Blog guilt

At a news staff lunch one day this week, talk drifted to anonymous bloggers, and how some of us fear for their continued anonymity and professional safety -- especially if they are clergy.

Then I discovered that an anonymous blogger to whom I had linked has taken her blog down.  Not just the post I referenced; the entire blog. Gone.

The post got picked up by Methoblog and received a lot of attention... too much, apparently.  I feel terrible about my part in this development.

Ordained ministry is a strange profession. Pastors have to deal with stress somehow, and the advent of blogging has allowed more of that stress to show up in public -- literally out there for the world to see. By and large, I think it's been a good thing; it's helping people let pastors come down off of an unnecessarily high pedestal. Gordon Atkinson, who did start out as an anonymous blogger, is a prime example.

But sometimes it doesn't work out so well.

Comments

[Don Yeager]

I can understand why a clergy blogger might want to remain anonymous -- it can be difficult to express your real opinions sometimes. But can anyone stay truly anonymous in cyberspace any more?

I have a blog but I use it almost exclusively for posting my sermons so that others who are interested might read them. So I'm not worried about keeping that anonymous.

I comment occasionally on other blogs and forums and use my real name. I've decided that I don't want to post anything on the internet that I would mind my congregation, my family, my D.S., or even my bishop seeing. It's just better that way, I believe.