Blogger Beware! You may change British Methodism forever

I suppose Jabez Bunting set the scene.  British Methodism had a difficult time adjusting to life after John Welsey. It was Jabez who stitched the whole thing together. They used to say of Jabez that he had the whole of Methodist Conference buttoned up in one pair of breeches.

And so it continued for nearly two centuries. Methodist Conference would  meet every year. To get to Methodist Conference you had to attend a whole pyramid of meetings - Church Council, Circuit, District Synod and finally  Conference itself. Unless the individual, grass roots Methodist, was a fanatical meeting goer they had little opportunity to express thier views on the great Methodist issues of the day.

The result was that each year the same faces appeared at conference. They said the same things, shaked the same hands, accepted the same reports and debated the same "memorials". All very cosy without a challenge in sight.

The grass roots Methodist could  theoretically express their views through the pages of the Methodist Recorder the denomination's weekly newspaper. There was however a problem: the Recorder were never going to publish anything that they felt rocked the cosy little boat. The Editor of the Recorder could be relied upon to "moderate".

Should an individual be concerned about an aspect of Methodist theory, theology, policy or practice, they faced an up hill battle to get the matter heard. They'd have to form a "fellowship" or "association", get themselves onto lots of committees, write pamphlets, run fringe meetings at Conference, get others to support "memorials", or even hope that the editor of the Methodist Recorder would do them the great honour of  printing their letter.

Inflexiblity

Gradually British Methodism paid for this inflexibility. Methodists voted with their feet. A couple of years ago the present General Secretary when President of Conference, remarked how often he found former Methodists serving God in other denominations.

Sheer frustration with the cosy cliques, the lack of transparency, the top down approach, the permanent "Parliament" of the annual conference took their toll. Only last week a member of the Methodist Council who should know better was complaining that  recent technological changes no longer  allowed "for private conferring as has been done for a long time in our tradition". Methodism, an absolutely world class channel for promoting the Gospel in its day, was being strangled by cliques, censorship and an authoritarian top down approach.

Then came the internet. The first Methodist bloggers were Ministers who posted their sermons online. Then one or two began to comment on news items and the issues of the day. It was all fairly matey. Many of the early blogs expressed a disdain, verging on hatred, for evangelical traditions of Christianity. Some came close to promoting New Age theology.  They were not inspiring, didn't ask questions about the increasingly difficult problems that Methodism faced, and to an outsider gave an impression of Methodism that would surprise many Methodists. There were some exceptions: the Turbulent Cleric was always a good read.

Potential

In Lent 2007 I began this blog. Professionally I understood the potential influence and transparency that came with what we now call "social media". In 2000 I took responsibility for one of the country's first intranets  complete with message boards and micro-sites. Within a year I was addressing conferences on how to manage internal communications in the digital age. By 2005 I was writing a report for a major FTSE 100 plc on the potential of blogging and social networking sites. I understood that the new technology would change relationships and perceptions. It also dispersed ownership of information and communication. These could not easily be concentrated in a few hands. Nor the power that came with that ownership

During Lent 2007 I wasn't really certain just how my blog would develop. I checked my sitemeter  and rarely had more than ten visitors a day. I tried to make my blog avowedly tabloid in approach, using lots of illustrations and short sharp articles.

Then I stumbled on the issue of gambling. I had been unhappy the previous year to find that a church official had apparently used her position within the church as a springboard to a very well paid quango post that was promoting gambling.

I had wrote to the Methodist Recorder when the appointment had been announced but my letter like many others had been "moderated" into the waste paper bin. Cosy cliques have a tendency to look after one another. They call it "moderation", I know it as censorship.

When I decided to raise the issue on my blog I contacted the press office as Church House. I wanted to hear the Connexion's side of the story. Well who cares about bloggers? No one reads them. My perfectly legitimate inquiries were met with silence and then contempt. The official I tried to deal with now writes papers for the Methodist Council on social media, especially blogs.

Sensational

I started to dig around. Then I had a quite sensational tip off. If I looked hard enough on the web I would find something of great interest. And I did.

During the passage of the Gambling Bill that same official from Church House who had got the quango job  had attended a conference. She prepared  a speech. It was aimed at a secular, non-Methodist audience. It wasn't meant for internal Methodist consumption. It ridiculed Methodism, it took the micky out of us and our heritage with a few very weak, rather silly "jokes".This was no slip of the tongue. It wasn't sent anywhere near the Methodist Recorder. One could argue, that coming from the mouth of a Methodist employee, it actually "brought the Church into disrepute".

Just a few years before the speech would have been forgotten. It would take a great deal of effort to find a copy or a recording. However it had been written in advance and an electronic copy supplied to the hosts who posted it on their website. In the Spring  of 2007 it was still posted on the internet. The new technology had made this speech available to anyone who knew where to look- something which the author never expected nor intended.

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 I ran the story on this blog . What had been said in private by a Connexional official was out in the public domain. There was no laborious committee procedure. No need to ask the Editor of the Methodist Recorder for permission to publish. No need to get elected to Conference. No need to be part of the cosy clique. A badly connected local preacher in one of Britain's poorest borough, serving a difficult circuit, was able to publish and express a view  about a very serious issue upon which the Connexion had clearly failed.

Offensive

The Faith and Order Committee wrote to tell me they did not like the "tone and content" of this blog. Whether they commented on the "tone and content" of the offensive speech I do not know. Perhaps they did. They probably didn't. The Church House official was an "in". The Methodist Preacher was merely an "out". This was a clear cut demonstration of the distortion Methodism had come during its recent journey.

I got quite a lot of stick from various quarters. It wasn't pleasant but sometimes innovators have to live with these things. Others have suffered far, far worse in the battle for transparency and truthfulness.

Today the Methodist Council will debate a rather silly and ill thought out paper on social media.It is a desperate attempt to turn back time and technology. They are even proposing to waste the time of Methodist Conference. This will make us a laughing stock. No other denomination is expending resources time on such nonsense. What should be a nothing more than a simple A4 guidance note to staff from the General Secretary  has been blown out of all proportion.

The Methodist Council needs to understand  the lessons of  the manner in which that speech came  to light and the ease with which it was republished within a new framework.

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 this blog changed British Methodism forever.