MEMPHIS, Tenn. (ABP) — Bellevue Baptist Church is on the cutting edge of a growing trend — at least when it comes to conflict. Like members from several other prominent churches nationwide, congregants at the Memphis-area megachurch are using web sites and blogs to post details about ongoing dissent within the ranks.
But do such high-tech tactics empower church members to address conflict or merely make the conflict worse while airing a church's dirty laundry to the world?
The issue at Bellevue involves Pastor Steve Gaines and a group of longtime church members, who say he's receiving an inappropriately high salary, is pushing the church toward an elder-led system, and has forced out a popular music director.
Others have said Gaines uses intimidation and arrogance as his main modus operandi. Still more say they feel it's too soon to change the 30,000-member church after the 2005 death of legendary pastor Adrian Rogers. Gaines, along with a strong contingent behind him, has denied the allegations.
As part of their protest, Bellevue members created www.bellevuetruth.blogspot.com and www.savingbellevue.com, which includes letters from members, a transcript of an interview with a concerned deacon, and links to sites of churches in comparable straits. As of Sept. 26, the site had received more than 90,000 hits.
Across town at Germantown Baptist Church, and hundreds of miles away at Montrose Baptist Church in Rockville, Md., congregants have faced similar divisions and used similar methods to disseminate information and garner support. At First Baptist Church in Colleyville, Texas, bloggers brought scrutiny to financial dealings that led to the pastor's resignation.
All four church conflicts involved conservative churches divided over leadership style and use of authority. But the trend to take those battles to cyberspace is not limited to conservative churches.
In Germantown, member Clark Finch helped organize www.savegbc.com to rally members against instituting elder rule at the 9,000-member church. Finch and other opponents used the anti-elder website to enlist historians, professors and laypeople to save their church “from the improper use of elders,” Finch told Associated Baptist Press. He supports “leading elders” but not “ruling elders,” a role he said constitutes a dangerous departure from biblical descriptions of the office. So far, the opposition to elder-rule has held sway.
In Rockville, confusion about financial conflicts of interest caused the apparent need for an alternative information source — a web site called “Friends of Montrose Baptist” (www.montrosebaptist.org). The site was instrumental in communication between church members during the scandal. Although pastor Ray Hope resigned in 2002 after church leaders investigated his involvement in recruiting students to attend the church's school, the website still posts chats, news and reviews for “those who have been wacked-upside-the-head [sic] with the 2×4 of spiritual abuse, but still love God.”
Blog and website proponents claim they need the online vehicle to level the playing field. The technology lets them publish information — like church financial statements or proposed bylaws — that would otherwise be hidden by dictatorial pastors and elders. Supporters also say blogs are necessary to distribute information actively blocked by other, more conventional channels. Some supporters say opposing factions within a church need a forum to communicate their concerns.
William Thornton, an Atlanta resident who has not met Bellevue pastor Gaines, wrote on www.Baptistlife.com that the pastor had been not only inept at dealing with direct criticism, but he lacked the skills to deal with online criticism as well.
“I think it's the same old story of blogging being ignored until it is recognized that thousands of people are reading one side of a story,” Thornton wrote. “Gaines might [do well to] drive across town and talk to Sam Shaw at Germantown Baptist, who was skewered by bloggers and websites on a church proposal that was defeated and eventually led to his resignation.”
Bob Perry, congregational-health team leader of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri, disagrees with the need to use blogs as weapons. Perry told ABP that blogging about denominational politics on a national level is useful to inform mass audiences via a broad medium — bloggers recently helped effect reforms in the Southern Baptist Convention and its North American Mission Board — but it's unacceptable, he continued, to use blogs for conflict resolution in individual churches.
“I think at the local church level, it is very, very wrong,” Perry said. “I just can't imagine that there's any real value to this.”
Christians should use biblical models for resolving conflict, like the 18th chapter of Matthew, he added. If dissenters need a forum, Perry said, use the church directory to mail correspondence to relevant people, or have large church meetings. Just don't advertise the problem on the Internet.
“I think a part of what's implied in [Matthew] is that one of the principles you use is don't let the resolution process spread the conflict to a broader audience than it had to begin with,” he said. “I think blogging is one giant violation of that principle.”
Perry also noted a passage in First Corinthians where Paul exhorts followers to avoid settling disputes in secular courts. He said the principle there applies to blogging about church conflict, which places an internal church dispute on the Internet so “it is laid out before a whole unbelieving world.”
“God only knows the damage it does to the cause of Christ,” Perry said. “You've got people reading blogs in India and China — folks we are hoping to evangelize — and they are reading about local disputes in Baptist churches. I think it's just very unhealthy.”
On the other hand, Joe Deupree believes knowledge is power, especially when it comes to church conflicts. Deupree was instrumental in generating, among other outlets, online media coverage during alleged improprieties at First Baptist Church of Colleyville, Texas. Bloggers picked up the links, and Pastor Frank Harber resigned Aug. 18 after months of online and print queries about questionable real estate transactions involving the church.
An independent audit revealed no questionable financial practices, church members learned Sept. 24 at an annual business meeting. Still, the Internet made the Colleyville group successful in the “educational process” that finally ousted Harber, Deupree said.
“My thought on religion is that it should be completely open — hopefully we have left our secret societies and medieval hidden messages” behind, he said. “It's better to be completely transparent than let people wonder what you're trying to hide.”
Deupree said there are some parameters for proper Internet use amid church conflict, however.
“Be sure anything you put in there is factual, and if there is any doubt, don't do it,” Deupree told ABP. “Anything you get off other sites, give it a check with two or three sources.”
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