Gospel and history in order to confirm a saying by the pastor of the Pilgrims, John Robinson. He declared: “Who knows what new light is getting ready to break forth from God’s word?” I suspect from my study of Baptist Church History that religious liberty was one bit of light that broke forth from God’s word in the 1600-1700s. I also suspect that the true understanding of Scripture on the issue of slavery begin to break forth in the 1700s and 1800s with the writings of Wilberforce, Newton, and the Abolitionists in American. I also suspect that the Congregational nature of the church was established on the firmest NT foundation in the 1600s,1700s, and 1800s. The transformation of Protestantism from a Gospel recovery effort, contentious, combative, and conflicted, into an outgoing, we will win you with persuasion of the truth in the First and Second Great Awakenings points to the fact that the Gospel of Sovereign Grace, the Doctrines of Grace, are really paradoxical teachings designed to restore the sense of responsibility to human beings and to bring them to seek and cry for Divine help in the full realization of their inability. There is also a better understanding concerning the place of women in the life of the church than is generally understood by so many believing people today. The fact that Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall had eldresses in a day when there was no question in the churches and the ministry about following the word of God, that is, Holy Scripture, suggests that we must be very careful on this issue, lest we find our sure fire interpretations of seemingly plain verses will not be as we had thought: starkly obvious. After all, one of the great problems of the Bible is its perspicuity, its clarity, if you please. We see it clearly, and we are sure we understand it. However, transparency can conceal a depth that is beyond present comprehension….as when a friend of mine, sure that a mountain stream was only 2-3 feet deep, stepped off into 18-20 feet of water and nearly drowned. So it is with God’s word and its teachings: They have a depth that we are ill-equipped to grasp and handle. In short, we are often in over our heads, like our son at the age of 4 or 5 years, when he jumped into a swimming pool while following a another child who could swim. I happened to be right near and realized what would happen. Thus, I was able to save him without any trouble. How many time have we been so sure we understood the Bible, because it was so clear, only to find out later that a better understanding, a perception of its depth, provided a different perspective on what it was actually saying?