Some of the most heavy-handed and bizarre criticism I’ve ever seen about blogging has come from Southern Baptist leadership. Such as this from outgoing President Bobby Welsh:

“what if we’d spend less time on these websites that we’d be able to spend more time witnessing? Do you think if we spent less time blogging we might have more time to do some baptizing? Do you think if we spent less time fumbling around with those computers we might have more converts?”

Welch advised the crowd not to gloat that he’s chiding “them bloggin’ boys”. “You run around with that wireless telephone up in your ear all day long like a pacifier. You think if we’d spend less time with those wireless telephones and more time on the street we wouldn’t win more people to Jesus?

But as in any institutional setting, the SBC doesn’t hold the record for distrust or misunderstanding on what bloggers in a denomination are most often attemping to accomplish.

This is an interesting, pro-active and informative post from a Church of England ordinand, and he/she gives some excellent advice for ordinands, powers-that-be and readers. wannabepriest:

When I was still working for the National Church Institutions, I decided one day to get myself in with the digital Jones’ and set up a blog. As I’ve mentioned before, I was a few posts in when the kindly Dave Walker dropped me an email and suggested I might like to check out whether I was okay to be blogging and whether the NCI’s* had any rules about staff blogging about church related matters.

The staff handbook was silent on the matter. So I cc’d an email to certain overseers who I thought might be best to ask. They responded by asking me ‘what’s a blog?’. So I explained blogging to them and then it all went silent for a week or two until an announcement was made via the internal weekly ‘All Staff’ web page. The announcement made it clear that any member of staff who blogged about their work or the Church would be considered to be in breach of contract in just the same way as if they had spoken without authorization to a member of the press. The announcement went on to say that there were some staff members who blogged as part of their job (like national youth officers and the like) which was fine, but if that wasn’t you… keep your grubby little fingers off your keyboards (I’m paraphrasing at this point of course).

I can understand why they came down as heavy as they did, but as term ends here at Ridley and the numbers of ordinands blogging here at Ridley and around the country in other colleges creeps up and up and up, I have been led to think about how institutions sometimes react to new things and how they might react to the rising numbers of bloggers in college life.

I guess there is always the danger that the powers-that-be decide to nip things in the bud and come down heavy on us bloggers. We do have a tendency to sound off a little (some of us more than others) and criticism can creep into our posts from time to time. Let’s face it - we have a fair list of ‘powers-that-be’ to choose from; any of whom could decide to make life difficult. Between the Ministry Division, our respective diocesan bishops and our colleges, we are not short of authority figures to rail against or under whom we might find ourselves being sat on.

National Church Institutions
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