[This paper was written for the Ministry in Congregations class at Capital University, where I am seeking a minor degree in religion.]
Jesse Harmon
RELIG 180
October 10, 2013
Social Networking Pastors
I’m
slightly disturbed that there is a closed group on Facebook called ELCA Clergy:
Uncensored. You can see a screenshot
(censored, of course) on another page. You
can see that it has nearly 700 clergy on it. When you type “ELCA” into the search bar on Facebook,
the ELCA Clergy: Uncensored page is the third on the list in numbers. I’m not a disgruntled ELCA clergy, so I’m not
allowed on the page. I can’t help but
imagine the hate that is on that page.
The description reads,
“The idea is that you will not be censored here. Talk about what you want.
You're CLERGY, for Pete's sake. Not small children who have to be supervised in
a ‘sandbox.’” What does “uncensored”
mean in this context? Do the clergy here
post vulgar, malicious things about the ELCA, or do they talk civilly and
prayerfully discuss what is going on? To
me, the description suggests the page is full of the former.
I decided that I
was going to look up some of the worst things that pastors have posted on the
Internet. On the website, Reddit, this
image was posted. This image is so hard
to comprehend. Why would there be a
child tied up with duct tape and cling wrap with a smiling man behind him? What makes this worse is that this was a
youth group meeting. It’s kind of
creepy.
In Sweden, a
pastor got into some hot water after posting a picture of himself on Facebook
with a shirt that referenced a Swedish pornography production company. A complaint was written to the Stockholm
Diocese of the Church of Sweden in 2010.
To make matters worse for the pastor, he posted this as the picture
caption: "Every year I go to Taizé in France with teenagers from my
parish." Punishment for such
offense could have resulted in banishment from giving sermons, a written
warning, or being placed on probation.[1]
Pastor Chad Holtz,
a former United Methodist Church pastor, was fired from his position after he
posted on Facebook about how he supported Pastor Rob Bell’s view on hell not
existing in Bell’s book, Love Wins. Holtz later said he meant the post to be an
opportunity for his congregation to discuss the existence of hell, but instead
became “the last straw.” [2]
This next story is
confusing for me. Recently in New York,
a gang of motorcyclists attacked an SUV.
The driver of the SUV, Alexian Lien, was being attacked by the gang of
bikers, and tried to get away. In the
process, Lien ran over several of the bikers, including Jeremiah Mieses, the
son of Rev. Edwin E. Mieses. Lien ran
over both of Jeremiah’s legs, breaking them.
The Rev. Mieses posted this on Facebook. “My son is out of surgery thank
God now comes dealing with him not able to walk again. However, I want to thank
everyone for their [sic] prayers and support. I know in whom I have put my
trust and my God is a God of miracles. His will be done.” This outraged many people. One person wrote on Rev. Mieses’ church’s
page, “Your comments implicitly supporting the vicious attack on a family by
your biker thug son bring disgrace to God and the whole body of Christ. For
shame.” One can see how this situation
is very unfortunate, and how people can be torn on whether Rev. Mieses’ posting
was suppose to be helpful or hurtful.
Rev. Mieses’ posting could be taken as supporting the biker gang, and
not having compassion for the other family.
I don’t think this was Rev. Mieses’ intent. I think this is someone whose son was
horrifically injured as a result of his own actions. However, I do think Rev. Mieses should have
asked for prayers for the driver of the SUV as well, if he felt compelled to
write something about it. I would have
preferred Rev. Mieses to not write anything about it at all.[3]
In one of the
readings for today, a commenter on Adam Copeland’s blog post, “Facebook rules
for pastors,” wrote this, “I do, I think, use a mental filter when posting to
[Facebook], but I think it’s not just for the sake of parishioners who have
friended me; I don’t really want to offend personal friends and family either.” I believe all of us must exercise caution
when we post things on the Internet.
Whether or not we think we have the best privacy settings, there are
always ways to see what we have posted.
Once it’s on the Internet, there’s no way of taking it off. Pastor John Piper, retired from Bethlehem
Baptist Church in Minnesota, offered two highly insensitive tweets after the
devastating Oklahoma City tornados this year.
"Your sons and daughters were eating and a great wind struck the house, and it fell upon them, and they are dead." Job 1:19
“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped." Job 1:20
Pastor Piper has deleted these
tweets from his Twitter account, but the legacy still lives on in the form of
text on the Internet.[4]
These
stories have me thinking: What would
happen if all pastors were banned from social media? To be more specific to my own personal life,
my pastor posts inspiring things on our church’s Facebook page. What if that page didn’t exist? That page didn’t exist for nearly 158
years. What will another 158 years
without the page matter? First of all,
many of the weekly devotions are posted on that page. The lay people ask the pastor questions on
the page, and offer opportunities for other members of the congregation to
answer the questions. There are plenty
of pictures on that page of youth group meetings and other ministries.
[1] http://www.thelocal.se/30842/20101214/
[3] http://www.joy105.com/a-pastor-was-attacked-by-social-media-when-he-shared-his-son-was-ran-over-by-the-driver-in-biker-ny-brawl/
[4]http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2013/05/john_piper_former_mpls_megachurch_pastor_deletes_insensitive_tweets_about_okc_tornado.php
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