JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — The sheriff of Jacksonville, Fla., is defending actions of a detective who obtained a subpoena to learn the identity of an anonymous blogger critical of the pastor of the church where the detecive is a longtime member and serves on the security detail.
Thomas Rich, until recently a member of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, filed a complaint asking why Jacksonville Sheriff’s Detective Robert Hinson investigated his website, fbcjaxwatchdog.com. Rich also wanted to know why, after concluding the investigation and finding no criminal activity, Hinson revealed Rich’s name to church leaders anyway.
Rich said Hinson’s actions invaded his privacy and infringed on his First Amendment right to free speech, which also includes anonymous speech.
Rich started blogging in August 2007 about concerns related to Mac Brunson, who a year before succeeded Jerry Vines as senior pastor of the congregation — one of the nation’s largest and Southern Baptists’ most prominent. In his blog, Rich has criticized Brunson for things like accepting a property gift worth $307,000 from a church member as well as what Rich regards a high salary, lavish office space and heavy-handed fund-raising methods.
Rich said he started blogging anonymously because he wanted the concerns and not himself to be the issue. He said he hoped that either church leaders would read it and take it seriously, or Brunson would see it and reconsider some of his actions.
Instead, Rich said, church leadership worked to silence dissent, using political connections to subpoena Google, Inc., to identify the owner of www.fbcjaxwatchdog.com.
Hinson completed an investigation into the blog that found no criminal activity Nov. 13, 2008.
Two weeks later, Rich said, he was hand-delivered a letter from church leaders informing him he had been positively identified as the blog author and demanding that he meet with a discipline committee.
On Dec. 7 church leaders filed trespass warnings against Rich and his wife, who at the time had been members of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville for more than 20 years.
Rich said the meeting with the discipline committee never took place, and that he and his wife began visiting another church in January and joined there the first Sunday in February.
That didn’t stop First Baptist from continuing discipline proceedings. On Feb. 25 a motion from the church’s deacons was read and passed at a business meeting. It accused Rich’s blog of “false criticism and ridicule” intended to “cause a mood of disgruntlement, strife, and/or division.”
After Jacksonville media reported the story, Sheriff John Rutherford released a statement saying the investigation was not about “outing” a blogger but rather public safety.
Rutherford said the Sheriff’s Department is responsible for investigating perceived threats against religious institutions, and as a member of the intelligence unit Hinson would have been assigned to investigate the complaint just as he would if it came from a mosque, synagogue or other house of worship with which he was unaffiliated.
The sheriff said detectives routinely share what they learn in an investigation with the individual bringing the complaint, and the procedure would be the same whether the investigation involved anonymous letters, phone calls, e-mails or a website.
After the news broke in local media, Brunson released a statement just before Easter: “This week the entire Christian world is celebrating God’s greatest gift to mankind … Jesus Christ. We pray and deeply desire that these unmerited distractions will be preempted by the majesty of his sacrificial death and life giving resurrection.”
Brunson didn’t mention the controversy directly in his Easter sermon, but confessed he is not “inerrant” or “infallible” but yet has a God-given responsibility to “guard the flock of God.”
“As long as I am pastor, with every ounce of energy I have, I will guard this congregation to the best of my ability,” he said.
The subpoena issued to find Rich’s identity also sought the same information for two other blogs.
An anonymous blogger that writes about similar matters related to Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., said he or she has no connection with the Jacksonville website, but has agreed to share some server space with Rich.
Tiffany Croft, who has never blogged anonymously, writes about Darrell Gilyard, another prominent Baptist minister who has repeatedly been accused of sexual misconduct. Although she has on occasion criticized the former First Baptist pastor, Vines, for supporting Gilyard, she said it was an invasion of privacy for detectives to investigate her.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.