Moving to a New Phase

In a few days, the matter of First Baptist Jacksonville, the FBC Jax Watchdog blogsite, and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) subpoenas will enter into a new phase.

I have retained legal counsel to pursue the truth of exactly what happened last fall resulting in the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office obtaining my identity through subpoena power, and then disclosing my identity to the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. The issues discussed on this blog, FBC Jax and the words and actions of its pastor Mac Brunson, will now shift to issues of free speech, free anonymous speech, and federal privacy matters. As will be alleged in the forthcoming legal action, I believe it will be proven the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) and the State Attorney's Office (SAO) have played a role in wrongly interfering in one of its citizen's rights to speak freely on religious matters concerning FBC Jacksonville.

From this point on, I am committed to using all legal means necessary to find the truth, and then prevent these types of things happening again in Duval County and elsewhere. Government officials involving themselves in the affairs of a church matter under the pretext of a criminal investigation, for the purpose of identifying and exposing an anonymous dissenter to a large, powerful, religious institution is completely wrong, and unacceptable.

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"Government officials involving themselves in the affairs of a church matter under the pretext of a criminal investigation, for the purpose of identifying and exposing an anonymous dissenter to a large, powerful, religious institution is completely wrong, and unacceptable."

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I have retained the services of the J. Scott Nooney law firm in Jacksonville, Florida in the forthcoming lawsuit for the issues mentioned above. With the aid of this law firm, I fully intend to find the truth, and to hold those accountable for any wrongdoing in that process, and to effect necessary change such that it won't happen again.

This blog will remain open for discussion of these matters.

And anonymous speech is welcome here.

Seeking Censure

Readers - read Wade Burleson's latest blog post about a man from Jacksonville who contacted Wade's local baptist association seeking CENSURE of Wade Burleson for his blog posts that the man claims were harmful to First Baptist Church of Jacksonville.

Read Censure, Censorship, and Church Citizenship

We have no idea who the man was, or if he was even a member of FBC Jax. But as Wade points out:

"...It seems a few churchmen have a knack for trying to intimidate others into silence. In the end, it never works."

So Wade Burleson has posted several articles about the situation in FBC Jax that the person from Jacksonville doesn't like. But maybe this person will post here with their name telling us what his beef is with Wade Burleson, and maybe explain why he hasn't contacted Wade himself instead of going to his local baptist association.

Here are Wade's post regarding FBC Jax:

Anonymous Writing Is Not Intrinsically Evil

The Untouchables: Spiritually Elite Leaders and the Unwillingness to Be Held Accountable

Abuse of Authority: It Must Not Be Ignored.

The High Cost of Stifling Criticism and Dissent

Lessons in Dealing with a Disgruntled Church Member

Your Honor, Please Help Us Understand

Times Union: JSO and FBC Jax - "Troubling Issues"

Below is the staff editorial appearing in today's Florida Times Union. I agree with the Times Union...."TROUBLING" indeed...that our JSO investigated a blog that had no criminal activity and advocated no criminal activity, to the point of finding its author....and to the point of giving the name of the author to the church.

Headline: JSO and First Baptist - Troubling Issues

The case, now closed, involving a police investigation of a blogger and First Baptist Church raises serious issues.

First, there is a perception that one of Jacksonville's most influential institutions used its influence with the Sheriff's Office against a man who had been criticizing it. This raises free speech issues.

Second, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has ethics rules that allows an investigator who works on the security detail of the church he attends to conduct the investigation.

Sheriff John Rutherford has stated that his department acted appropriately in every respect. See his statement on this page [click here].

The fact that an investigation was conducted and that information was shared with the complainant is routine practice, he said.

The investigator who conducted the work was only doing his regular job, the same actions he would take if any other faith group issued a complaint, Rutherford said.

But there are several factors that raise troubling concerns:

Weak link to criminal activity: The church was concerned about stolen mail and photos taken of the pastor's wife. But linking them to a critical blogger seemed a stretch. While the blogger's posts were critical, they did not appear to justify a police investigation.

As Rutherford wrote in his statement, the investigation was shut down because "no criminal conduct or significant threat to the church was determined to exist."

Beef up JSO's ethics code: The code forbids officers from investigating matters involving their families, JSO spokeswoman Lauri-Ellen Smith told the Times-Union, but permits probes involving friends, neighbors and churches.

Conflicts could arise in any area in which officers have close personal involvement. That could include businesses, schools, outside activities, and, especially, their places of worship. In this case, the investigating officer had both a religious and business relationship.

The Sheriff's Office should reexamine its ethics code, perhaps in concert with the city's ethics office, to prevent similar situations from happening.

The goal should be to avoid perceptions of favoritism. This case certainly fostered that perception.

Re-Run: The Danger of Unchecked Pastoral Authority

Below is an article originally posting here on 1/14/09. I believe its worth considering again.

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Last Saturday (1/10/09) SBC pastor Wade Burleson wrote an article at his blog about leadership and used Ted Haggard's moral failures as a back drop. What I took away from Wade's article is this: lay leaders do much harm to their churches and ministries, and even do great harm to the pastors themselves, when they give pastors virtually full control of a church, within a system designed for minimum accountability, and very little transparency and openness with the members.

I would say the potential for harm is even greater when we hire a new pastor that has no track record with the lay leaders and the congregation. It makes virtually no sense at all to concentrate power over a mega church and its staff and ministries in one man that is a virtual UNKNOWN to the congregation. I believe this is perhaps our biggest mistake as a church during our pastoral transition after Vines.

Too bad our trustees - most of whom are learned business men and lawyers and leaders - didn't have the foresight to see potential problems of our pastor-led system with a new pastor. We failed to make some important bylaw changes to reduce the power of the new pastor...which would make sense given that he was an UNKNOWN. As we shall see starting tomorrow as we look at the bylaw changes at FBC Jax from December 2007, not only did we give the same power and control of our church to Mac Brunson that our very seasoned and trusted pastors had, but we actually gave him MORE POWER, LESS ACCOUNTABILITY in the bylaw changes of December 2007...while not even making sure the most faithful and trusted members understood the changes and how they impacted their church and their church membership. Shameful. Shameful.

Now I'm sure Burleson didn't have Team Brunson and our lay leadership in mind when he wrote his article, but boy it sure fits our situation and the leadership of Mac Brunson. By the way, Burleson, contrary to slanderous remarks made to our church staff by a certain FBC Jax staff member at our church who has served with Burleson at the IMB...he IS a solid, bible inerrancy conservative SBC pastor...who happened to fall out of favor with the SBC big wigs for using his blog to hold the IMB accountable for decisions he believed were harmful to the SBC. Its a story too long to tell here, but his blog is probably the most read blog in the SBC and a definite must read.

Here are some excerpts from his article cut and pasted here. Please see if any of these statements could or might apply to Team Brunson:

From WADE BURLESON's January 10 blog article:

"We Christians should take an honest look at what it is we think qualifies a person to lead."

"We have pastors who bully those who question them,... and other actions that lead me to believe we have a God-complex among some of our leaders."

Nothing more "bullying" than issuing trespass warnings to suspected bloggers and their wives. Ask the members - there is a aire of fear at the church, that those who question the leadership will be singled out or asked to leave. This entire blog is about the "bullying" and intimidation of Mac Brunson from the pulpit.

"This false sense of moral invincibility has led to a climate where transparency, honesty, and personal integrity are no longer a part of our corporate faith."

Amen. We have to realize that our leaders need accountability. For instance, Mac loves his family so much, he is such a wonderful husband and father (I mean that sincerely), that if not checked he may use his position as pastor to give ALL of them jobs at our church. That is a "weakness" that he has that needs to be checked through some system of accountability like most other churches have through a personnel committee and perhaps a nepotism policy.

"Had people known of his [Haggard's] struggles, they could have held him accountable. Had people had the sense that their leader was fallible, they might have never given him such unbridled freedom and authority."

I think admiting one's mistakes to the congregation would be a starting point. When a lie is told, apologize. When you blasted us to a group in North Carolina, explain your words or apologize. Its OK Mac to let us know you've done something wrong or hurtful.

"The problem with organized Christianity is not the gospel. The problem with organized Christianity is that too many Christians have forgotten that leaders are fallible."

"Yet, in my mind,the true gospel is only strengthened when Christian leaders lose their public sense of absolute authority and spiritual perfection. Anybody who presumes to talk on behalf of God should remember that the treasure we possess (the gospel) is carried in fragile, clay jars."

"The lust for power and absolute authority, the lust for fleshly gratification and paralyzing materialism, and the lust for personal recognition and praise are all inner demons that every SBC pastor and leader faces. The only way to prevent leaders from acting out on such temptations is to realize that these sins are common to fallen man, to never bestow absolute authority or unbridled freedom on any man, and to resist the idea that any Christian leader is beyond being questioned."

This is so true today more than ever. We see this right in front of our eyes at FBC Jax.

"The SBC church, institution or agency that believes the "leader" is beyond simple accountability will find that leader has the capability to ruin the organization. When and if that happens, the fault will reside not only with the leader, but those laymen who were unable to see that a lack of transparency is the first indication that something is wrong."

Exactly. An unchekced leader has the capacity to ruin an organization, and if it happens, the blame falls not just on him, but the laymen, the churchmen, who didn't stop it.

AMEN and AMEN!

The Watchdog has been saying virtually the same thing for months on this blog. As I said Wade may not have had Team Brunson in mind when he wrote that article, but if the shoe fits...

Do any of you lay leaders at FBC Jax get it? Do you realize what you have done by changing those by-laws and giving full authority and power to Team Brunson (which means Mac, Deb, Trey, and Maurilio) with no real accountability or transparency? Do you think you've done them or our church any favors in this?

I pray that some of you staff and lay leaders will read this blog and wake up.

"I Am Not Infallible" Says Mac

Below is Mac's attempt at an apology of sorts at the end of the Easter service 4/12/09. He doesn't say what he is talking about, just that he is alerting the congregation to the fact that he is not infallible. He says:

"I am a sinner...I have faults...I'm not inerrant, and I'm not infallible, and I'm certainly not perfect, and I just want you to know that."

Thanks for clarifying, as we all have thought you were sinless, Mac. And he doesn't say what he's sort of apologizing for - for the whole mess in the newspaper, or maybe for diagnosing me as a sociopath. But he then goes on to say whatever it was he was sort of apologizing for, he did it in the best interests of the church, because he is the great bastion of protection of the church.

Listen for yourself. He has his humble voice on. No stomping. No yelling, just humble Mac.

Listen to Mac: "I am Not Perfect!"